Here is one of the backlogged restaurant reports I’d meant to post last week but didn’t end up having the time to get around to. It takes us back to Delhi, but closer in time to the present. After returning to Minnesota in mid-June from my extended sojourn in first Bombay and then Seoul, I remained at home for just over a month. A lot of world cup, a lot of time in my community garden plot, a lot of recharging. And then it was back to Delhi for two weeks to check on my mother. I ate out at my regular clip while there—roughly once every other day. This first report comes from the neighbourhood in South Delhi where I ate most of those meals and my very favourite place in the Delhi NCR (National Capital Region) to eat: Humayunpur. Four of my seven meals out on this trip were eaten there: two at Naga restaurants and two at Manipuri restaurants. Let’s begin with lunch at the first Manipuri place: Chak Khum.

I’ve previously reported on lunch at Manipuri Chak-Shang, another Manipuri restaurant in Humayunpur, located just a few steps from Chak Khum. The two places had been affiliated to begin with—when I was at Chak Shang, they still had Chak Khum branded napkins on the tables—but are now entirely separate, I believe. I’d eaten alone at Chak-Shang, devouring a rather good duck thali. I would have been happy to return for another meal but I was also curious to see what Chak Khum had to offer. I can now report that I may have liked this meal even more. It’s not an apples to apples comparison though as I did not eat a thali here. I was joined by an old friend (who was also at Bhansaghar with me in March and at NCC last year) and we got a bunch of a la carte dishes to share. Indeed, we over-ordered rather dramatically (strange how that always seems to happen when I’m around) and a lot of the food went back to his office (it’s dangerous for me to bring restaurant food back to my parents’ place).

What did we eat? I should say first that the meal began with some disappointments. Not with any of the food we ate but with the food we could not eat. Their menu highlights some Manipuri specialties above others and we wanted to try a few of them: chagempomba (promisingly billed as likely to be repulsive in looks and aroma to anyone unfamiliar with Manipuri cuisine);yen kangsoi (an oil-free chicken curry); and something just billed as “pork mixture”. Alas, none of them were available that afternoon. Nor did they have snails available from the regular part of the menu. As to whether that stuff is only available at dinner or on the weekends, I don’t know. But, as I say, we had no complaints what we did eat.

We got two dishes from the Starters section of the menu: sinju/singju, the classic Manipuri “salad” of fresh vegetables and herbs in a tangy-hot dressing, served with sliced cucumbers and cabbage; and maroi bora or fritters made with Chinese chives and besan—a dish that will be legible to all Indians as pakodas or bhajis. Both were rather good. We’d barely begun to make inroads into them when everything else arrived. These included utti (the classic Manipuri chickpea stew) and eromba (the classic Manipuri mashed vegetables with fermented fish, chillies etc.). The eromba brought some big heat, the utti helped calm things down. Having been denied all the special meat dishes we got the yen thongba, a dry’ish chicken curry and a dry’ish pork curry. The latter was offered to us when it turned out they couldn’t give us the pork curry with river snails and I’m not sure if it was the same pork curry as listed on the menu, as this did not have bamboo shoots in it. Both were very good, however. We ate the curries, utti and eromba with steamed rice, some of which was served elaborately on a thali with steamed pumpkin on top.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.

The price before tip was just about Rs. 1800 which is short of $19 at the current exchange rate. That will seem like a crazy value by American standards but it may also seem like an expensive meal compared to my lunch at Chak-Shang where I’d paid Rs. 409 or $4.25 before tip. This is where I will remind you that I ate a thali at Chak-Shang and that we over-ordered like crazy at Chak Khum. This was enough food for five people—which would put it at about the same per head cost. And keep in mind that a duck thali here would have also cost only Rs. 449. At any price, I’d recommend them highly if you’re looking for Manipuri food in Delhi (and if you’re not, you should be).

Alright, I will likely have another Delhi report this weekend. Before that, however, I will have a report from Seoul. My plan is to be done with reports from both cities by the end of October.  Here’s hoping I can make that happen.