During the two weeks I spent in Delhi/Gurgaon at the end of July and beginning of August, I ate out seven times. I’ve previously reported on my meals at Chak Khum, Farmer’s Kitchen, Ikk Panjab, The Fusion Naga, Matamaal, and Hosa. Here now is a look at the last of the seven meal, eaten, like three of the others, in Humayunpur. As the few people who follow my Delhi restaurant reports know, the North East enclave of Humayunpur in South Delhi is my favourite place to eat at in the entire National Capital Region (Delhi/Gurgaon/Noida). I particularly love the food of Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram—all of which I know largely or only through restaurants in Humayunpur—and I am yet to eat at more than a small percentage of all the restaurants there. This is the only reason for my having gone back to so few of these restaurants for a second meal. I’m yet to have a bad meal there and so I am incentivized to keep trying new places. Today’s report, however, is of a restaurant I’ve written about before. The Categorical Eat Pham is one of the oldest Manipuri restaurants in Humayunpur—if not the oldest—and it was one of the first restaurants in Humayunpur that we ate at back in 2020. If not for the fact that other Manipuri restaurants have since opened up in the neighbourhood—both Chak Khum and Chak-Shang are just a hop, skip and jump away—I would have been happy just going back there over and over. And so I was very happy to meet some old friends for lunch there the day before my return to Minnesota.

The restaurant is in the same location as in 2020 but has transformed quite a bit on the inside. It’s not that it was an unattractive space in 2020 but it’s definitely received more than a bit of a glow-up, with a new colour scheme, updated seating and bright lighting. We were a group of four and those of us who arrived first took a table deep inside the long dining room and perused the menu. The menu here is, unsurprisingly, centered on Manipuri food. There’s no Indian Chinese on offer as is the case at a number of other restaurants in Humayunpur. They do have a couple of pages of Korean dishes on the menu. As you may know, while Korean popular culture is extremely popular now all over the country, it was really in the North East that K-Drama and K-Pop first became a thing in India.

Normally, when eating in a group of four I would opt for a la carte ordering. But we had some dietary restrictions to work around: one person in the group does not eat pork and another is vegetarian. Meanwhile, the two omnivores were hell-bent on eating pork. And so we ended up getting individual thalis instead. The non-pork meat eater got the buff thali; the vegetarian got the vegan thali (there’s also a regular vegetarian option); I got the fresh pork with fermented bamboo shoot thali; and our other friend got the smoked pork thali. And we got a couple of appetizers to share. As our vegetarian friend was going to be late in arriving the rest of us had ordered the Smoked Chicken Salad to nibble on. As it happened, it showed up only after all the thalis, as did our order of Bora or besan-battered vegetable fritters (North Indians would call them pakodas). The boras were very good but the smoked chicken salad was even better.

Of the thalis, the three non-veg thalis differed only in the addition of the main course. All three came with a big mound of rice with a piece of cucumber and a piece of steamed pumpkin on top; a Pafor (papad) alongside; Kanghou (a dry-fry of veg and chickpeas); Khajing Kanghou (a dry-fry of dried shrimps with chives and garlic); and a couple of chutneys. Plus, of course, a healthy serving of the starring meat curries. And served communally for the three of us were large servings of Eromba (the classic Manipuri mash of vegetables with fermented fish and chillies etc.); Kangsoi (an oil-free stew of vegetables and dried fish); and Hawai Thongba (dal). The vegan thali eschews everything that has fermented or dried fish in it, adding on instead a dry-fry of chickpeas, more fritters, another veg dry-fry and a mustard-chilli pickle. The main event on this thali was Pakoura Thongba (a curry with a large chickpea fritter; and there was dal as well on the side. To end we split one order of the Chak-Hao Kher (rice pudding made with Manipuri black rice) among us.

We all liked the food very much indeed. Of the three meat curries I think I liked the smoked pork the most but all were very good. I did not try the pakoura thongba but the vegetarian was very pleased with his meal.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see what’s coming next now that my summer reports from Delhi are done.

By the way, perhaps as testament to their established status in Humayunpur, there were far more people eating lunch here on a weekday than I’d encountered at any Humayunpur restaurant in a while. Service, however, was a little lackadaisical. As we were in no hurry, this did not bother us. Price? I was not allowed to look at the bill and so I cannot tell you how much it came to but you can work it out from the menu.

Alright, I’m glad to get these Delhi reports in the rear-view mirror. Especially as I will be back there again for two weeks in less than a month and will soon have a bunch of new reports to post. Doubtless, a number of those will be of restaurants in Humayunpur as well (I already have two in mind). On Tuesday, however, I will have a report from further south in India. On Wednesday I’ll have a Twin Cities report but it’ll be of a grocery store, not a meal. And I’ll try to get to Seoul reports out at the end of the week so as to try and get done with those as well. Let’s see how all of that goes. Before all of that, however, I’ll have the first booze review of the month, which will go in just a few hours.