One of our favourite meals out during our trip to Delhi in January, 2023 was at Matamaal, the Kashmiri restaurant that opened a few years ago at the City Court mall in Gurgaon. Actually, that’s wrong: two of our favourite meals out on that trip were eaten at Matamaal. We liked the first meal so much that we went back again. In my review of both I noted that we’d be back for sure on our next trip and that this time we’d bring our boys with us. And so it came to pass last month. On our last day in Delhi we went to Matamaal for lunch. And it was another fine meal, and a highlight of our eating out on this trip as well. Here are the details. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Indian Food
Anardana (Delhi, March 2024)
Back to Delhi. Well, I should say clarify here—many years after beginning to review Delhi restaurants—that I use “Delhi” somewhat loosely as a place-name in my restaurant reviews. When I say “Delhi” I mean restaurants in Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon—in other words, in the NCR or National Capital Region. Today’s review, of the first meal we ate out on our recent short trip to Delhi, was eaten at a branch of Anardana. They do have branches in Delhi proper—and beyond—but we ate lunch with friends at the branch on the ground floor of the very shiny International Finance Center in Gurgaon. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Mizo Diner (Delhi, March 2024)
My Bombay food reports are done—see here for last week’s street/casual food round-up—but I still have quite a few to go from the subsequent five weeks we spent in Seoul. From Seoul we then went to Delhi for 12 days before returning to Minnesota this Wednesday. We didn’t eat out so very much in Delhi but I’m going to intersperse reports of those meals among the Seoul ones. First up, is a report on a lunch we ate at Mizo Diner in Humayunpur. In the unlikely event that you’ve been tracking my Delhi reports over the years, you’ll know that the North Eastern restaurant hub in Humayunpur in South Delhi has become one of my absolute favourite places to eat at in Delhi. Indeed, I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the city with such concentrated quality, regardless of cuisine. Our lunch at Mizo Diner only confirmed this view. I would go so far as to say that it might be the best of the meals we’ve eaten in Humayunpur, which is to say, it was very good indeed. It was also my favourite of our meals out on this Delhi trip, and the other places we ate at included some of our very favourite restaurants in the city. Here are the details. Continue reading
Some Casual/Street Food (Bombay, Jan-Feb 2024)
Here, finally, is my last food report from our time in Bombay from early January through the first third of February. It’s the only one of my eating-centered reports that is not an account of a single meal or multiple meals eaten at the same restaurant. Instead, this is a compendium of several far more casual meals eaten on the go over the course of our time there. It’s a mix of experiences: quick bites eaten on the street, things eaten as part of food tours, things eaten quickly at casual restaurants. A few of these things were among the best things I ate in the city, but almost all speak to an experience of eating in a city like Bombay that cannot be encapsulated in regular restaurant reviews but which is quite central to not just the story of food in Bombay but to the city’s larger cultural makeup. Continue reading
Swati Snacks 2 (Bombay, January 2024)
Okay let’s take a break from seafood restaurants. The weekend’s second Bombay food report (see here for yesterday’s report on Mangalorean seafood lunch in Fort) is of an entirely vegetarian restaurant, the venerable Swati Snacks. I have eaten at their Tardeo mothership on every single trip I’ve made to Bombay as an adult (since 2005) and there was no way I was not going back with the family. The only shocker is that we made only one visit. The main reasons for this are 1) that on account of my regular visits to the fish market in our neighbourhood we were cooking at home a lot; and 2) since we were eating a fair number of meals out every week as part of the program, we didn’t end up eating out so very much more on our own—and so didn’t end up making repeat visits anywhere as a family. This lunch, at any rate, was very good. Continue reading
Mahesh Lunch Home (Bombay, January 2024)
We’ve been in Seoul for just about a week now but the blog is still in Bombay, food-wise. Things got very hectic there towards the end of our five weeks in the city and I’m now two weeks behind with my restaurant reports. When last seen, I was writing up lunch at Chaitanya, a seafood restaurant. Today I have for you a quick report on lunch at another seafood restaurant. But whereas Chaitanya is a Malvani restaurant, today’s review is of a Mangalorean restaurant and one of Bombay’s most famous ones at that: Mahesh Lunch Home. We celebrated the older boy’s 15th birthday at the mothership in Fort. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Chaitanya (Bombay, January 2024)
Alright, let’s keep cranking the Bombay restaurant reports out. Here is another lunch eaten at one of the city’s stalwart Malvani restaurants: Chaitanya. You might remember that my second report from this trip was of a very good lunch at Shri Datta Boarding in Lalbaug. Well, not that there’s a competition but I would say that this lunch at Chaitanya was even better. I took a subset of my students there after a morning outing a few weeks ago and between us we tried a large number of their seafood thalis and also a veg thali. There wasn’t single less than deeply-satisfied customer in the bunch. Herewith the details. Continue reading
An East Indian Feast in Uttan (Bombay, January 2024)
A very quick report today on what has been one of my favourite meals so far in Bombay: a feast at an East Indian home in Uttan, in the north of the city. This was part of another of the food outings curated for my program by my friend, Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal. The morning saw us make an early start by bust in the direction of Malad. There we took a very short ferry ride across the water to Dharavi Island (not the same as the more famous Dharavi, adjacent to Mahim), and then a longer, rattling auto-rickshaw ride to the East Indian village of Uttan (I squeezed onto the driver’s seat of the auto our family was in, and it was fun for about the first five minutes—I hadn’t realized it was going to be a near-20 minute ride). On arrival in Uttan we were met by our host Mogan Rodrigues at his family’s home. There Mogan introduced us to the history and present of the East Indian community and then we ate the massive meal they had prepared for us. Continue reading
Highway Gomantak II (Bombay, January 2024)
Not that there was a bad one in the bunch but one of my favourite meals on my last visit to Bombay, back in December 2018, was at Highway Gomantak in Bandra East. I ate there then in the company of the food writer and old food forum friend, Vikram Doctor. I knew I was going to go back there for sure with the family on this trip. As it happens, I went back with the family and 21 of my students (one was out with a bad cold)! We’d had quite a trying day so far. We had a culture walk around Bandra West scheduled from 9 am to 11 am and the plan had been that the students would return to their housing in the coach while we peeled off for lunch on our own. But the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley, especially when the fucking Bombay Marathon turns out to be scheduled on the day of an outing… Continue reading
A Lagan nu Bhonu at the Ratan Tata Institute (Bombay, January 2024)
As I think I’ve mentioned before, the program I’m leading in Bombay is kicking my ass. We’ve been on the go pretty much every day and most evenings are taken up with checking and double-checking all the upcoming reservations. Not to mention, try corralling 22 undergraduates and you’ll beg to be allowed to herd cats. Actually, I kid. The students have been very game, very easy to deal with. But between all the activities and the fish market shopping and the cooking and the eating, I’ve not had much time to post detailed write-ups on the blog. Now, however, I’m at risk of falling behind quite severely with the dining out reports and so here’s a quick look at one of the highlights of our second week in the city: a Parsi wedding feast (or lagan nu bhonu). And none of us even had to get married to get the feast. Indeed, we skipped the wedding part altogether and went straight to the feast. Continue reading
Delux Kerala (Bombay, January 2024)
We’ve eaten some very good food in Bombay in the last couple of weeks. A lot of it has been food people not from Bombay associate classically with the city: Malvani food, Parsi food, Gujarati food, Marathi food—and, as of yesterday, even an outstanding East Indian meal. Some of our best meals, however, have featured Malayali food, or the food of Kerala. Specifically, food from Delux Kerala in Fort. This is a small restaurant split across two levels: a small un-air-conditioned dining room on the ground floor and a small air-conditioned dining room on the first floor. Our first couple of meals of their food did not involve either floor: we got delivery via Zomato. It’s not a very long hop from the restaurant to where we’re putting up and we enjoyed both sets of delivery quite a bit. But eating in at the restaurant was a must. This because they do a sadhya or banana leaf meal that obviously can’t be ordered for delivery. On Sundays this has some extra items added on to it. I am happy to tell you that when we finally got there in person it was on a Sunday. Here is a look at that meal, and also at the two delivery orders. Continue reading
Shri Datta Boarding House (Bombay, January 2024)
I’m in danger of falling way behind on my Bombay food reports. Those of you who follow me on Instagram are aware of most of my food-related activity: from fish markets to takeout to restaurants to street food. On the blog, however, I’ve only posted a report on our lunch at Soam more than a week ago. This is because the program I’m leading here has kept me insanely busy. This is all my own fault as I’ve over-scheduled us more than a little; it’s all been fun and interesting but the pace has also been intense. The program activities themselves, unsurprisingly, involve food. Here now is a brief look at the second meal we ate out together, just a few days after our welcome lunch at Soam. It features one of the cuisines I most love eating when in Bombay: Malvani. Continue reading
Soam II (Bombay, January 2024)
We’ve been in Bombay for 10 days now. It’s been a hectic week and a half. First we were getting set up at our flat, figuring out where to do all our shopping and so forth. And then my students arrived last Sunday and we plunged into a breakneck pace of outings and activities. First up, last Monday was our welcome lunch, at the iconic Gujarati restaurant, Soam in Babulnath. The last time I ate at Soam—back in December 2018—was when I was last in Bombay, doing prep work for this trip. I ate there then in the company of my old friend Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal. Rushina, who is a bit of a big wheel in the Indian food world, is curating our food/community-centered explorations while we’re here in Bombay, and she suggested that we kick things off at Soam. I was very quick to agree. Continue reading
India Market/Spice Bazaar (Lake Elmo, MN)
[Note: this post has been updated with more information about changes to the store.]
It’s been a while since my last look at an immigrant market in the Twin Cities metro. Eight months, in fact. My last market report from the area was of the Desi Brothers store in Bloomington back in March. I have for you today a look at India Market/Spice Bazaar in Lake Elmo. Spice Bazaar is the old name and is still the name on the signage. But apparently the store is now under new ownership and the name is about to change officially to India Market. This report, however, is based on a visit there in May of this year (right after our lunch at El Itacate, as it happens). I took lots of pictures with plans to soon post a look at this large store, but the end of my spring term and our impending summer travels put paid to those plans. And then it got lost in the flood and backlog of posts from said summer travels. I’m told that as of a few weeks ago there had been no major changes to the actual layout of the store. But please know that there’s a possibility that the store now looks different than it does in the truly excessive slideshow that follows. Even if it does, however, you should still get a good sense of what to expect there. Continue reading
Pizza Karma (Apple Valley, MN)
By the time this posts we’ll be off on our summer travels. But I have a couple of Twin Cities restaurant reports cued up to post while we’re gone and here is the first one: a an account of a couple of lunches at the new branch of Pizza Karma in Apple Valley. The first Pizza Karma opened in Eden Prairie in 2017. We had been interested but it was a long way to go for what seemed then like an uncertain proposition. During the height of the pandemic we did make it out to Eden Prairie to eat Indian pizza at Bombay Pizza Kitchen. We mostly enjoyed that meal and it strengthened our resolve to eat soon at Pizza Karma. But for one reason or another we never got around to it. That is until they opened a branch much closer to us, in Apple Valley. We’ve now eaten two lunches there in the last month. Herewith my report. Continue reading
The Weekday Lunch Thali at Godavari (Eden Prairie, MN)
On the weekend I posted the second of two reports of the lunch thali meals I ate in New Jersey towards the end of April. The first of these was at Kathiyawadi Kitchen and was really excellent. The second was at Samudhra, and while I didn’t like it nearly as much as I had Kathiyawadi Kitchen’s thali, resizing the photographs from that meal earlier last week put me in the mood for another thali lunch. My hands-down favourite thali in the Twin Cities metro—and indeed my pick for best lunch deal in the area—used to be the weekday thali at Kabob’s Indian Grill in Bloomington. Alas, as has been reported in the comments here on multiple occasions, Kabob’s no longer offers that thali. Nor, for that matter, does Kumar’s in Apple Valley still offer their weekday lunch thali—it’s been replaced by a buffet. Thankfully, Godavari in Eden Prairie—the restaurant that has topped all editions of my Twin Cities South Asian restaurant rankings—now offers a lunch thali. And so it was to Eden Prairie I went for lunch on the day after the last day of my term. Here is what I found. Continue reading
Samudhra (Franklin Park, New Jersey)
The first, second, third and fifty-fifth thing you need to know about Samudhra, an Indian restaurant in Franklin Park, New Jersey, is that they have a very strict dress code. This may well be the only thing you need to know about them; it is almost certainly the only thing you will remember about them. It’ll pop up as the first thing you see when you go to their website. You’ll be told about it when you call to make a reservation. When you arrive, you’ll see it posted prominently on the window of their foyer. When you go in, you’ll see it posted inside the foyer as well. And just in case you haven’t gotten the message, you’ll see it again before you’re walked to your table. “A lot of people have tried to come and eat here in pajamas and chappals or what?”, I asked the host; he smiled embarrassedly and then launched into a saga of how they’ve had to call the police on inappropriately dressed people. My friend and I looked dubiously at him and he petered off. Thankfully, there are no further reminders inside the restaurant. Continue reading
Eating by the Water, Again (Goa, January 2023)
Just about three months after our return from India in February, here is my penultimate report from our brief sojourn in Goa in January. As we had on our last visit to Goa in 2020, we stayed at the home of friends in South Goa, in the village of Velim. North Goa is where all the action is. South Goa is relatively staid by comparison—and once you get down to Velim and environs, there’s really not much going on. This suits us as we are not in search of action on these holidays: we want to be on the beach as much as possible and eat good Goan food and that’s pretty much it. Well, the first of those things is easily available near Velim. We love Cavelossim Beach, which is just about 10 minutes from the house and very not crowded (at least till sunset); we spend most of our time there on sun beds in front of one of the many shacks or in the water. The food is a more complicated story. Continue reading
My Annoying Opinions 