Indian Foods Guide

Your Guide to the Best Food on the Planet

Indian Food Map


We have been asked the question, "What is Indian Food like?" many times and I have always struggled to answer this question because there is no easy answer. India is a vast and diverse country and each state is a country in itself in terms of its food, dress, language etc. You can eat Momo's from the North East, Sambhar in the South, Dhokla in the East and Dum Aloo in the North and they are all unique and fascinating.  The North has Mughal influences while the East has Chinese influences, all making for a great dining experience. With the recent economic growth in India, many of these dishes are now available in the big cities. However, its probably best to travel to the respective states to savour the real taste. 

We recently came across this India Food Map that lists some of the Must Try dishes in each of India's states and it answers tha question "What is Indian Food like?". Now I can send anyone who has this question to this map. Click on the Read More link below to see a larger image of the map.


Read more: Indian Food Map

Tarla Dalals Chicken Recipes

 

 

We get many emals asking for Ms Tarla Dalal's Non-Vegetarian Recipes and the simple answer is that there are none. Ms Dalal  is an author of Vegetarian cookbooks and to the best of our knowledge, there are no chicken, mutton, pork and beef recipes by Ms Tarla Dalal. 

We do carry a few of her popular vegetarian recipes on this site. 

Zagat Rated Indian Restaurants


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You may have seen many restaurants with the sticker saying Zagat Rated Restaurant and I was curious to see what that meant. I did not see any further information about what the rating meant and below are my findings.

Zagat was company started in 1979 and used to rate restaurants across various parameters. Today they rate many things such as hotels, attractions, night life etc. With respect to restaurants, they evaluate restaurants on 4 parameters Food , Decor, Service and Cost .

The ratings are determined through Zagat Surveys which are completed by people who are considered to be knowledgeable in that field. I am not sure how they actually go and figure this out. With Zagat.com, more users can provide these ratings. 

Read more: Zagat Rated Indian Restaurants

History of the Tunday Kabab



On our trip to India this year, I was introduced to the Tunday kabab which is apparently a specialty of Lucknow. Lucknow is famous for its kababs and if the Tunday kabab is one of the more famous ones from there, it was hard not to go try it out. The Tunday kabab is a a flat pattie like kabab which is really soft and succulent. It is so soft its difficult to hold it in your fingers as it just falls apart.

We got to sample this at the Tunday Kababi Restaurant in Bangalore, which is a branch of the restaurant from Lucknow. The kababs are  created into patties and fried in a shallow pool of oil, as you can see in the pictures. They are usually cooked on a large pan in large groups of 25+ patties.

While eating at the restaurant we found an interesting story behind the origin of the Tunday Kabab. The story goes as follows - There was once a Nawab (royal family member) who really loved to have kababs, but as age caught up with him, he lost his teeth and was unable to enjoy the kababs. He apparently setup a contest that whoever created the softest and most succulent kababs would enjoy royal patronage henceforth.

The secret recipe was created by Haji Murad Ali, who apparently had only one hand. In India, a person with a leg disability is called Langdey, while a person with a hand disability is called Tunday, hence the name Tunday Kabab. The secret recipe apparently has 160 spices (who knew there were 160 spices out there) including Sandalwood. The recipe is a family secret and is passed down to the generations by the ladies of the house.



Verdict : The kabab is definitely very tasty, soft and succulent but it was almost too soft for me. It was like eating a kheema curry than a kebab. For now,  I would probably prefer a sheek kabab over this, but someday in the future when I am older and toothless, maybe I will appreciate this kebab a little more.

A chef with one arm, a toothless royal and a legendary kebab. Who could have dreamt that? Almost fictional huh?

Tunday Kababs are available at

Tunday Kababi
479 5th Block, KHB Colony (near Krishna Temple)
Koramangala
Phone - 97315 53030.



Read more: History of the Tunday Kabab

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