Old Delhi: The Bazaar, Moti Mahal, Lots of Photos

Somewhere in the old delhi bazaar.

Old Delhi is the only place I've been in Asia that really and truly scared me. Old Delhi is the nucleus of Northern India, maybe one of the concentric centers of the earth itself. There's nowhere I've been that comes anywhere near it in terms of the throbbing vitality of it, the terrifying largeness of the people, the activity, the chaos that surrounds it. It's a gross immensity, sort of a vortex - you have to go through it you go to Delhi. It's where the main train station is. It's where Delhi began, and where Delhi was sacked (many times over the years), the seat of Mughal power, the seat of British power, a spiritual touch-point for many people and many generations. But, geography. Old Delhi is generally considered to be defined by the Chandni Chowk, the long street that runs through it, and is made famous by the dual Mughal immensities of the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid.

I remember this very clearly. I'm 19, on my first visit to Delhi. Auntie Sheila has let me use her car and driver for the morning. "You have to see Old Delhi, of course," she tells me, as she packs me into the car that morning. "You have to go walk around the Chandi Chowk." Well, okay, I think, I'll walk around the Chandi Chowk. Having no idea what that entailed.

She set me up. I'm certain of that now. Sheila did it on purpose.


Cushions for sale amid a churning sea of umbrellas. India makes you realize the shocking number of umbrellas our planet harbors. As I have lost upwards of ten umbrellas in three months, I know that of which I speak.

The little Grey ford came out of the green and luxurious embassy district that Sheila lived in, and we turned onto the highway, and we kept going and going. Delhi turned more and more like the India I was most familar with the, chaotic but mostly-conceivable mess of Bangalore. Something I could handle, parse out. Then we got into the Chandi Chowk district, the outskirts of the Center, then we drove down the Chandi Chowk. There were more people there then I could concieve of in the universe, riding bicycles and autorickshaws and horses (yes), all of them wearing differently colored clothes, all of them leaning on their horns at approximately the same time. On either side of me were Delhi's two defining monuments, of course - the shockingly huge red swell of Shah Jahan's Red Fort, and next door, the big mosque, the mosque, the Jama Masjid. People were funneling into the bazaar to the left of the mosque, shoulder-to-shoulder, carrying sacks of things on their shoulders and leading little kids in school uniforms by the hands - every other man or woman seemed to be wearing the requisite garb of the Ramadan season. "I drop you at the clothes market, okay?" the driver said, and I agreed since I didn't know any better. He impossibly threaded the car through stall after stall of men selling fabrics and knock-off North Face jackets.

He ejected me.


The bazaar (a mere iota of it) as seen from the steps.

I was wearing a sundress. I got out, and walked to the steps of the Jama Masjid (about five or six paces). I stood on the steps and looked down them, down to the bazaar and down to the Jama Masjid. Beggars and street kids were already starting to advance on me. Large and odiferous looking vultures picked at the rubbish pile to my right. There were three or four lepers in mats on the sidewalk nearby, and one of them had a little ribbon of white spittle coming out of his mouth, and someone was playing the American Top 40 hits in my ear from a pirated CD stall. I have never felt so astoundingly out of place. Like I had been emitted from an alien spacecraft or something, halting - like my first steps on a new world, testing the ozone for breathability. Finding it somewhat wanting. "You give me change, madame!" a grubby street urchin at my knee said. So it began.


Your friendly neighborhood goat head store.

I survived of course. And wanted to go back soon as I left. Old Delhi does that to you. It scares the shit out of you then makes you want to come back over and over again. There are few places in the world with such an incredible buildup of history, history overlaid upon history, a bazaar and a neighborhood with more stories and more happenings behind it then just about anywhere else on the planet. Ruskin Bond, in one of his books, tells of a mysterious Black Well lurking in one of the closed old haveli houses of Delhi. There are rumors of antiques stores selling things you couldn't obtain for love or money anywhere else. Things people lost all over the place re-apparating in Old Delhi. Probably people, too. I've met a few people on the road who lost a year or two of their lives in this neighborhood. One guy who spent his early twenties playing the black market round about the Delhi of the late 60's. One woman who spends her life as a photojournalist in conflict areas and, insofar as I could determine, comes to Old Delhi for R&R. Tougher then me.

"How'd you like it?" Sheila asked me when I got back. A little smile on her lips. How did I like it? Any response would involve about ten pages and footnotes.

"It was interesting," I said. "Real interesting."

"Uh huh," Sheila said.


The clothes market.

I got out of the taxi this time, and I walked five paces. And then I saw the stick. A bamboo stick, about the length of my forearm I'd guess. Probably some sort of construction site leaving. I picked it up - it was sturdy and strong. Perhaps it is time for a social experiment, I thought. I picked up the stick.

Northern India is tainted by sexual harassment. It's not an easy place to be as a woman - of any nationality - and it's especially hard if you're by yourself. Single women are fair game in Delhi. Single women are probably slatternly and easy, and you should try your luck, because why the hell not? Walking down the street in non-gentrified Delhi usually involves lewd commentary, being followed, and (if you're really lucky) one or two lightening-fast attempts at groping. Far as I can determine, it doesn't really matter what you wear, especially if you're a foreigner. This is the big stain on Delhi, a national shame. Fact is: women can't move about freely here. You are conspicuous, noticed, and to some extent hunted wherever you go. And it pisses you off more and more and more as every day goes by.

And so, the stick. Maybe it was paranoia. Maybe I just wanted some agency. If someone grabbed me or got in my space, I could whomp them on the head in retaliation. Perhaps teach them an important lesson, or something. At least there was the visual deterrent factor. Right? Right.

I don't know if I should be proud or not about the stick. It's a bit of a moral quandary. Especially if you're into non-violence. (I'm not. At all. Just so you know).

The fact is? It worked. The stick absolutely, 100% worked. My usual North India experience as a blonde foreigner was turned on its head, entirely neutralized. A few men came at me with hands outstretched or tongues out and flapping around, shouting "HALLO YOU VERY SEXY YOU WANT FUCK," usual routine - and immediately stepped back in shock when they saw The Stick. "

"Whoa, whoa! Okay!" they'd say, giving me a very respectable amount of space. They'd go off giggling nervously to their buddies, hahah, look at that. Damn, that felt good.

What makes me feel better about The Stick? The fact that just about every woman I met on the street - and there weren't many, this is Delhi - smiled at me. A solidarity thing. "That's right!" one large Sikh woman said, as we passed each other. "That's right," she said. The schoolgirls giggled and offered me sly thumbs-up signs.

A later post here should be devoted to what Indian women go through on a daily basis when it comes to sexual harassment in India, and especially North India. Horror stories. "I know women who move to Delhi from South India," a friend of mine told me. "They get a good job, and they relocate. And you know what? They all come back. Because they can't go anywhere without getting grabbed, or followed. Something. They can't live free lives."

But about the Bazaar. Here, have some photos.



Much of the bazaars commerce centers around meat, and most of that meat is mutton. Butchers are rife here. I like seeing them. I'm a proud carnivore, but I'm also a realist. This is where supper comes from. Bouncing, adorable, delicious sheep and goats.



Getting nailed by a motorbike is a very very real possibility here. Keep your eyes open. There's really nothing you can do about the ground. I suggest not looking down ever.



Piles of aromatic something-or-another on the street. LIke most of India, Old Delhi is as much an olfactory experience as a visual one.



I don't think the legal department got consulted on this one.



These are piles of vermicelli noodles, commonly used in dessert dishes. Sevian is particularly popular. It's made with condensed milk, dried fruits and nuts, and cardamom, and it is delicious.



Yeah, there's something I like about butchers. Butchers have been considered the lowest of the low in most cultures in human history. India's no exception. More so, considering its deep vegetarian tradition and antique caste system. But the meat loving millions would be in dire straits without them. And I find a certain visual poetry in the whole affair. Maybe I'm blood thirsty. Those are, in case you were unsure, goat heads.



A man selling biryani on the street. There's some kind of conversation going on here. What do you think?



Hanging out by the red sandstone walls of the Jama Masjid. I've never been in . There's always something vaguely wrong about my dress. And it seems wrong somehow. A week after I left, five Taiwanese tourists were shot (non-fatally) by a supposed terrorist group at the Jama Masjid's gates. Whatcha gonna do?



More red sandstone. It's a damn hot day, but the walls are coolish.

I had lunch at Moti Mahal. The Moti Mahal. It's an absolutely iconic restaurant, considered to be one of the pioneers of the tandoori cuisine that has so efficiently and quickly swept the entire planet. It's said that the restaurant's founder, a Peshawari by the name of Kundan Lal Gujral, actually invented both tandoori and butter chicken. (Apparently, the tandoor oven was previously reserved only for bread, instead of meats). The restaurant began in Peshawar and was moved to its current Delhi location in 1947, after the Partition - and has been plugging on with shocking success ever since, drawing the affection of Indira Gandhi, Nehru, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon - in other words, everyone vaguely important who was sent to India on official business has eaten here.

There was no one there, which was somewhat curious. The interior of the restaurant is a bit 1960's mental hospital. But at least they have lots of fans operating on high-speed. I ordered my usual - tandoori chicken, tandoori gobi (cauliflower) and sat back. The owner of the place came over to chat, in lieu of anything better to do. "Did you know that Gordan Ramsey came and cooked here?" he asked me. No, I did not. But so The Ramsey did come to Moti Mahal. Engaged in one of those celebrity cookoff things that are so popular on food networks. Naturally, the Moti Mahal boys won hands down. The owner came over with a few photographs after I expressed interest. "That's us. When we won," he said, pointing to an image of both himself and Ramsey looking pleased with the universe.

The food was, as expected, excellent. Moti is also known for its Mughali style curries. Delhi is particularly known for curries made from mutton "variety" meats - you can order up goat brain curry here if so inclined. There are Moti Mahal outlets all over India now, although a family argument means that this Chandi Chowk branch bills itself as the One and Original Moti Mahal, Hands Down. I'm not prepared to argue.



The tandoori gobi had the interesting addition of sesame seeds up top. I think it does add a certain nutty depth to its flavor. A delicate yogurt marinade and a lot of spices, heavy on the aromatics. Really addictive stuff - and a lot of it. I couldn't finish it all.



And excellent chicken. Not too heavy on the yogurt - actually, I kinda like that. But juicy, excellent meat with a lot of complexity of flavor.



They talked me into ordering roti. However, missi roti are superb. It's a thin crunchy roti prepared with besam or gram flour, seasoned with fenugreek, ginger, nigella, chili powder, ajwain, and sesame. And brushed with an inordinate amount of butter. They are very savory, and incredibly delicious.

After lunch, I was going to go to the Red Fort. Which turned out to be closed.

So I didn't. But I did the next day.

Old friends and charred meat, such is how i proceed

I met up with Saleem this night.

Saleem is the cousin of my friend Aneesa, the lovely woman who introduced me so perfectly to Mumbai two years ago, back in 2008. I was 19 and a bit of a drunk then, and so was Saleem, and we got along like a house on fire, chiding each other into ever-stupider feats of consuming Old Monk (a vile but cheap Indian rum) and spicy meat kebabs. Saleem and his family are Muslim, and he was (as I recall) forever figuring out ways to stay out late without attracting the ire of his parents, or figuring out a way to sneak back home, or figuring out how he could sneak out of going to the mosque in the morning, and all of this lent an aura of espionage to the affair. Saleem trying to be cool in the fashion of Indian youth and (surprisingly) mostly succeeding, a bit of swagger in his step, as we messed with each other, teased each other about pretty much everything. He was always concerned about me, in the fashion of the Indian male, and never quite certain that what I was doing or how I was conducting myself was wise.

"You're too brave," he'd tell me, as I walked out into traffic or snarled at a taxi driver again, "You're too brave." To which I'd smile and skip on down the street - so what, the Saudi sex slave traders hadn't got me yet, and Mumbai was filled with the lightness of being (to me), so what, and he'd follow behind.

Aneesa considering our meeting, before I arrived in Mumbai. "This is a bad idea, you know. My cousin loves Old Monk and partying, he's just like you." Sarcasm. Rarely or never have I had such fun. I hope he did too.


Shivaji train station.

I thought he was dead for a day or two after the Mumbai attacks. This is part of the inevitable post-tragedy scramble, for those who know someone caught in the maelstrom, the cloud that terror places over a place. He reappeared on Facebook, and I was very glad.

We met at the Woodsides - it was late, because he couldn't get off work until later then usual, and then the trains were snarled, as they always are in Mumbai.

He hadn't changed his appearance at all, and I guess neither had I. "You look the same," we both said to each other, and our voices were relieved.


The Taj hotel.

Our lives have both been startlingly successful, for a couple of loud-mouthed punks with an affinity for trash liquor and bad behavior. He has secured a good job doing recruiting work for IT companies, and enjoys what he does. I am legitimately employed in journalism, and moving to Cambodia. We have made something of ourselves, mostly.

The inevitable romance talk, what we have got, or what we had. Had in my case (approximate), briefly and extremely pleasantly, with large and unmovable barriers at the end of it - the finality imposed by I Am Moving to Cambodia and Not Coming Back.

Saleem discusses his girlfriend, who is Christian and Catholic, although apparently this does bother him. "Yes, with her - you're dating someone, and suddenly - well, you're together, it's very sudden." The look on his face is one of pure affection, and of wonderment at his own great good fortune. If I could photograph that and send it to her, she would appreciate it. Any thoughtful woman would,

He's hungry, though he says he's not as hungry as he thinks he ought to be. It's Ramadan, near the end of it, and he's become used to it. He explains why he's adhering to the rules, although he isn't exactly the most moral guy on the planet the rest of the year. "I feel like I'd better be extra good when it really matters," he says, his face contented. "Just to make up for the rest." No Old Monk tonight.

We eat at Bademiya, the outdoors kebab place located conveniently behind the Taj. It's a legendary place, and for good reason. There's packs of Mumbai youths sitting on their cars or their motorbikes and wolfing down large and greasy portions of ultra-thin roomali roti, boti kebab made of lamb chunks, spicy chicken parts and paneer curry and much much more.


Kebab guys.

I don't know how they function at Bademiya when it rains - doesn't it rain all the time? - but it's not raining right now, we can stand in the haze of smoke given off by the huge and ultra hot grills and order our food. "I remember this last time," I tell Saleem. "That was the first time I ever ate boti kebab, and now I know how to make it, I eat it all the time." Truth - it's impossible to get boti kebab worth eating in the USA. It's better to make your own, you and your recollections.


Bademiya chicken breast. Yum.

There's nowhere to sit, since we don't have a car or a motorbike, so we head back to the Sea Palace. The waitstaff are kind enough to look the other way when we tuck into our Outside Food. We order some roti out of a sense of pity. Once we finish the food - chicken and boti kebab and roti - we hunt around a bit for a bar nearby that will admit us. We do a few laps around the neighborhood talking, and finally end up at the rooftop bar next to the Sea Palace. We both order tea, after Saleem has a pointed argument with the waiter over the provenance of the iced tea.

Now time for the really inevitable discussion. November 2008. Not long after I left, that first time.

"I was headed to the Leopold Cafe that night, you know," he says. " My mom wanted me to do something, so I didn't go out, I was kind of pissed about it. And then all this stuff goes down."

"I spent two days in front of the television," I tell him, almost guiltily, because I wasn't there. "I couldn't turn it off, and it was Thanksgiving, but that wasn't important at all. I just remembered you guys, how often I went to the Leopold." Of course this was selfish. I spent those two days worried for Saleem and his family, but I also worried for myself, thought about how easy it would have been for me to go down in bullets at the Leopold, for me to be forced to crawl under a table and shelter myself, where just a minute before I had been sipping a trash whiskey and regarding my sketchbook with displeasure.

"All of us did," he says. "My family was stuck in our apartment for about two days, and we were just watching the TV too. We couldn't believe it was happening, you know?"

"But you're all right," I say.

"Yeah, I'm all right," he says, smiling. (Another personality trait we share. Laughing it all off).

I sip my nimbu-paani and think about near misses and about the iterations and twists of fate. A year ago my grandmother told me just about the same story, about when she had lived in Yugoslavia during the unpleasant years of the early 80s. "I was going to go to the produce market, where I always went, and then I decided to wait for a day. I needed to do some stuff at home. They of course decided to set a bomb there that day." As if this was regular stuff, but of course my grandmother, my grandparents, have always downplayed the great dangers and risks they have run, just another Tuesday and ho-hum, could someone please fix the dispose-all because it's clogged, you get the picture.

Both Saleem and my grandmother told these stories with an aura of surprising calm - though Saleem certainly wavered just a little more (I chalk it up to age, to experience and a certain incredible fierceness, my grandmother has plenty of both).

They tell these stories this way because they have to and because it is the only way to contextualize them. Something Saved You, something minor and stupid, that didn't even occur to you at the time. It was impossible to predict and nothing you could have controlled, and yet because of this you still draw breath, you still continue, you still wake up in the morning and do the same damn things you have done every day and will continue to do. Saleem and my grandmother both evaded the dangers inherent to a chaotic universe. I too have done so, to this point.

"These things do happen, of course," my grandmother said. "But you can't let it make you afraid. You'd be unable to get anything done, or go anywhere." Her meaning: there's luck, sometimes it holds and sometimes it doesn't, sometimes you're fucked and sometimes you aren't, there's nothing you can do about it, not a thing.

"You can't live in fear," Saleem and I agree over our tea. Two young people who have determined the universe. "You can't let Them make you live in fear."

The Leopold Cafe has preserved and framed the bullet hole in the mirror.

You go on, you reconstitute yourself. Maybe in water, for there is plenty of that here.

This is Mumbai, this is India's particular City of Dreams.

I go home that evening and I am thinking of two things. The first is the terrorist attacks, and how remarkable it is that such a pall doesn't really hang over the city, does not really hang over Saleem - they have picked themselves up and gone on, are Able to Talk About It, have relegated it to the past.

The second is more self involved. To meet Saleem is a strange thing, and a new thing for me. I am 22 years old and for the very first time I have felt (in confluence with another, my counterpart) the passage of time, the oncoming and slow but persistent encroachment of maturity. We'll never be that young again, we'll never be that stupid again, I think, remembering 2008 and Old Monk at the Taj.

I am 22 years old and have just had my first brush with eventuality - I think forward to five or ten years from now, and intersecting with Saleem again and again when I am in Mumbai, and the parallel continuing, advancing, and what it will turn into.

And I'm a little afraid. Not of the terrorists and maybe I should be, but of that, primarily that, of luck and how long it holds out.

Queen's Restaurant: Good Bangalore Punjabi eats

Queen's is a bit of a Bangalore institution. Located on Church Street in a weird mud-brick paneled room, complete with simulated cave-art, it definitely doesn't look like much from the street. I passed by it multiple times in a state of extreme suspicion during my first trip to Bangalore, passing it off as one of the city's multiple bacteria-farms. Good thing I was assigned to write about it. Queen's has some of the tastiest no-frills Punjabi food in the city, and it has a weird sort of charm - especially at night, when they break out the candles and the Carnatic music. The Church Street people watching? Even better. (You probably never imagined that so many young, drunk, and rowdy IT professionals existed in one place, but folks, Bangalore is it.)



It's a Punjabi place and by default, they have good tandoori items. I like the murgh tandoori here a lot. It's very tender, the spice combination is forward but not in your face, it isn't coated in over-exuberant yogurt (which masks the flavors) and there's plenty of it. These were not anaemic birds in life. The addition of a candle inside a tomato is totally delightful. More of my food needs to be served to me flaming. They also have some kathi kebabs and tandoori paneer here, for the veg inclined.



Sarson ka saag is on offer here, along with the traditional parathas. Well, only in season. The mustard greens aren't available fresh this time of year in Bangalore, but plain ol' palak proves to be a tasty second-runner up. Also: it is completely impossible to take an appetizing or sexy picture of palak. I mean, come on. Just look at it.



Aloo gobi is another good rustic Punjabi dish, and they do a fine turn with it here. Good cauliflower to potato ratio, a nice cinammony spice mixture, and most importantly, it doesn't come out doused in oil. This is a dry curry the way it *should* be.

They also do an excellent daal makhani (black daal with pounds of ghee) and very tasty butter garlic naan here.

Thippasandra Road Redux, Treat Restaurant, et all

Church street by night, Oh, Bangalore.

2008, Spring. I used to live on Thippasandra Road. It's a little lane in Indiranagar, in the classic guise of most cramped, tight, Indian streets. A shop of every variety is up there - all the buildings are two levels and most contain at least five separate establishments in postage stamp sized surroundings. There's cows on the street, stray dogs, and the usual Indiranagar combination of rich folks driving their Mercedes through the commotion, street people selling crap on the street, and mid-level people just trying to get by, usually by means of tiny 10 minute photo booths, cellphone sales emporiums (everyone has one, no exceptions) and real-estate offices and travel agents a plenty.

I counted four different gyms on that stretch. I joined one, briefly, back in 2008. The weight room full of steroid-afflicted men with enormous thighs, eager to show you how to do a pullup, and then the women next door, doing half-hearted aerobics to Bollywood musics. Signs on every lamp-post advertising services to help you Gain Or Lose Weight, your personal choice, no one is adequate.There's lights hung on the street at night, everyone stays up late, and the vegetable man wakes you up with his shouting at 6:00 every morning (throwing rocks at him won't stop him, give up now). There's potholes in the street, but less then in most other parts of Bangalore, and there's street kids, but less of them. Thippasandra is up-market.

The stray dogs get to know you when you're there for a while, for good or for bad. One dog on the street seemed to hate white people, especially blondes. He'd raise himself up and bark and chase me sometimes. I'd come home at night, to Thippasandra 5th Cross, and the street dogs would follow me home. I'm wearing spike heels and I'm drunk and a little high and the dogs are click-click-clicking behind me, and I click faster myself, and they speed up too, and then I'd slam the metal door behind me and stare at their yellow eyes for a moment. The dogs, all smiles and wagging tails, now that the chase was over. Bastards.

I went down to the Katary Villa on 5th Cross, this visit, 2010. I used to live there. It's a guest house catering to volunteers and interns from the Western world. It was nice for a while, to have partners in crime and people who had been in India for a while and knew the ways of rickshaw battles and angry dog avoidance. I came back here from Delhi, after I'd been in India for about three months and decided to stay longer. It was kind of a mistake - I had adjusted throughly, and the guesthouse devolved (as these things are wont to do) into drama. Still, it was a good sociological experiment, I guess. India stresses a lot of people. It freaks them out. The food bothers them, they find their volunteer jobs at orphanages horrifying (so many beatings!). The seams of the Villa started to show, too. You'd hear the woman who ran the place shouting late at night at her "girls."

The girls, as we figured out, were actually India's modern variant on indentured servitude. Poor girls from rural areas, dead or indigent parents, sent to Bangalore to work as house-servants. Katary did seem to be giving them access to education, and a better life then they would have had in backwater Tamil villages. The primary emphasis seemed to be on finding them a decent husband. They weren't really allowed outside the house sans supervision. The younger girl would sneak upstairs and raptly watch hyperactively violent Tamil movies on the upstairs television, when the afternoon was quiet and she wasn't needed around the house. She'd shush us when we walked in (so she wouldn't get caught), or she'd pretend to be doing some mundane cleaning when Katary would shuffle lugubriously up the stairs (she was very fat, and lame) once or twice a day. She'd often ask to use our cell phones to call her family, back home in the visit. All of this was done carefully, as subterfuge. Katary, it seemed, knew all and saw all. She was a devoutish Christian - hangings of the Last Supper were strewn around the place, and an American evangelist channel was playing often on the downstairs television. I wondered what the girls thought about the beer and whiskey bottles we left strewn most days around the table, if they wondered about the constant reek of hash and cigarettes that emanated from our living quarters. I shall probably never know.

I went back to Katary. It was night-time, and Bimbo, the house dog, was not in evidence. A light was on in what used to be the old boy's bedroom. They had built a new rain shelter up on the roof. No one was coming in, or out, and no noise emanated from inside. I peered up at the house and almost began to tear up. It was a strange moment.

I did not knock on the door.

Treat Restaurant
3047, 80ft Rd, HAL 2nd Stage,
Indira Nagar,
Bangalore - 560038.
Tel : 5282137



Treat is located on Bangalore's 80 Foot Road, only a convenient block or two away from the entrance to Thippasandra. It's a two level establishment - there's an affiliated Chinese restaurant upstairs- but I only ever ate at the Punjabi bit of the business. And it's excellent Punjabi food at reasonable prices. The dining room is quiet, clean, and serene. The servers are friendly and unusually subtle by Indian standards. The tandoori items are delicious. I've ended up defaulting to Treat after a long or tiring day more times then I'm entirely sure I want to admit. I love sitting in the upstairs room and watching the night traffic go by, and eating with my hands. It is so delightfully quiet.



They do great tandoori murgh here. Good old tandoori chicken, marinated in yogurt and spices. They get good chicken, and the meat is tender and carefully spiced. Nice when eaten with the pickled onions and mint-yogurt chutney provided at the table. You can eat with your hands and gnaw at the bones and the servers will regard this as par for the course. Eating customs are among my very favorite aspects of India. Get the lamb chops or the boti (lamb chunks) kebab here as well.



Tandoori gobi (cauliflower). I love this stuff. I have had a life long love affair with fibrous vegetables. Especially when marinated in yogurt and roasted. They also do good tandoori baby corn here.



I can personally suggest the bhindi (okra) masala. The restaurant is a particularly bad offender in what I call the Roti Upsell. The Indian mind finds the notion of a meal sans roti or rice completely unbelievable and untenable. I don't usually have bread with meals. They always look at me after I've finished eating, with big concerned eyes. "But madame, this is a gravy dish. You will not take roti?"
"Rather not, thank you."
"But madame. It is a gravy dish." (His eyes getting bigger, his face more astonished).
"I know it's a gravy dish. I's perfectly all right. I will take no roti or naan."
"But madame...."
"It's fine. Really."
(He walks away, convinced the foreigners are insane.)

There is a reason Atkins has made no inroads into India.