Bikanervala is whereI have dined at, the most number of times, in the past two years! This outlet is located at Chanakyapuri, right behind Yashwant Place, though there are many branches in New Delhi and some other parts of the world! It’s a comprehensive food destination, offering a variety of sweets, snacks, and whole meals [South and North Indian, Chinese and Continental]. It’s a two-level outlet, with the ground floor being dedicated to sweets, snacks, ice creams and drinks. The first floor has a seating area [which gets super-crowded during weekends] and also the kitchen serving their main course dishes.
The menu also includes special items in sync with the then current festive occasion. So, during Navratris they have a full-fledged Thali with items permitted to be eaten during the festival, and snacks are altered to not have onion and garlic in them. [See pictures]. The Karol Bagh outlet has a special section for Bakery products.
Navratra Thali
Due to multiple visits with family, we’ve tasted EVERYTHING on their menu. In Pizza, they offer Cheese, Garlic, Mushroom and Tomato-Onion. I luuuuurve the Garlic Piza!
The South Indian Platter has two idlis, a vada, a small dosa and uttapam, served along with sambhar, green and red chutney. There are some four options in soups, each mildly flavoured, yet make for great starters or as palate cleansers. There’s also the North Indian Platter and Chinese Platter which are sufficient for two people.
Chinese Platter
Kebabs along with Punjabi Platter
Macaroni Salad and Lachcha Tokri
Punjabi Platter
Breads along with Punjabi Platter
For Dessert, the Kulfi-Falooda tastes luscious, as does their various flavours of ice-cream. We once had oodles of fun selecting our own scoops for the Banana Split, and slurping the last drops of ice-cream off their boat-shaped dish! To conclude, I simply can never get enough of Bikanervala stuff, despite having had all the stuff they have to offer! In conclusion, my favourite chaat is their Paani Puri and what I don’t like is the Veg. Burger, which is TOO filling and leaves me feeling uncomfortable by the time I finish it. What I like the BEST?! Well, their staff always serves with gloves on their hands. Though, this did not prevent from a really small strand of hair floating up in my Badam Milk once.
Bengali Market is essentially a concentration of a few shops around a really small circle, located off Mandi House in New Delhi. It gets its name from a BENGALI SWEETS outlet located out there. The Market’s main draw is its food outlets. Apart from Bengali Sweet House, there is an outlet each of Nathu’s Sweets, Nathu’s Bakery and Costa Coffee.
The Bengali Sweet House and Nathu’s Sweet are both spread over a fairly large area with ample space to sit in and savor their offerings. Each has a standard range of sweetmeats, dry snacks, chaats, and other savoury dishes on their menu. Sadly, none of the staff members use gloves to serve. One visible difference was a roach seen running on the inside of the counter where some of the dry snacks were kept at Nathu’s Sweets. That was my last visit to that outlet.
The Nathu’s Pastry Shop more than
makes up for the average performance of
the other outlets. It’s a small establishment with an impressive range of cakes, pastries, tarts, rolls, a wide range of breads, etc. A visit to Bengali Market would be incomplete without indulging your sweet tooth at this outlet. Lastly, prices at none of these outlets make the eyebrow shoot up.
PS: The kulfi-falooda served at Bengali Sweet House is among one of the best in New Delhi. do not miss it!
Veg. GULATI is an upscale restaurant located in the food square on Pandara Road in New Delhi. This blogger has been infrequently dining here for almost 10 years now. Sadly, the quality of food is not as exciting as before. Somewhere, the spark has gone amiss despite the prices being raised significantly keeping up with inflation. This review is based on the three visits made in a span of one year.
The décor is a dimly lit one with mirrors on one side to provide an illusion of space and slight brightness. It’s designed in a rectangular manner and there are barely 8-10 tables, which leads to an increase of waiting time during weekends. Childhood memories of this place are unmistakably attached to an impressive Roomali Roti paired with some really well-prepared dishes. These can’t be refreshed anymore as the restaurant has stopped offering Roomali Roti which it originally used to source from GULATI next door, which serves both veg. and non-vegetarian.
Bread Basket
A standard side dish ordered by my family is the Bread Basket comprising of a Butter Nan, Tandoori Roti, Lachcha Parantha, Missi Roti and Pudina Parantha. All of these are sincerely prepared and complement the main dish well. Their main menu comprises of neatly divided sections between preparations of paneer [7-8 dishes], vegetable curry [similar number of preparations], two options in rice, 3 types of dal, Thali [2 variations] and sweets [for dessert].
Their vegetable curry preparations are near similar in taste, which is a pity considering the variety on offer. Though, in winter, there are some changes in the menu, and the METHI MALAI MATAR was an impressive dish with very well-balanced flavours. The Rajma and Dal Makhani are quite dull, or simply put, taste average. My Mum can prepare them with better gusto and deliver the right punches, too! Haldiram's Dal Makhani wins hands down! What has always been a personal favourite is their baby onions marinated in vinegar and green chutney, which complement the staid food brilliantly. I could simply savour the breads with these two offerings and return home happy! The dishes are all priced between Rs. 300/- to Rs. 500/-
Pickle, Green Chutney, Onions
Lal Rajma
Visits to Veg. Gulati have now become a circular and hence repetitive process of an unhappy realization. As time passes, I feel the desire to drop in for a meal. Once there, the food doesn’t blow my mind off and hence the disappointment over the excitement to be there. As my Mum says, ‘admit it, the food isn’t worth scampering to go back for. It’s not even value for money, beta!’ The restaurant has been awarded one of the best veg. restaurants in the capital by HT. It amazes me as to how they couldn’t have found an outlet to beat Veg.Gulati in this category. Maybe the judges were to lazy to taste around and just decided to settle in on pedigree. Not a good decision, though.
The only joyous part about visiting this locality is the KULFI counter right outside Gulati. This lovely joint has maintained its quality over the years, and the pricing of the dessert is just right. They have numerous flavour providing a twist to the traditional kulfi, served on stick or in a matka. It’s our favourite part of the visit! You must try the Pan Kulfi.
PS: Gulati was a unique dry fruit-laden dish of rice cooked in milk, prepared for the Nawab of Jehangirabad by his Khansama Khaleel. [a royal version of our standard N.Indian Kheer!:P!]
Added later: In 2013, I visited the outlet twice with friends. The long gap since our last visit made me enjoy the dishes quite a bit. Our orders included Gulati's speciality dish of Amritsari Chhole and Punjabi Kadhi. Both of these were well-cooked and were quite delicious being mildly, and not strikingly, flavoured with spices.
Good things come in small sizes, and sometimes with limited access, too! Such is most certainly the case with a small bakery located in New Delhi’s Meher Chand Market. I am unsure if such a location for an eatery dishing out YUMMM pastries is an asset or a liability. For not many may have access to its delicacies. Word-of-mouth publicity may probably not supplement business as much as a swisher location or multiple outlets would. Leaving their business decisions aside, let’s focus on what they have to offer for our palate. GOPALA is an outlet serving snacks, bakery products and an in house dairy supplementing its sweets’ produce.
The vegetarian pastries on offer comprise of the usual chocolacious affair. But their flavour and gooey-ness are unparallel. My favourite is the Chocolate Roll pastry. If I may sheepishly admit, I have never been to their outlet and have always savoured this pastry at home, licking the excess chocolate off my fingers! Once, I had access to four of their pastries at a go. This leads to the realization that their technique to make all these pastries is the same, without any variation in layering. It has two layers of cake sandwiched between layers of chocolate. The topping differs owing to the name of the pastry.
So, Chocolate Flakes has brown choco-flakes sprinkled on it, and C.Truffle has a small plume of chocolate on one side. The most interesting of the entire lot is “Chocolate Supper” with an enticing design of round pastry, covered with tempered chocolate on the side and a red cherry sitting pretty on top!
Their sweets are not as impressive, though. The Milk Cake and Motichoor Laddoo are barely passable which is a pity considering they have their own dairy. The blogger’s brother happened to taste their Tiramisu and Black Forest pastry and pronounced that they are equally good. The pastries are all reasonably priced at Rs. 30/ Rs.40. The sweets, though, are priced on the higher side with their taste not doing justice to their rates. I'll always long for their Chocolate Roll pastry, for obvious reasons!:-P!
What began as a humble sweet shop on the streets of Old Delhi has today metamorphosed into a veritable food giant. Haldiram’shas come a long way from being a halwai, to having outlets that offer a wide range of food items and drinks. Their flagship store in Chandni Chowk has undergone massive renovation since their installation and is quite swish by that area’s standards. They also have more ambitious food joints at Gurgaon on the Delhi-Jaipur highway, and one right in the heart of the capital, Connaught Place.
The one en route to Jaipur has a really huge dining area. Outlets serving a variety of food are arranged in an approachable row pattern. On the outside of this eating area is a small stall of pan and other variety of digestives. There is ALSO is separate room dedicated solely to fresh sweets and namkeen. This is a supremely impressive outlet, not only in terms of space, but also for the variety of foods it offers. This was also the first outlet of theirs that I had gone to.
More recently [around 8 months ago], they opened another similar outlet at New Delhi’s nerve centre. This outlet, though smaller in area, is relatively quite huge compared to other food joints in CP. It is a two-storey structure, with the upper one dedicated only to seating customers. The ground floor has managed to retain the essence of the Gurgaon outlet, but has been shrunk in size due to space constraints. Apart from one counter for billing, there is an entire row dedicated to offering food items. From left to right, they have fresh savouries, sweets, cakes and pastries, and main course food items. Sadly no pan on offer, though.
Matar Kulcha
There is also a live Pasta station and a drinks and dessert corner, offering an interesting range of mocktails and ice-cream shakes. Their menu includes the standard suspects with nothing novel, as such. There are Chaats, Sandwiches, Chhole-Bhature, Matar-Kulcha, Pav Bhaji, Biryani, South Indian Platter, and our standard North Indian Thali [fixed]. The Chaats and Sandwiches are priced between `50- `60. The main course food items range between around `100- `120/- each. Mocktails are all priced at `72/-.
Two interesting items on their menu are the “One-Go-Salad” which is steamed sprouts, corn, fruits, etc. served in a platter and Pasta which is whipped up right in front of you, as per your specifications. Both of these are priced at ` 120 each. They look delicious and taste equally well.
Their normal Kachori is my favourite item on the menu. It is crisp, not oily, and the filling inside is not spicy or bland, it’s just perfect! The Dal Makhani is finger-licking good , without ANY hint of oil or unnecessary condiments but their Biryani [`120/-] is strictly okay. They do use good quality extra-long Basmati rice, but the flavours are average with oil being slightly visible. Delhi’s favourite ‘filling’ street-food –Matar Kulcha- is offered without the unhygienic accompaniments! The Matar is comparable to “Ragda” of the Bombay streets, and has an interesting tinge of lemon to it. The flavours in the Dal Chila do not leave a taste on the tongue, as there is nothing striking about it.
The Pav Bhaji is utterly boring for those who know how it is REALLY supposed to taste. The Bhaji here is a lousy mash of tomato and potato [with a li’l bit of carrots and peas], oil visible floating up on the sides, overpowering the [already unexciting] flavour of the veggies. To add salt to wound, the ‘pav’ has a hint of sweetness to it. The Kulfi-Falooda also tastes quite nice, priced at `70/-. Chocolate pastry was quite decent, considering bakery items are not their speciality. The pastry part of it could have been a little fluffier, though.
Biryani [served with Dal Makhani, Raita,etc.]
The overall taste of their food is quite good. Both the outlets have a self-service format. They provide an excellent option for a wholesome meal, or just some munching at reasonable rates [considering their brand value and quality]. The Chandni Chowk outlet is much smaller and perpetually crowded. It offers only all their variety of sweets, namkeen, chaats and kulfi. They have a seating area on top which is a luxury in that locality.
To conclude, apart from all of the above, their main revenue [probably] comes from sweets. Their forte includes a wide range of long-lasting as well as quick-eat traditional sweetmeats of north India and Bengal. The blogger has also been to the Haldiram’s Food Court in Nagpur and it was an excellent outlet. In Calcutta, it is spread over three-storeys, one each dedicated to sweets, chaats and a high-end supermarket on the top!
Bikanervala is whereI have dined at, the most number of times, in the past two years! This outlet is located at Chanakyapuri, right behind Yashwant Place, though there are many branches in New Delhi and some other parts of the world! It’s a comprehensive food destination, offering a variety of sweets, snacks, and whole meals [South and North Indian, Chinese and Continental]. It’s a two-level outlet, with the ground floor being dedicated to sweets, snacks, ice creams and drinks. The first floor has a seating area [which gets super-crowded during weekends] and also the kitchen serving their main course dishes.
