In this forty two degree weather, you’ll probably look at us askance if we suggest you take a walk. How about if that walk involved ice cream and a lesson in the history of food? Goodness, we didn’t see you sneak(er) up on us!

Pop(sicle) Tate’s

A slightly modified version of his Old Delhi food walks, Himanshu Verma (of Red Earth and 1100 Walks) designed the Sharbat Kulfi walk in Old Delhi to put a focus on 100 year old recipes and the people who are still making them. In the past, all these kulfi sellers would go door to door, a practice which is quickly fading. Which is why Himanshu is taking you to find them.

Stops will include Duli Chand’s kulfi, not only traditional pista and malai but also a range of sorbet-like kulfis, including pomegranate and phalsa. Plus, he does a mango stuffed with kulfi—a take on the fruit and ice cream that Himanshu assures us is even more delectable than it sounds. Sold yet? There’s more. Lassi from  Amritsari Lassi Walla, who is “relatively new” having come into Old Delhi in the 1970s, and a visit to the original Giani’s ice cream. Himanshu dismisses their branches across the city, but approves of this, the original and their kulfi-falooda.

Lassi Come Home

Wash it all down with a walk through the spice market for fresh organic sharbat, rose and khas all made from natural material and some vendors getting sharbat versions from around the country, it can be a little geography trip for your tongue. Himanshu plans to have a day-long sharbat workshop in his home in June,  so if distilling is your thing, keep your eyes open for that.

Ittar late than never!

Getting there:  Meet at Fatehpuri  Mosque Main Gate, 5 pm, Sunday, May 26, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 41671100 to register, Rs 1,500 per person.

If not a French word, there’s certainly a German one for the sound that you make when you bite into really, really good dessert. It can’t be the same kind of noise you make for steak—that’s more guttural—or something that comes with a good wine, that’s more a sigh. That phrase would have come in handy when we received a large transparent plastic box full of goodies from brand new delivery-only patisserie Les Gateaux.

Shake Your Bon Bon

Run by two guys who prefer to go by pseudonyms (“for our own personal reasons”) Les Gateaux is the brainchild of MJ the MBA/marketing person and AJ the chef. Together they work out of a small kitchen in Faridabad, focusing on keeping rent costs low so that they can price their goods well. In our massive box tied with a purple ribbon were macarons and cookies, tarts and blondies.

They also do a “chocoron”, a macaron dipped in chocolate, and we got a passion fruit version, pink and yielding on the inside with a crisp chocolate shell surrounding it, bits of fruit crumbing with the chocolate. In the macaron section, particular kudos to salty caramel, a tight sticky layer of toffee holding together a buttercup yellow macaron shell, a salt sprinkle saving it from being too sweet.

Takes The Biscuit

Crumby and flaky, the white chocolate, cashew and cranberry blondie requires you to place a saucer under your chin. The only problem we had with this were the bits of cranberry which resembled more the candied fruit you get in a fruity bun than the whole cranberries we were expecting, which would have added a slightly more tart flavor to the cookie.

On to the savouries – a blue cheese and leek tart and a stuffed onion tart with pancetta tasted almost the same, both sharing a quiche-like interior life, onions baked into creamy sauce and a soft pastry base. Not bad, but not quite as memorable as the desserts.

Dough, Re, Mi

We ended with—and have been snacking ever since—on vanilla and chocolate diamonds, two rows of white and brown cookies, like the Ebony And Ivory song. Dusted with sugar around the ends, these taste of our childhood, cookies old school bakeries used to serve up when we were little.

In a city filled with home bakers charging exorbitant prices (and no delivery) for their baked goods, Les Gateaux is a sweet deal. Considering our little order is still being eaten several days later, we suggest you order in moderation—but not too much restraint.

Getting there: Call 9958537683 or email lesgateauxindia.com, visit the Facebook page for the menu, Rs 110 for 150 grams of white chocolate, cashew and cranberry blondie.

What: The Great Delhi Pop Up, Ojas Art, Qutab, event invite here, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to sign up , Rs 1500 per person.

Why: About a year ago, Anoothi Vishal, a journalist and columnist, began her Great Delhi Pop-Ups, something so underground that she was a bit reluctant to give us details. Much digging (in) later, you can now up for a dinner where home chef Bharati Sanghi will be dishing out Marwari food made from ingredients like home-distilled essence of Ajmeri roses, sweet onions from Bikaner, and, believe it or not, aloe vera. Can’t make it this time? Anoothi organizes regular events once every two months (stay in touch via email or Facebook) where she sometimes cooks with her Old Delhi family and sometimes sources delish home cooks. Coming up: Assamese food, community centric cuisine, and Indian Italian dishes that explore trade links between the two countries. Expect a lovely sit down meal at an art gallery, with butler service, or even book readings. Invites are hand delivered, and you can pay when you get yours.

When:  Saturday, May 18, 8 pm to 10 pm.

Smoke House Deli recently opened in a gorgeous leafy bit of HKV. Look out for sketchy stories on the walls done by Turmeric Design and  yummy sandwiches. Exciting news: Coup Card holders (www.coupcard.in) will be able to get 15% off! Deli-rious with joy?

Have a look at our slideshow of Smoke House Deli's interiors here.

One of the nice things about living in Delhi is that it’s a cultural smorgasbord of various foods, people and events. With a line of embassies, all you have to do is know the right people (or be a member in some cases), and you could be eating steak in Australia, pizza in Italy, kimchi in Korea or closer home, just stroll into Andhra Pradesh or Assam for lunch.  And yesterday, we went to Ethiopia, a little restaurant in a little cultural centre, filled with locals, but we weren’t the only Indians.

The Queen Of Denial

Blue Nile is the restaurant at the two month old Ethiopian Cultural Centre. We’ve experimented with West African food before, and came out of that experience a little bit scarred, but our dining companion had eaten Ethiopian food in New Jersey and raved about it on our ride there. The restaurant is well lit and slightly sterile looking, with glass-topped tables and a selection of spice under the glass, much like an Indian “family” restaurant. We were even offered a choice of Ethiopian or Indian food by the all-Indian wait staff.

But it got exotic again very quickly. The items on the menu are not very well described next to their foreign names, so we picked at random. Yebgg firfir (mutton and chilli sauce mixed with injera), beyaynetu (a mixed vegetable platter containing most of the vegetarian section) and injera (described as flat sour dough, which instantly made both of us think of pita bread.)

Platter-itudes

Beyaynetu came first—a small selection of vegetarian dishes served on top of the injera on a large plate to share. The injera is like a dosa, fermented and crepe like, and you and your dining companion have to essentially tear it off the bottom of the plate and use it to mop up the toppings.  These included tikil gommen alicha (cabbage with potato, garlic, turmeric), which was a bit blah, bright yellow but not very flavourful, fosolia bekarrot (green beans and carrots), like a steak side dish, whole boiled and harmless, shiro wet (peas powder in special spice), mushy and grainy at the same time, this was unexpectedly good: tangy, lightly spiced and unlike anything we’d tasted before.  Then there were two types of lentils—defen mesir (black) and missir kik (red), out of which we far preferred the red, even though they were both cooked exactly the same way,

There was also something we couldn’t identify—a red gravy with an overspiced pakoda in the middle of it—which we later realized was shimbira aasa (chick peas with chilli sauce)—but the chilli didn’t sit right, discordant and out of sorts and after a nibble, we had to leave the pakoda to its own devices.

The meat came wrapped up in injera instead of on a thaali, and when we unwrapped it, we saw more injera cooked with the meat. To avoid a carb overload, we just took spoons and ate the inside filling. Deliciously tender, with not at all too much spice, the chilli and salt at perfect balance, this was our favourite part of the meal, but we wish there had been more meat in the meat to injera ratio.

Mug Shots

We ended with Ethiopian coffee, which you can choose to have right where you are or in the coffee room—and we’d suggest you go to the coffee room. Shaped like a hut with a sloping bamboo roof and low couches, it’s fun to sit there and watch the waiter prepare the coffee. There’s a long complicated ritual involving Ethiopians and coffee and ours was served to us in little handle-less china cups, sugar and no milk, with cold popcorn on the side. There is alcohol to be had as well—your basic vodka, rum, beer—but if you can only drink one thing, we suggest the coffee.

After, the waiter took us to the museum—essentially a display section for a travel agency---ad we looked around the pretty fairy-lit garden. Unlike the 567 African Corner this wasn’t so much about making homesick expats happy, it was more like a gentle introduction to Ethiopia, and it worked, because that’s where our next holiday will be, our friend and us both decided.

Getting there: 7/50 G Niti Marg (near Nehru Park), Chanakya Puri, call 24673654, Rs 1,000  for a meal for two without alcohol

What: Nashta Paani snack truck, Near Sultanpur Metro Station, 7 am to 7 pm daily.

Why: Three cups of coffee do not a suitable breakfast make. Which is why we're super excited about the opening of an on-the-go breakfast and snack truck, Nastha Paani. An excited phone call revealed that they're planning both English Breakfast as well as Indian breakfast (packed so you can eat them at your desk while you work). There will also be an evening snack section- for your long commute back home. At the moment, they’re only parking at the Sultanpur Metro station, but there should be more locations later. Put that bag of crisps down slowly now.

When: It's going to be a Jerky ride; coming early next month.

With a name like that, you would think that Mia Bella is an Italian restaurant, but things are rarely that straightforward in the labrinthyne streets of Hauz Khas Village. The décor at this new restaurants can indeed pass for Italian (splashes of a sea-green on the walls, yellow chevron tiled floors, wrought-iron chairs, a Cupid mural), but the menu had us playing a hungry guessing game. Who’s Waldo?

A Mixed Tape

A large section of the dishes here are devoted entirely to Braai-  South African version of grills and barbeque- a smaller number to Lebanese, an Indian grouping (cue eye roll) and some pasta and pizza. After going through this jumble, we needed a drink, but of course, no liquor licence yet, so we grumpily settled for an iced tea – and that’s when the good stuff began.

Our drink had not a single trace of powdery Nestea mixture, turning out instead to be a tall citrus-y trip to somewhere cooler, somewhere with big flowers and a blue pool. It was a perfect start to our meal, and suitably perked, we got ourselves a tall order of  Something Blue (pizza), Something Braai-ed (pepper fish fillet) and Something Old (a Mezze platter)

Bra(ii)ce Yourself

The pepper fish fillet made its way to us first, gleaming with oil and surrounded by salsa, a shredded lettuce, potato wedges and two huge hunks of garlic bread. This is where the goodness of Mia Bella lies, in its portions and its food.

Grilled just right, the peppered consistency of the tender fish was lovely, better still went smeared with that salsa. Also, good potato wedges! The vegetarian mezze platter was pretty and plump,  an assortment of spinach fatayer, falafel, cheese sambosik accompanied with baba ganoush, hummus, tzaziki and tabouleh. Though each dip held its own in both flavour and consistency, it was the tzaziki which stole the show, creamy and flavoured with garlic and lemon.

Give Pizza A Chance

A Margharita pizza, however, was a bit of a disappointment, far too heavy on cheese with faint traces of – could it be?! – store-bought tomato sauce. We enjoyed the crust though, crisp and speckled with oregano.

The apple pie was great comfort food: a sugared catacomb surface revealing chunky pieces of apple which went with vanilla ice-cream as old friends do, without much fanfare but fitting just right.

Mia Bella might not be out of the closet about their food orientation just yet, but we suggest you get to know it anyway.

Getting there: 50 Hauz Khas Village, 3^rd and 4^th Floor, call 9818959694, Rs 2500 for a meal for two without alcohol.

Here's something to mark on your calendars for the next time you're in Mumbai, especially if you're missing home-cooked food on a business trip.

Does your mum/aunt/grandmom have recipes that could give any cooking show a raan for their money? Get them in touch with the Gypsy Kitchen--food and heritage conservation project-- a brand new initiative that is looking to conserve the tradition of Indian home cooking through a fun dining format. Launched by Riyaaz Amlani, chef Gresham Fernandes (of Salt Water Café, Smoke House Deli) and Ayaz Basrai of The Busride Design Studio, this project will collaborate with home cooks to bring yum food to you in a pop up format at surprise locations in Mumbai. Plus, since Shroom was all about redefining molecular gastronomy for Delhi, you know this venture is going to be interesting at the very least.

How very aunty-establishment!

Getting there: Nomad's Land begins on May 24, but suggest cooks/apply now through the Facebook page.

In Basel, Switzerland is a restaurant called blindekuh (translated from German it means blind man's bluff) where you can experience dining in complete darkness. Last evening a strange turn of events offered us a similar deal. Here's a first hand account:

The story begins at a new restaurant called Themis Backwood Kitchen & Patio which their Facebook page and several phone calls assured us was open for business. We arrived suitably hungry and were greeted with a beautiful courtyard dotted with stone tables and benches. Four white column pillars led us indoors to what we imagined would be a white-walled and blue tiled space. Instead we walked into semi-darkness. Aladdin lamps were swaying softly from the ceiling, dispensing more shadows than light. Split into two sections, we opted for the lower level where the couches seemed more comfortable and hazard free in this darkness than chairs. The extremely friendly and polite manager proceeded to inform us that the menu was still being fleshed out, however he would take us through a section of hand picked appetizers and main dishes. Reference for dining in darkness, now absolute and complete.

A Shot in The Dark

This section of the evening was almost begging for cocktails and we promptly ordered ourselves a Cosmopolitan and mojito. The Cosmo was too syrupy, the mojito basically rum with a sprinkling of sugar. Sensing our fear of the drink, our waitstaff offered to replace it with a kiwi martini. The proportions just right this time, the fresh kiwi kick lifted our moods.

Our first appetizer, Greek chicken, was a dish of five chicken pieces lying side by side, crowned with fine shavings of parmesan. We named them Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Aphrodite and Athena. Well seasoned and extremely tender, the chicken was well cooked but missing any Greek flavouring – no lemon, olive oil, garlic or oregano in whiffing distance. Our vegetarian starter, cheese fafa, met a similar conclusion. Though the cottage cheese was marinated to almost poetic softness, the heavy handed sweet and spicy seasoning made it closer to chilly paneer than a Greek starter.

Candle In The Wind

Our main course was Chicken Iftidada. Unfortunately no Greek main course just yet for vegetarians and we had to make do with tawa paratha and paneer makhani. The paratha was well-done, flaking softly yet holding well against a delicious gravy. Once again Themis got their cottage cheese right, with fresh, soft cubes doused in trademark creamy, makhani gravy.

The chicken also stood its ground. Shredded and doused in what looked like a secret sauce (in the feeble light that our table lamp cast), it sat on a bed of creamy potatoes which had a slightly burnt edge - a combination which tasted better than it sounds. We could taste the basil in the chicken and the lemon-y undertones made a sweet contrast against the potatoes.

Like at blindekuh, we learnt how to trust our other senses in lieu of sight. But fun as the experience was, next time give us an entire menu and bright lighting any day.

Getting There: S1-S7, West Bazaar, Garden of Five Senses, Said-ul-Ajaib Village, call 9871262600. Rs 3000 for a meal for two with alcohol

After a week of dubious food and stomach cramps, we were quite ready to hang up the adventurous palates. And while the newly opened Warehouse Café (run by the guys behind OTB) in newly getting-its-groove-back Connaught Place beckoned, but we hoped that with its famously touted ‘365 dishes for 365 days’ menu, we’d find something that we could enjoy without paying the price the next day.

Get Your Fact(ory)s Straight

Warehouse Café can only be gotten into (and out of) by a baffling, iPhone-style lift, “feather light” the hostess called it. Inside, there’s the long bar we mentioned earlier, dim lighting and low couches. Surprisingly for a weekday night, it was quite full when we visited, some tables even occupied by families and small children, despite the house music and sheesha sets.

At 12,000 square feet, Warehouse Cafe is a large space covered almost entirely with couches. They’ve gone with the exposed brick, pipes from ceiling style of décor, which, while keeping with the moniker, is passé and unimaginative. We were given a massive menu shaped like a desk calendar and divided into months—January for soup, February for salads and so on. Gimmicky or clever? Our table was split down the middle. While we debated the fine points, we spotted two old familiars in the ‘chicken’ (March) and vegetarian (May) section and went for them: chicken wings with hot sauce and dahi kebabs.

Dahi kebabs were a bit absurd, chickpea flour tops wobbling on almost liquid yogurt, overwhelmed by onions and a grainy, unpleasant texture.Chicken wings however, made up for that, tender, fresh and only very lightly grilled with no gravy except a marinade - just what our poor stomachs needed.

With not much liquor in stock, at the moment you can get beer, whiskey and some kind of vodka cocktail. We ordered a Bloody Mary and a Caprioska to test the waters, the Mary spicy and salty, the Caprioska cool and light, but with an overdose of Sprite that killed the few pieces of fresh lime in the drink. 

Run Of The Mill

When we spotted Mexican on the menu our deprived palates went into overdrive, imagining the guacamole that was and the sour cream that could be. We ordered lamb chimichangas with great expectations, but they turned out to be a big disappointment the lamb too touch to chew, the inside of the tortilla too sweet and the whole of it, too fried.

For pudding, another old favourite that took us back to a hotel in Hyderabad in the summer holidays: banana toffee with ice cream. Caramelised bananas in little round balls that looked like eggs in the dim light, but thankfully, tasted nothing like. We enjoyed cracking the hard shell and getting to the gooey banana inside, and this, at least, was the comfort food we had been seeking.

Service is swift in this new restaurant, people are eager to please, and the prices are reasonable enough for you to make an evening of it when you’re next in the neighbourhood. Next time, we’ll sit at that long bar, get a White Russian and more banana toffee and you can tell us about when you were young and comfort food was not nostalgia, but just dinner.

Getting There: D 20, Inner Circle, Connaught Place,  call 24316025, Rs 2,287 for a meal for two with drinks.