Punjabi tadka aha!
HYDERABAD: What do you do when post 10 pm, after a long drive, you spot an eatery with comfy charpoys with mattresses and bedsheet on it? You dash right in, make yourself and your group comfortable while you place the order. ‘The Punjabi Swag’, a restaurant at Gachibowli offers ‘ghar da swad’ with a mouth-watering menu of Punjabi, North Indian, and Tandoori dishes. During the time of the ongoing pandemic what makes a visit to this eatery worthwhile is the social distancing, the staff in masks and the use of disposable containers in which the different food items are served.
The best part is that you can fold your feet comfortably on the soft gadda as your relish the morsels. We loved Dhaba Chicken Tikka cooked in white masala and served with raw onion ringlets. The taste is light and doesn’t offer a blast of condiments which makes you relish the taste bit by bit. We recommend Patiala Chicken with Garlic Naan for the main course. The meat chunks are succulent with the right blend of spices. The dish that won our hearts is Dal Makhani with its velvety texture and slightly smoky yet light taste. And quite surprisingly, what makes the dish taste different from what we sample in other restaurants is that there’s no use of butter. Shares Sandeep Singh the co-owner of the restaurant, studied at the Culinary Academy of India, Begumpet, under chef Sudhakar Rao, “On purpose, we do not use butter in any of our dishes. Instead, we use desi ghee as we wanted to do something different from others.” That’s how all their dishes are prepared with ghee.
The recipes are from Punjabi homes. “Sometimes we blend the methods to prepare a dish, but don’t change the same entirely,” adds Sandeep, who’s been living in Hyderabad for the past 12 years. The chefs are from Bengal and they are still waiting for the dessert-chef to come back from Calcutta. The lassi comes in varieties and a board announces the different types under the title ‘Lassi Da Theka’ and as we enjoy our food there are humorous text pieces on the wall with interesting points such as ‘’Punjabi diet plan which begins with bread and a half-boiled egg at 7.30 am and ends with Chicken Tikka, Butter Chicken, Gulab Jamun etc., etc.’ Reading the same leaves you in splits as you finish your meal.
— Saima Afreen
saima@newindianexpress.com
@Sfreen