Tasting is believing, says restaurateur Zorawar Kalra

The Shredded Chicken Dhokla is the desi Subway we never knew we wanted.
The cafe lives up to every word of its name: there’s mithai, there’s apple, there’s custard, and there’s a whole lot of Farzi.
The cafe lives up to every word of its name: there’s mithai, there’s apple, there’s custard, and there’s a whole lot of Farzi.

When Zorawar Kalra, restaurateur extraordinaire, opened the first Farzi Café in Gurugram in 2014, he told me the brand name was meant to reflect the illusory nature of the food: what you see isn’t what you necessarily taste (in a good way). That’s all well and good, but one would think they’d eventually run out of surprises to deliver. That’s what I thought at any rate. Nearly six years and 19 outlets later, I’m tasting the newly introduced menu at the brand’s Connaught Place bistro, and am forced to admit I fell for the Farzi routine yet again.

Zorawar Kalra
Zorawar Kalra

Leaving ourselves in the seasoned hands of chef (and Massive Restaurants’ mainstay) Saurabh Udinia for the food, my dining companion and I turn our attention to the sluicing instead of the browsing. Farzi’s liquor list is long and lissome, with classic cocktails like the Whisky Sour that are textbook and the restaurant’s own renditions, like Gin in a Bottle, as potent as they are palatable.

Our first dish, the Raw Mango and Chicken Koshimber is a revelation; in fact, its nuts. Inspired by Thailand’s Som Tam (raw papaya) salad, the Farzi variant is served a la Gueridon with a chef preparing the dish tableside. Juliennes of raw mango and grilled chicken are muddled together with spiced nuts, herbs, and spices in a decorative mortar and pestle before being served to us. There is nothing decorous in the way we slurp it down, but then that’s just how good it is.

Next up is the Beetroot & Cream Cheese Tikki with Fennel Chutney, which comes skewered before we can even condemn it for being vegetarian. We’re glad we reserved judgment however because these multi-layered morsels, crisp outside yet soft inside, are heaven-sent, with a gentle but distinctive flavor profile, which the accompanying chutney only elevates.

The Shredded Chicken Dhokla is the desi Subway we never knew we wanted. And this is no way a slur, because Subway is our favourite Quick Service Restaurant, being fresh and tasty and whatnot. The chicken dhokla is all that, but better, with zesty flavours and tractable textures, coming together in a wide mouthful (extra tissues to mop up after recommended).

(Clockwise from top) The new menu at Farzi Cafe in Connaught Place features dishes like the Shredded Chicken Dhokla and Beetroot & Cheese Tikki
(Clockwise from top) The new menu at Farzi Cafe in Connaught Place features dishes like the Shredded Chicken Dhokla and Beetroot & Cheese Tikki

For us, the stand-out is the Pulled Mustard Fish on Raw Banana Fritters, a dish so clever in itself that we can’t even come up with an appropriate quip. Raw banana is segmented, squashed, deep-fried, and then mashed again into fritters, which are fried yet again. Piled high with a fricassee of fried fish accented with chaat flavours and a sprinkling of sev, this is a dish we could tackle and bait on a daily basis.

The fish stuffing us to the brine, er, brim, we decide to go simple with our mains, sticking to Kerala Chicken Biryani with Black Channa Pachdi. It’s just what we need, a gentle melange of fragrant rice, curry leaves, spices, and normative chicken, tender to a fault.

However, it is our dessert, Apple Mithai with Custard Cream, which ends up bamboozling us the most, and really brings back the whole Farzi factor to bear. Without spoiling the surprise, let us just confirm that it lives up to every word of its name: there’s mithai, there’s apple, there’s custard, and there’s a whole lot of Farzi.

Touche, Mr Kalra. We look forward to the next iteration.

Meal for Two: Rs 2500 (including taxes and alcohol), At: E-38/39, Connaught Place

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