Biryani by Manzilat Fatima

The Awadhi pop-up by Manzilat Fatima

The event was the Awadhi food pop-up hosted by Indian Food Trails. Recently, they’ve arranged for the Awadhi food pop-up by none other than the famed Begum Manzilat Fatima. And somehow, they decided to invite this mohamushkil for the evening.

You can check our take on Biryani in Web series named Foodka here …

Manzilat Fatima is descendant of none other than Nawab Wazid Ali Shah and she knows her stuff. The highlight of the evening was her specialty- Gosht Biryani cooked with mustard oil. The venue was set at a lovely terrace at Kasba and it was a restricted entry of 20 guests. The hostess of the evening was Sherry Malhotra and she took utmost care of all the invitees.

Once I reached, the food was ready and final touches were going on by the Begum. The welcome drinks were Kahwa (the Kashmiri almond flavored tea). Even with the Kolkata water, the color of the tea was almost perfect pink and the expectation for the evening was set pretty high. Most of the attendees were known to me (thanks to my social media addiction), so no problem on that part.

And the food

Regarding the food, the showstopper of the evening was the Beef Bhuna. Paired with the laccha parantha, they were out of the world. The texture was perfect and smooth. And, I couldn’t believe such nice shami kebabs are made of chicken- definitely recommended. And, even the chicken champ was damn good. The Dum Ki Macchi was cooked with Rohu fish and after this meal, I was not prepared to taste Rohu. So no comments. The nariyal and gur ki payesh was subdued after all the proteins and from a carnivore like me, no hard feelings for it.

*** the pictures for the above 2 places are taken from Debjani ***

You can check my other biryani experience in Kolkata here …

The delivery can be ordered through Swiggy and the menu can also be checked here …