Flavour of haleem… in words

Haleem is not some roadside food to be eaten and the bones and spices spat out. No. If you are a Hyderabadi it is a love affair to remember, to wait, to drool, to savour, to Twitter notes, to make your Facebook pals envious (one of whom says:

kanisam tinali anukunna tinaleni postion ra naku ikkkada dorakadu, and another bloke says: yaad mat dilao bhai raha nahi jata) and, okay, to worry about the money part (nearly Rs. 2000 if a person eats daily).

But making haleem is no rocket science. Housewives with their hand-me-down secret recipes cook up better stuff than the men swirling the gooey stuff in huge cauldrons. But then you cannot persuade ammis and aunties to make haleem everyday and that’s why we rush to neighbourhood haleemwallahs.

That brings in the twist in this year’s haleem’s tale. With almost all the haleems tasting the same, redolent of the same sweet buttery smell, similar smoky flavour (okay one has a hint of rose petals, another pudina, another of saffron and yet another of curry) what do the haleemwallahs do? They resort to marketing their product with words.

Here is a fun trip through the haleem-land of Hyderabad with the wordsmiths in charge and not the chefs. Near Charminar is: Zayeqe daar Turkey haleem. “Turkey as in the country and not the bird. They put tarkari (vegetables) in the haleem, we stick to the Turkish formula of meat, wheat, dry fruits and spices,” says Abid applying warq to the cauldron.

At MG Road if one restaurant prides itself for getting the spices and nuts from Iran another throws a gauntlet about getting the dish tested for its purity and the meat used. City Light is selling what it calls Mashhad Haleem. “Mashhad is a place in Iran and this haleem is a speciality of the place. The spices and the dry fruits that go into this haleem are also from Iran,” says Syed Husain.

After taking Rs. 80 he gives a token and then you get a Styrofoam bowl with what looks like haleem but with a white creamy topping, pudina leaves and as you dig in there are dices of apricots, pistachios and almonds. Blander, but then it is also a haleem. To each his own it seems as across the road is Lamcy which is selling mushroom haleem, fish haleem, paneer haleem and of course the mutton haleem.

In Nacharam where about seven haleem sellers have made their appearance, there is one bloke who promises haleem made with skin-less chicken. The Bahadurpura-Chandulal Baradari-Shahalibanda stretch is chock-a-block with the haleem/harees sellers the pick is surely the one where Aamir Khan in his Ghajni avatar is shown as if he is hugging the rooster.

Even if there is a joint that sells beef haleem near Rama theatre in Bahadurpura, the photograph is that of a crowing rooster. Arbi Haleem/Deccani Haleem/Turkey Haleem/Irani Haleem take your pick. Potli masala, Irani masala, Turkey masala and the spiel keeps spinning.

Incidentally, potla meat and potli masala are two different things. Potla meat should ideally come from lambs that live in the countryside and are not grown in farms (tough luck to get enough of them) and if a haleem is made with potli masala then all the pieces of cinnamon, pepper and cloves should not make an appearance in your bowl of joy. And that would be something. Like all good or bad advertisements the hyperbole makes you wonder about the real nature of haleem. Or like this ad says: ‘Shyam, Samuel ya Saleem sab ki pasand haleem.’

SERISH NANISETTI

Monday, Aug 31, 2009, Metroplus

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The best cappuccino in town

Beethoven counted and used 60 coffee beans to prepare his brew. Each time for each cup of coffee. Perhaps that would explain the perfection he achieved with his symphonies and notes. Every evening at 6.30 pm a robust old man walks inside the Taj Mahal Hotel in Secunderabad, sits in the second row in the centre twirls his moustache and waits. As he sees the smoothened granite flooring polished by a billion footfalls, a steaming cup is brought for him. Sip and a furrowed brow lines curl up in appreciation. The waiter in white walks off pleased. Not a word spoken.

The entry of coffee pubs has kicked the game wide open. Now the Minerva Coffee Shop, Chutneys, Taj Mahal Hotel with their staid appearance, pre-mixed sugar, chicory and varying quality (in the morning the brew is perfect, quality plummets by noon again perks up by evening) have big time rivals. Not the cauldron of dark decoction and boiling milk.

Check this out to know the difference. The order is the rating based on quality of coffee, service, barista’s expertise, ambiance, parking space etc.

Qahwa: The perfectly brewed cappuccino. The ambiance is neither too claustrophobic nor too spaced out. Weather permitting, you can sit on the lawns and breathe in the pollution while quaffing or sipping the stuff. The coffee has the right notes, body and flavour. The texture too is right. The froth is deceptive so you have to be careful while adding the sugar. Their trademark cold coffee called Qahwa is cool. The barista uses a Cimbali semi-automatic and the pressure and the temperature at which the decoction comes out is right so the bite in the notes is somewhat mellowed.

Café Coffee Day: Still the finest though slipping in quality where the patronage is high. The standardization slips when it comes to takeaways. Using an Astoria semi-automatic and a good barista at the knobs (Kaushik Aich (Somajiguda outlet) is a bronze winner at the Indian Barista Championships) the cappuccino can be pretty addictive. Earlier they used to serve a more frothy stuff now the froth is no longer there so you can no longer eat the froth and drink the coffee. (Shhh: For the cold coffees they use readymade decoction which is brought in jerrycans). More acidic than the cappuccino at Qahwa, it has a hint of mountains. (Why do they keep the AC switched off?)

Leaf n Bean: The newest entrant in the coffee game it is set to go places as the brew hits the right notes. They say they use only Arabicah beans imported from Brazil, Columbia and Indonesia. Without using Robusta beans it is an achievement that the cappuccino notes are so high (perhaps it is their Rancilio that does the trick). They are trying to peddle their flavoured teas and flavoured cold drinks but that should be for the junta. Located in an atrium, the stairs are somewhat dicey business to negotiate. The spaciousness adds to the ambiance.

Barista: Concentrating too much on their cold coffees (they are higher priced and more lucrative) the cappuccino doesn’t get the attention it deserves. And it shows. The ambiance is right. There is good parking space at all the outlets. But all these plus points are negated by the ordinariness of the coffee. Perhaps the steam hits the coffee powder at higher temperature (92 degrees would be perfect) which explains the brew’s odd notes though the flavour is right.

Qwiky’s: Sometimes good, sometimes middling it is not VFM (value for money). A flat cappuccino which doesn’t raise the spirits. The forehead brows stay where they are after the sip. They are trying to make up by adding the Madras Filter Coffee. But filter coffee is altogether a different ball game where they will have tough time beating macappuchino. Dunno? Cappuccino brewed by mom.

SERISH NANISETTI

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21 days to go for Ramzan

The magrib azaan rings out from a thousand minarets near Madina and its neighbourhoods, the faithful in their skull-caps, pyjamas folded above the ankles, rush in to bow their heads in prayer as the sing-song intonation continues. A little later, the troop of devout march to the nearest stall selling fruit salad, falooda, and oh yes! haleem. Across the city in Toli Chowki, you can hear the same sound having the same effect on people.

The calm piety of the day disappears in the razzle dazzle of shopping for clothes, shoes, caps, burqas and sevain.

Move on from Madina to the inner lanes of Patherghati, Charkaman and Mitti ka Sher and you get meat on stick, coloured ice lollies, phirni, pathar ka gosht and a zillion other temptations costing from 50 paise for the lollies to the expensive but perfectly spiced and cooked pathar ka gosht.

But what is an iftar in Hyderabad if it is not topped up or at least get a smell of haleem? Nothing (we have been told a similar haleem is sold on the streets of Karachi across the border, but then bullets also fly there, no?).

We start the gastronomic trip from Garden in Secunderabad. This year the servings are smaller, the restaurant has chick interiors and the waiters wear smart checkered jackets. At Rs 28 the haleem isn’t cheap, though a Rs 5 vanilla ice cream is served free. Meaty, wheaty.

A little ahead is Paradise. The souped up joint is on the other side, haleem is served in a make-shift godown kinda place. It is Rs 25 for the haleem and Rs 28 if you want a mini Coke to wash it down. Rich with layers of flavour.

Stop by at an unnamed joint where just the block of mud for cooking haleem is there and the pot is being stirred by two toughs using ladles that are taller than the men. This got to be interesting. The haleem is cheaper at Rs 25. Spicy, there is a cardamom in almost every bite.

Bawarchi is the bigger of the larger haleem addas in the city. There is almost a queue before you can get your spoonful of delight. Greasy, sweet.

“We cannot say how many haleems we sell,” says the owner of Shadab Md Khaja Pasha. The place is packed as the fasters feast on haleems, biryanis, shorba. How much meat do you get? “We get large quantities, the work begins right from 2 am,” he says. The haleem? Well there is a topping of ghee, crisp-fried onions, coriander and it tastes wow. But the falooda is better we think.

Cross the road, there is Madina. No glitz, no hardsell, the haleem does the talking. Spicy with layers of aroma and flavour.

Ah the biggest, brightest and the most expensive: Pista House. You can literally swim in the fat floating on top. There is a queue to get the tokens and there is a queue to get your serving. This year Abdul Majeed has unveiled a veg version of his haleem on an unsuspecting people and competition. The veg haleem is the killer with its appeal and full bodied aroma.

End of the day, there is Niagra near Toli Chowki. Do all these haleem makers have a single formula which they tinker according to the price? Maybe, they almost taste the same, except a dallop of fat here, an ounce of spice there or a chunkier wheat flour.

The insha namaz (night prayer) is in progress near Shaikpet Nala. And it is 21 days to go for Eid.

SERISH NANISETTI

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In love with haleem

The Fajar azaan sounds at 5.07 a.m. and the basic ingredient of haleem: meat; is being checked for quality in the best traditions of Michelin chefs in a function hall at Shahalibanda. A little distance away, Behind Haveli Manjli Begum, workers are firing up the logs as a few others fix the clay ovens enclosing the gargantuan couldrons.

Between the two spots, this is the kernel of evolution of haleem as the meat, wheat, and spices are transformed by the kasais and the khansama into the gooey, gelatinous, spicy, fragrant and the to die for dish for most Hyderabadis.

The measurements are oriental, as the workers dunk two baskets of meat, three fistfuls of chillies, a fist of scrapped papaya and water and cover it with a lid and seal it tight with a cloth. It is 6.15 a.m. and the traffic is picking up outside the small lane as the smoke and steam rise from hundred other cauldrons covered with red cloth across the old city and from Basheerbagh to Begumpet. The story is the same as meat from Chengicherla or Jiyaguda gets the treatment at the hands of the cooks.
It stays like this till 12 noon when the khansama Syed Pasha comes in attired like an executive in Allen Solly clothes and enters a mud plastered cubicle stocked with spices, rose petals and salt. A series of bowls are lined up and without becoming uncomfortable in the heat of the chullahs and smoke which makes eyes smart and runny, he fills each of the bowl with the right mix of ingredients. The meat that has been cooking for over six hours (it still doesn't smell of haleem), a gruel of pounded wheat is added on and Pasha's secret mix is dumped as is a fistful of coriander. Half hour dum cooking (now, it has the sweet, spicy smell) and half hour of pounding will make the haleem ready for the rozedars.

A few minutes before the Maghrib azaan, the siren marking the end of the fast does a fantastic thing. The Pathergatti, which appeared like a village market, is like a deserted boulevard, albeit with pushcarts vending everything from innerwear to ice lollies to Made-in-China toys. All the men have disappeared into huddles with bowls of fruits and dates to break the fast.

If Pista House is the destination of haleem eaters from everywhere, there are people who turn this Ramzan dish into a gastronomic odyssey. An odyssey can begin anywhere, right from Garden and Paradise in Secunderabad to Shadab, Niagara, Nayaab, Bawarchi, Azizza, or Embassy in Basheerbagh and the list goes on.

Raj Siddham is in the middle of his odyssey. "I am a Hyderabadi and have grown up with haleem. Nothing can compare to the taste of this dish. Though I live in Dubai, there isn't a single dish that can match it. Embassy near Basherbagh was hmmmm. There are more days to go and more places to explore," is the way he sees things.

Paradise is almost a world away as a different generation discovers the magic of haleem. One of them is Rohit Nayani who has come from Visakhapatnam and is working in Nipuna. "I like it and have already eaten at five places. It is so much more different from other non-veg dishes I have eaten," he says.
Then over cuppas of Irani chai, there can be endless debates about the haleem. Does the shredded chicken add zing to the dish, do diced eggs take away the flavour of the khari haleem and how come haleem to be supped by rozedars is so expensive as to be out of reach of the poor? By the time the debate would be over, it would be another Fajar prayer and within no time it would be Eid.

SERISH NANISETTI

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Biryani fit for a nawab

Think Hyderabadi biryani and you would think about either a mutton biryani or a chicken biryani. But biryani, a gourmand’s delight born in adversity, has another cousin called Kalyani Biryani.

As fragrant, as tempting and just as addictive but at one-third the cost. Step inside one of the restaurants selling it with an unobtrusive sign and you will get a heapful of helping with chunks of meat that is dark, tensile and juicy. It is the food of choice for wrestlers, body builders and other people without bulging wallets.

The birthplace of this enigmatically appropriate euphemism for beef biryani is small bylane in Shah-Ali-Banda. There, you will find Kalyani Nawab-ki-Devdi. You can easily pass it by unless you chance upon the centerpiece of arresting colourful tiles, roosting pigeons, delicate stucco work, grazing goats and a filigree-worked marble grave, surrounded by smaller less-ostentatious graves. How the artisans baked the red-clay tiles and coated them with indigo, green, yellow and other bright colours remains a mystery.

But this is the birthplace of Kalyani Biryani. Though the Devdi appears like an eyesore it wasn’t always like this. The anecdotal history about how the biryani got cooked is a story of courtly intrigue, Nawabi pelf, exigency and the Hyderabadi-make-do spirit.

The Nawabs of Kalyani had massive estates near the fort of Kalyan (part of Bidar in Karnataka) from the time they became qiledars (fort keeper). One of them Ghazanfur Jang known as Mohana Mian married Sahibzadi Kamal-un-Nissa Begum, the second daughter of Asaf Jah-III, on Dec 16, 1802. He worked on the devdi and his descendents added to the magic. If the people living in his estates had any work in Hyderabad, the capital of Nizam’s province, they would stay in the devdi where they would be served food twice a day.

The tradition continued under the Nawab Gazafar-ud-Dowlah and Nawab Mehdi Hussain. But times change, traditions change and during Mehdi Hussain’s time as fortunes and estates dwindled after Operation Polo, someone in the dastarkhwan tweaked a recipe to create Kalyani Biryani without the knowledge of Nawabsahab. “Then the devdi was parceled out for Rs 5 a gaz (a yard). You can see what is here now,” says Syed Shah Md Qadri who was born in Kalyani but had his upbringing in the devdi pointing out the unplanned structures that have overrun the place.

As you walk out of the devdi, you can’t help think that the bard was wrong when he wrote:

“The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interrèd with their bones.”

SERISH NANISETTI

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Eventful history of Irani cafes

One warm day in April 1984 Syed Turab Husain Abid and his brother walked into the MCH office with just the thought they would apply for a permission for opening an Irani Bakery in Begumpet. To their surprise the officer said he would give the permiss ion right away and asked them for the name of the place. They didn’t have any. The officer suggested a name: Flyover Bakery, after the structure right in front of his proposed café. The name stuck, the place morphed.

Now, the Flyover Bakery in Greenlands looks like a glass cubicle that might tumble onto the road along with the diners tucking into chicken manchuria or chilli chicken.

In another corner of the city is Skylab. Stolid by the Mettuguda crossroads as passersby think about the queer name for an Irani café, but the older residents know the truth about the name. That year of fear in 1979 when the Skylab plummeted to earth in July 12, 1979 as the world watched in fear and fascination as the Time magazine put it: “Only 10 per cent of the earth’s inhabitants can be considered totally free of any risk from Skylab’s metallic fallout.” Inside the café the mood is glum and the owner’s son refuses to talk; the red arrow outside with 40” is the secret. Outside the cafe is the pan shop run by Prakash that came into existence along with the café. “Do you remember the time when Skylab fell?” he asks.

“1979?”

“This café opened in 1978, now most of this will go in road-widening,” says Prakash with a shrug.

With that hammer blow another landmark will disappear.

If other Indian cities have statues as landmarks unrelated to the history of the city, Hyderabad has Irani cafes and restaurants that not just give a name to the place but also bring alive a time and a memory for its residents. If the Y2K@TandooriChicken.com Biryani restaurant at Panjagutta takes us back eight years when a fortune was made out of the Y2K fear, for a few people the Flyover Bakery takes them back to that day in November 1983 when Queen Elizabeth inaugurated the flyover in November 1983. As lunch hour crowd mills around him, Abid recalls the time: “This was a lonely place. After 6 p.m., it was difficult to spot a single soul, now anytime of the day or night, it is difficult to find this road deserted,” he says.

In Mettuguda is Café Diana, might sound just like a name, but for the residents it takes them back to the time when Diana Hayden became Miss World in 1997.

Last year as Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men lifted the Twenty-20 world cup, the Hyderabadi landmark tribute is being readied in Srinagar Colony with a multi-cuisine restaurant called what else but Twenty-20 kitchen. “Most of the restaurants have names of spices, vegetables and the cuisine, I wanted something new. When Dhoni’s team won the world cup, the T-20 concept was the rage and I though why not this name,” says Nageshwar Rao, whose takeaway restaurant is getting the finishing touches.

If one restaurant called Pakeezah recalls the year when Meena Kumari passed away and the movie was released, the same cannot be said about the other Pakeezahs that have cropped up. Some names remain while the memories get erased: Kennedy in the Old City remains but the owners can scarce tell the reason for the name, as do owners of restaurants called Rolex or Boston or Chicago.

SERISH NANISETTI

Saturday, Jan 05, 2008, Metroplus

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Is it biryani?

Everyone loves biryani, Hyderabadi kacche gosht ki biryani that is. The meat that falls off the bone, the long grained rice that doesn't stick to fingers, the fragrance of spices that can make stomachs rumble with hunger and anticipation and the Irani restaurants where it is cooked by the tonnes.

But is it biryani as it was created in biryans over campfires for armies on the march? Is it the same dish that the men created where they dunked everything in sight to create the one dish to fill all the tummies? Is it the same dish, the royal women, including Emperor Jehangir's wife, modified to create the multi-layered gastronomic extravaganza? Step into some of the busiest biryani joints and get an eyeful of the fragrant rice with a piece of meat or bone sticking out. Roll up your sleeves and dig into it with your bare hands - the way it is to be eaten.

A chat with some of the cooks and waiters at the favourite biryani joints reveals the good, bad and ugghh side of biryani. At most of the restaurants, the quantum of gravy that sticks to the meat and the food varies depending on the time of the day, says a gourmand who thinks lunch is the best time to get the real flavour of biryani. Only if it is dum will the fat rise to the top and leave the rice soft with all the flavours of spices and meat.

Currently there are three variations of cooking in Hyderabadi restaurants, only one of them is authentic dum. The first is a one-well-heeled eatery that sells thousands of plates of biryani in Secunderabad. What they do is cook the meat and spices in one huge cauldron with little rice. The rice is cooked separately. Step in and order, and you will get your mountain of rice with the meat buried in it. Part of the rice would be dry while a little of it will be sticky.

The second is a real travesty; the meat and the rice are cooked separately, then mixed before serving. Then there are a few biryani joints that do cook in dum but fiddle with the proportions of meat and rice where the proportion of meat is reduced and the quantum of rice increased.

An art

"Not just the cooking even serving the biryani with the right amount of meat and with the layers of rice intact is an art. That art is also dying," says Md Yousuf who works in an old city biryani eatery and claims he can serve 30 biryanis in as half as many minutes. You may get a taste of real good biryani only if you are lucky.

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Amidst all the informationis a nugget of dope

Birian the Persian word that means roasted or grilled gives the name and changes the cooking process from pilaf or pulau. If Timurlaine's army is credited with creating a rough version of it, it was in Akbar's kitchen that it was perfected where the Persian technique of marinating meat in curd was modified with the addition of ground spices, onions, garlic and almond to the marination mix. Even Aurangzeb, the austere Mughal who banished music, booze, dance and art from the palaces of Delhi liked what he called khichri-biryani. It was he and his governor of Deccan the Nizam who brought the mughlai dish to Hyderabad.

SERISH NANISETTI

Monday, Dec 18, 2006, Metroplus

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Twist in the tea cup

The hustle and bustle of Hyderabad is kept alive thanks to the innumerous chai-wallahs that feature in every nook and cranny of the city. These are virtually the lifeline of many people, some of who are addicted to the tea of particular joints. The city may have many coffee pubs, but its tea drinkers remain staunch supporters. And so, two unique tea places in different settings caught our fancy.

As you drive away from Paradise towards the end of Prenderghast road, is a quaint little place called Chai Ho Jaye. It is located right across the road from the supermarket and curiosity surrounding the name itself will lead you to the place. It's not quaint like a picturesque , homely tea parlour, but quaint in the sense of being a tea stall with a difference. A pan shop will easily rival it in size, but the scooters, cycles and motorbikes of its patrons parked outside is proof enough of its popularity. The tea is de-rigeur Irani chai — milky, with a bit of masala and brewed in aluminium kettles and pans and is served in tiny glasses, but its the tea boys inviting shirts with Chai ho jaye? written behind that sets it apart from the other chai places. The boys are often seen running up and down the road catering to tea lovers on that lane. Chai Ho Jaye though, can be a bit intimidating for women to visit alone.

... and more

Aslam Bhai can still have his Irani chai but for the loaded globe-trekker, Hyderabad has a new fangled addiction that is catching on. And it is also called tea.

Not your pauna, cutting, suleimani but the real full-bodied tea with flavour minus the usual distraction of sugar and milk.

In Toli Chowki, as you zip back from Gachibowli, there is an arresting sight on the left of some clear brew being poured into a transparent cup. But not the cup of intoxication but the cup that cheers and it is called Finjaan (Arabic for a cup of decoction).

Step in and the ambience says something about what you should expect. A counter with exotic tea labels like Jasmine Pearl, Cinnamon Cliff Tea, Champagne of Darjeeling, Blue Mountain Tips and a host of other tea tasters' delight, a few books on tea and some tools to get the brew right.

So, what do you do in a tea den? Of course have tea. In contrast to the Irani chai brewed for hours in samovars and mixed with brownish milk with dollops of sugar, the tea is served on the table. Take your pick and you get a carafe on your table with the tea leaves in the stainer, pour the hot water and let it brew. After a minute, you can have your sip of cheer.

Want something more exotic? Climb a few stairs and you can have your own tea ceremony, Japanese style with all the adjuncts in place. Right down to the low glass table and tablemats.

One warning though, there is so much glass and crockery around that it is safe to keep your children home.

SERISH NANISETTI

Monday, Jun 19, 2006, Metroplus

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New turn for cafés

Why don't Indians play in the world cup soccer?

Because the moment they get a corner, they build a restaurant.

This might be a chauvinistic joke in East Africa, but in Hyderabad, corners have always meant Irani chai. They are called Irani café cafes, but serve only chai. And there are over 10,000 of them. And they are changing. Not just the interiors with cane chairs and marble tops making way for chrome, wood and glass. Not just the addition of Chinese finger foods to the Osmania and Chand biscuits. But the very corners where they have existed are now being threatened as the city's roads get widened.

The importance of corners can be seen where it all started: the Karvan (the first Irani restaurants were started to serve the brew to the Irani cavalrymen who were part of the Golconda kings' frontline soldiers).

It is a crossroad connecting Purana Pul to Golconda, on one corner is Sunah Hotel, in another there is Hotel Mehfil, in another corner is Faizan Café and in the other, Bharat Hotel.

At pre-dawn darkness at 5 a.m., as the young sleepy boys scratch themselves, the Sunah is nearly full of people having their first sips of the hot brew. Cross the Purana Pul and you know that parts of the old city have already seen the effects of road widening. In one corner of Murgi Chowk near the Charminar is Mohammed Ishmael's tea shop Mohammedia, started by his father some 48 years ago. Step out of the place and you can be run over by any of the zooming vehicles.

"What used to be a 150-sft place is now reduced to a 50-sft place which has translated into a loss of about 20 chairs and a decline in revenue," rues Ishmael.

To be über cool you and your partner have to order a ek chai (don't call it single) and pour half into the saucer and keep the remaining half in your cup and: shluuuurp. At Chaderghat, sitting inside Niagara, which is one of the few Irani joints that are not in corners, the man serving chai says wickedly:

"It is good if they are demolished, some of the competition will be out."

But right now the big action is happening this side of Musi.

Omega, where countless debates were brewed over the chai is now a hulk of its former self, Paradise has retreated and reinvented itself as a hep place for biryani rather than an adda for chai.

What used to be Friends Café in Somajiguda is covered in blue plastic sheets.

But prepared and living for worst case scenario is the Garden.

"The talk about bulldozers coming has been on for past seven years. Three years back we even purchased furniture and placed it in the premises that we own across the road," says the man counting the money and dispensing tokens to the waiters.

"Have you got a notice?"

"No, but the fear of bulldozers is always there," says F. Khan, summing up the welling fear among the corner landmark owners across the city as the roads get widened by the day.

But, why are all the Irani restaurants in corners? Because, according to the lore, no Hyderabadi was willing to take up the space for Vastu consideration and the band of Iranians grabbed them.

So, is this the revenge of the corner vastu?

SERISH NANISETTI

Thursday, Sep 07, 2006, Metroplus

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LAUKI KA JUICE INDIAN RECIPE

LAUKI KA JUICE Healthy cooler - a must try! Preparation Time : 5-10 minutes Cooking Time : 5-10 minutes Servings : 4

Ingredients

Bottle gourd (lauki/doodhi), peeled , seeded, chopped 2 medium Amla (Indian gooseberry), sliced 4 Ginger, chopped 2 inch piece Fresh mint leaves 15-20 Salt to taste Black salt (kala namak) to taste Cumin seeds 1 tablespoon Lemon juice 2-3 tablespoons Ice cubes as required

Method

Put the bottle gourd, amla, ginger, mint leaves, salt, black salt and cumin seeds in a blender. Add one cup of water and blend it for two to three minutes.Add another cup of water, lemon juice, ice cubes and blend it for another two to three minutes. Strain into individual glasses and serve chilled.

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ADRAK NAVRATAN Indian Recipes

ADRAK NAVRATAN A tasty digestive lemonade. Preparation Time : 5 mins Servings : 4

Ingredients

Green chillies 5-6 Tender ginger 100 grams Lemon juice 1/4 cup Salt to taste Raisins 1/2 cup Dried dates (chuhare) 10-12

Method

Peel, wash and cut ginger into julienne. Wash and pat dry raisins. Deseed and finely slice dried dates lengthwise. Remove stems, wash and cut each green chilli into two.Combine all the ingredients and pour into wide mouthed glass jar. Shake well.Serve when the juice turns pink. It makes a tasty digestive ade.

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AAM KA ABSHOLA -Indian Recipe

AAM KA ABSHOLA Sweet and sour mango drink Preparation Time : 15 mins Cooking Time : 10-15 mins Servings : 4

Ingredients

Fresh mint leaves, 1 cm cubes test 6-7 sprigs Salt to taste Rock salt (sendha namak) to taste Roasted cumin powder 2 teaspoons Powdered sugar 1 cup Black peppercorns, crushed 1 teaspoon Lemons, cut into roundels 2 Raw mango 1 kilogram

Method

Place serving glasses in a refrigerator to be chilled. Boil and peel raw mangoes and extract the pulp. Keeping aside a few mint leaves for garnish, grind the rest. In a pan mix raw mango pulp, sugar, salt, rock salt and two cups of water. Cook on high heat for a minute. Add crushed peppercorns, roasted cumin powder and ground mint leaves. Stir and cook for two to three minutes.Remove from heat and pass the mixture through a sieve. Coat the rims of the chilled glasses with a piece of lemon and dab them on a bed of salt. Pour the prepared drink into the glasses. Top it with chilled soda. Garnish with the reserved mint leaves and a lemon wedge and serve chilled

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