ANDHRA PRADESH: The biryani
forests of coconut palms, banana trees and coffee plantations took me to Tamil Nadu. The region is famed for its vegetarian breakfast dishes of crispy rice and urad dal flour dosa pancakes, and spongy, soft steamed idli rice cakes, served with fresh coconut chutney and spicy lentil sambars. Tamil thalis are typically served on a banana leaf, so when you’re done the leaf is simply folded up and recycled as cattle fodder.
In the temple town of Thanjavura, I enjoyed a vegetarian thali under the stars at Nila — the rooftop restaurant of the Svatma hotel — and at The Bangala hotel in Karaikudi discovered Chettinad cuisine, a robust, spicy, aromatic, non-vegetarian version of Tamil food. KOLKATA: Bengali cuisine Food in Kolkata is all about mustard oil, fish and panch phoron — a fivespice blend of nigella, mustard, cumin, fennel and fenugreek seeds. The city’s residents eat Bengali at home and anything but when out. Consequently, although you can easily find all the ingredients in the city markets, it is much harder to sample Bengali cuisine in restaurants. Two exceptions well worth seeking out are Kewpie’s, a family-run restaurant in Elgin Lane, and the Indian Coffee House in College Street. RAJASTHAN: Desert provisions Rajasthan is better known for its imposing desert fortress-towns than its cuisine. Vegetables are hard to grow here, so cereals, lentils, pulses, spices, ghee and milk are the essentials. To discover how inventive chefs can be with these, head for Shahpura Bagh in Bhilwara, a rural boutique hotel in a former royal summer residence where guests are taken to the local village and farm before cooking lessons around the pool. In the Pali district next door, set among the Aravali Hills in a former royal hunting lodge, Rawla Narlai offers what must be the most romantic dinner in India, a Rajasthani thali at an ancient step well lit by a thousand butter lamps under the stars.
Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh is the home of biryani: layers of slowbaked vegetables, meat, nuts, rice and spices. Cheap and cheerful biryanis can be tasted at pavement cafés among the Muslim bazaars of the old town, while sophisticated versions are offered on the antique marble terraces of the Taj Falaknuma Palace.
I booked a full-day culinary tour with food historian Jonty Rajagoplan. Our journey began in the vegetable market, moving on to a cooking lesson at a street hawker stall, then a crash course in samosa making in a rooftop kitchen in the bazaar. After high tea in an ornate old town haveli, I amazingly found room for a beltbusting “three cuisines of Andhra Pradesh” supper in the ultra-cool Aish Restaurant at the Park Hotel.
The House of MG ( Sidi Saiyad Jali, Lal Darwaja, Ahmedabad. Neeleshwar Hermitage ( Kasaragod District, Malabar.
Svatma Hotel ( No 4/1116, Blake Higher Secondary M Chavadi, Thanjavur; The Bangala ( Devakottai Road, Senjai Karaikudi.
Taj Falaknuma Palace ( Engine Bowl, Falaknuma, Hyderabad; full-day culinary tour — Detours Hyderabad (
Kewpie’s Kolkata
( ), 2 Elgin Lane; Indian Coffee House, opposite the Presidency College on College Street.
Rawla Narlai ( near Desuri, District Pali; Shahpura Bagh ( Bhilwara.
Trishna, Sai Baba Marg, next to Commerce House, near Rhythm House, Fort.
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