Delhi Lens: Monuments: Nawaab ka Masjid, Chawdi Bazaar, Old Delhi

Tiny matchbox shops line both sides of a congested road. A mêlée of pedestrians, cycle rickshaws, two-wheelers and a few tempos are a cause for constant traffic jams. A lot of the buildings are crumbling and dilapidated. There’s a mess of electrical wires overhead. Everywhere you look there is chaos.

And then suddenly, while looking up at that jumble of old buildings, you spot a delightful color combination – terracotta and blue. You pause, raise your camera to your eyes, zoom in, and see a beautiful carved wall. You click a picture, but keep staring at that building as a sea of humanity passes you by, gazing upwards, awestruck, spellbound.

Until the shopkeeper – where your husband, oblivious to your delightful find, is busy buying wood working tools to fuel his hobby – moved by your stillness and your interest in photography, tells you that the building you’re staring at is a masjid. So while he pulls out the tools and makes the bill for your husband, both of you cross the road and climb up a flight of stairs to reach the mosque.

Your husband, who is ahead of you, suddenly turns towards you at the head of the stairs and says “Namaaz is going on, let’s go.” But before you can even process this disappointing news, another man sticks his head out and says “Oh no problem, please come in. Feel free to take pictures. And take off your shoes before you step into the courtyard.”

So you walk on up, give your husband a cheeky grin, and freeze.

Close up of a carved block of stone at the masjid

The masjid is far more beautiful than you had imagined. And, as the shopkeeper said, it’s unique. Because unlike any stone façade you have seen anywhere in the world, this mosque isn’t made of carved stone. It’s made of embossed stone. Yes, it means that the flowers and vines are not cut into the stone; instead, the stone around the shapes has been cut and smoothed away.

The entire mosque is made of red sandstone. Well preserved. Neat and clean. There’s no air of religious fervor here – instead, there’s a quiet spirituality. You can forget about the crowd just one flight of stairs down. The seething humanity, the chaos, the pollution, all of it just melts away. It’s a place where you feel connected with the divine…the universe…yourself…

The masjid itself is 200 years old. Or 500. It depends on who you ask. No one seems to know exactly when it was built. All they know is that it definitely dates from British times. There’s an “English flower” carved on the entryway to prove it. They say the flower isn’t to be found anywhere in India, though they cannot tell you its name. When you ask a gentleman who has just finished his prayers what the name of the masjid is, he shrugs and tells you he is not a regular here.

The “English flower” carved at the entry to the mosque

You finally meet the caretaker, who tells you that the masjid is called Nawab ka Masjid – and you think that is a fitting name. He shows you around the place, showing you entire pillars and walls constructed of one piece of stone. He invites you inside and shows you around. Like all mosques, there are no figures or idols here, just a blank wall with a marble chair pointing towards Mecca. But the pillars are beautifully carved. The atmosphere within is serene. And you come away knowing that you have seen something unique…a structure that will live on in your heart for years to come.

Delhi Lens: Olive Bar & Kitchen – restaurant review

Yes, as usual, I am late to the party that is Olive. But, as they say, better late than never!

When mom decided to come to Delhi, I was all in a tizzy planning fun things to do with her over the weekend, on the days I could manage to take off from work, and in the evenings after office. One place that was at the top of my list was Olive.

So on a Friday afternoon, dressed to the nines, we hit the road and made our way there. And boy, were we in for a treat!

Olive is an Italian restaurant, part open part indoors. We chose to sit outside, under the shade of an ancient banyan tree on a cool winter afternoon. The seating is spread apart, so you have a bit of privacy at your table and room to let your eyes wander. From the huge banyan tree to the open kitchen to catching glimpses of the interior of the restaurant, from where a blue shelf was winking out at us.

Examining the menu, we decided to take things slow…to stretch the experience of being there for as long as we could. The first thing to arrive on the table was a bread basket, and boy! Was that bread good! Warm from the oven, soft and fluffy and light. It’s the best I’ve eaten anywhere – hands down.

For our starter, we chose the Classic Panzanella, with wood oven roasted peppers, crusty country bread and red wine cumin dressing. The dish was beautifully plated, and yummy, with each bite leaving an explosion of flavors on the palette.

Next, we had a spinach, sun dried tomatoes, olives and feta wood fired pizza with a stone ground organic whole wheat flour pizza base, which again was very good. The only complaint – once it got cold, it became quite chewy. I guess you could put that down to the thin crust and to the fact that we were sitting outdoors on a cool winter afternoon.

For the pasta, I chose a tomato sauce with bocconcini and smoked scamroza. It had a flavor unlike anything I’ve ever had before, with the dominant one being that of the smoked scamroza, and I loved it, but mom didn’t care for it too much.

In between the courses, they served us a bitter-sweet fresh fruit sorbet to cleanse our palette and at the end of the meal we were served Petite Fours – two chocolates and a pretzel each.

Overall, I’d give Olive 4 of 5 stars – one star less because mom didn’t like the pasta and the pizza turned a bit rubbery towards the end. But I will be visiting Olive again…soon!

Delhi Lens: Andhra Bhavan, CP – restaurant review

I’ve heard rave reviews about Andhra Bhavan from friends and even from the husband, but never had the opportunity to go there myself until recently. And boy, was I in for a treat!

Located in the quiet, tree-lined Ahsoka Road in the Connaught Place area, inside the Andhra Bhavan, is this small little foodie paradise. It scores high on food and low on ambience – be warned, it is a canteen. It is crowded. And noisy. There are plastic tables and chairs. You have to wait for a table. But it is so worth it!

We reached there around 3:00 pm on a Saturday. Most of the other patrons looked like local Andhraites, an excellent indicator of the quality of the food. And the food is cheap. I mean, seriously cheap. The thali is pure vegetarian, meats are ordered as a side dish. Since both my friend and I are light eaters, we opted for one side dish each – a mutton fry and a chicken fry – along with our thalis. And that set us back by a grand total of INR 460. Which is what a single dish costs at most establishments. Oh, and did I mention it’s an unlimited thali?

Since we arrived for lunch at 3:00, we were able to get a table immediately and the crowd started thinning soon, so overall, I’d say that’s a good time to visit. Just have a slightly heavy breakfast so you don’t faint on your way there and you’re set!

The thali has 3 vegetables, rasam, sambhar, dal (lentils), 2 poppadams, puris, rice and a sweet dish. On that particular Saturday we had pumpkin, which was nicely mashed up and retained its sweetness; a tomato, onion and courgette vegetable, which almost tasted like a chutney – the tanginess of the tomatoes complemented perfectly with the slight sweetness of the onions; and potatoes, which were quite similar in taste to the potato filling in dosas – not a taste I am particularly fond of. The rasam was piping hot and spicy without burning the tongue. The sambhar was very flavourful, not like the tamarind-heavy concoction that most run-of-the-mill South Indian restaurants serve. You could taste the flavours of the dal with the tamarind and other spices and the individual sweetness of the vegetables. And the mutton fry was simply to die for! Soft, melt in your mouth bite-sized pieces of mutton flavoured to perfection with the spices, coconut and curry leaves that Andhra cuisine is famous for. The chicken fry also had its own distinctive look and taste – a perfect melding of the spices and the meat.

There are also a number of pickles on the table, but I didn’t try any. What you must have, though, is gunpowder (also kept on the table). It’s made with a number of dals and spices, including split gram, moong dal, chana dal, red chilli powder, black pepper, asafoetida, cumin seeds and salt dry roasted and ground together into a powder. You take a couple of spoons of gunpowder, put 1–2 teaspoons of ghee over it and make it into a paste. Have it with rice. Yummy!! I had it in copious quantities – and unlike what I feared, it wasn’t unbearably fiery. Or maybe my palette has evolved!

Once we started eating, all conversation stopped, so engrossed were we in the flavours and the food. The staff was courteous, and they came around with re-fills as soon as we could ask for them.

All-in-all, if you can ignore the ambience, this place is a must-visit for the food. I know I will be going back for more soon!

Delhi lens: 7 Degree Brauhaus – restaurant review

Welcome to a new series on Modern Gypsy – Delhi lens. As part of this series, I’ll be focusing on the Delhi-NCR region, bringing your posts on the eating out culture in the city, interesting shopping destinations and tourist  spots.

What better way to kick off this series that with a restaurant review! I’m a self-confessed foodie. Though I am a reluctant cook, when I do step into the kitchen, I almost always step out of it with a masterpiece – unless I’ve been baking, then I just stomp out in tears!

But, what can I say? Good food just makes me happy! And I love experimenting. So, when I heard of a German micro-brewery that had opened up in Gurgaon, I just had to go and eat for myself!

7° Brauhaus claims to be an authentic Bavarian microbrewery and kitchen, and their interiors sure reflect it. The ambiance is really nice – they’ve tried to create an Oktoberfest kind of feel in the restaurant, with large Chestnut trees around which tables are strewn around.

Seeing as we were visiting a brewery, beer had to be ordered. But since neither of us are beer drinkers, we opted for a Shandy (light beer with lemonade). What can I say – the beer was kind of palatable, until we had a few bites of food, after which it was horrible. The bitter after taste I got from the beer initially was replaced by a bitter taste. Period. I don’t know – maybe the lemonade sank to the bottom after a while? But, please, don’t trust my judgement on the beer – I hate the brew! I just ordered it in the spirit of things!

Where you can trust me is on the food. And that, I have to say, was delicious!

We started with the 7º Brauhaus non-vegetarian platter that came with chicken fingers, calamari rings, prawn skewers, lamb balls and minced meat pie. All of which was pretty good. I guess it’s hard to go wrong when you fry things up!I generally am not too fond of calamari – I find it too rubbery and chewy – but these were quite good!

Next, we ordered the Flammenbrot, a light crispy pastry base topped with soft cheese, caramelized onions and forest mushrooms. Now this dish, it was brilliant! The pastry was soft and flaky, the mushrooms and onions were flavorful and the cheese had melted nicely into the topping.

For the main course, we chose the Nurnberg Bratwurst, which was served with pretzel, fries and a green salad. The sausages were soft and juicy and the balsamic reduction drizzled on them gave it that extra bit of oomph. The pretzel was nice and hard and salty, the fries were done to perfection and the house dressing on the salad was quite yummy.

Next up was desert – Home-made Vienna Apple Strudel served with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream in a cute little waffle cup. The Apple Strudel was the perfect end to our wonderful meal – not too sweet with a perfectly balanced cinnamon flavor.

Overall, this is a wonderful place for foodies. I know I’m going to be coming back here soon – I already know what I want to try next!