Food blogger Kalyan Karmakar plays it safe by sticking largely to touristy eats in a book that is supposed to celebrate culinary treasures of India’s bylanes
One of the stopovers for The Bohri Mohalla Walk is Haji Tikka for its khiri kebab, kofta kebab and parathas
In the first chapter of The Travelling Belly: Eating Through India's By-Lanes (Hachette India), Kalyan Karmakar clearly states a list of things that the book isn't - neither a directory of best eats nor a recipe book. Fair enough. Then, he asserts that it also doesn't stress much about eating at more authentic places. What it turns out instead, is a largely autobiographical account. It is packed with stories about the restaurants that Karmakar, a popular food blogger since 2007, has devoured meals at - while growing up in Kolkata or after moving to his current base, Mumbai. He has also paid an ode to food in cities that he has visited like Lucknow, Delhi, Amritsar, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Goa.
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Bun Maska and chai at Yazdani Cafe, a recco in the book
Though the book warns us that we may find some of the places touristy, unfortunately, we're left unimpressed with the mentions. These are largely restaurants that most of us would know of, would have eaten at or can definitely find enough information about on the web. The Goa chapter, for instance, talks about the done-to-death Britto's at Baga beach while the Mumbai one features paeans to Leopold Cafe and Ling's Pavillion. Though credible, they aren't unheard of. While residents of any of these cities may find the food walks mentioned at the end of each chapter redundant (The Irani Cafe walk, for instance, is only about usual suspects like Yazdani Bakery, Ideal Corner, Military Cafe and Jimmy Boy), they may barely help first-time tourists either. For instance, the food walk in Jaipur is a vague all-day trail largely focusing on the famous Rawat Mishthan Bhandar (RMB).
Kalyan Karmakar
What makes for an interesting read here are recommendations by Karmakar's friends - who happen to be food writers, chefs and historians like Saee Koranne Khandekar and Dr Kurush Dalal - which have been woven into the narrative. For instance, Karmakar's Bori Mohalla food walk, laced with patrel biryani, gurda kapuda and khiri kebab, is something we'd love to try. And this information made it to the book only because Dalal helped him discover the neighbourhood. We expected better from a blogger who's been on the trail for such a long time.
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