Punjabi Tadka, Uttam Nagar

For good quality Tandoori Chicken in Uttam Nagar, check out Punjabi Tadka on Najafgarh road. This restaurant is between the Uttam Nagar East and West Metro stations on the busy main road. Make sure you are picking up your dish hot and fresh from the shop, because ordering it on Zomato/Swiggy, we realised the quality dips a little. After taking out chicken from the Tandoor, it is spiced up with light lemon juice, butter, milk cream and their in-home spicy mayonnaise. This extra concoction makes the Tandoori chicken different from the normal, dry variety. The owner is a friendly guy who will happily answer your queries related to the various items on the menu. There are 3 tables inside, if you wish to enjoy the food at the establishment.

Keema Naan with Gravy is average and so is lemon chicken. We thought lemon chicken would be treated differently but that was not the case. Lemon chicken was basically tandoori chicken with lemon and a little more turmeric (for that extra yellow colour). Keema Naan was nicely stuffed, soft and buttery yet the keema had a tough texture to it. Normally you would expect the Keema to be soft and melt-in-your-mouth type.

I would definitely recommend Butter Tandoori Chicken at this outlet because it’s tasty and treated differently.  

Waffles at Giani's, Rajouri Garden

After having dinner in a restaurant in Rajouri, we were looking for some dessert when we spotted Giani’s nearby. Giani’s is a chain of dessert parlors in Delhi operating for the last 62 years. They have about 52 stores in Delhi NCR.

These days they have added Waffles to their menu. Not sure why I could not spot waffles on their menu on Zomato, but the same is visible on Swiggy (https://www.swiggy.com/delhi/gianis-near-mota-singh-school-janakpuri-janakpuri).

Zomato should keep the updated Menu on their website. After all, it’s a go-to website for foodies.

Moving forward, we ordered Giani’s special Waffle and another one of the Strawberry variety. When these were served, we thought it would be a good experience. Unfortunately, Waffles is not something that Giani’s is good at. The Waffle had turned soggy under the weight of chocolate sauce and ice-cream. The chocolate sauce or homemade Nutella was too sweet. The entire concoction was so sweet and wet, we regretted ordering it. Visually too, it was not appealing with sauce lines visible all over the periphery of the plate. The Strawberry slices were not sweet and with so much sweetness around, it tasted like it was sour (lol).

Overall it was a bad experience, and I would advise foodies to keep away from Waffles at Giani’s. Try IHOP at Cyber Hub or Select Citywalk and you might fall in love with Waffles all over again.

Tippling Street, Rajouri Garden

It was our Marriage Anniversary and we were researching for restaurants on our favourite website Zomato for that perfect experience. The inspiration of visiting a restaurant on our Marriage anniversary came from our Honorable CM Arvind Kejriwal who takes his wife out to their favourite chinese restaurant on their anniversary. Not a bad idea at all. Turns out our busy politicians are romantics too. :)

After a few minutes of research, we zeroed on Tippling Street in the Rajouri Garden area. No prior reservations are required so Saturday evening we walked up to the place and it looked like a busy weekend for the management. They have a desk at the entrance on the ground floor where guests are guided to the 2nd floor for entry. It appeared the first floor was occupied by some other establishment.

The first thing one notices on entering the property is their impressive, imposing bar area with floor to ceiling racks of different kinds of booze bottles. The tables were occupied on the second floor so we quietly walked up to the third floor where we chose a seat near the bar railing where we could enjoy the view of the imposing bar, listen to the music and taste our food.

One of the Staff members arrived with the menu as soon as we were seated. We ordered Starters: Tom & Jerry (Stir fried fish in Chilli Garlic sauce) and Make your own platter Non-Veg (Chicken Tikka in 3 different spicy flavors), Main Course: Lungi Dance Chicken with Malabari Parantha and Concoction drinks: Paradise Island (Vodka with watermelon, peach, orange and cranberry with mint) and Banarsi Paan Mojito.

First the drinks arrived and Paradise Island was an absolute delight. The taste and flavour were pleasant and thin slices of fresh watermelon in the drink were sheer joy to the taste buds. The Banarsi Paan Mojito was good, except that it had a stronger lime lilt to it that made us vote for ‘Paradise island’ as the better part of our ‘Cocktail’ experience.

The crispy stir-fried fish stood out among the starters. It was tastefully done with a crisp layer outside and tender flesh inside. The garnishing, level of spicyness and food presentation was really good.

The main course was a slightly disappointing because both Lungi chicken and Malabar Parantha were below expectations. The chicken pieces and gravy were regular stuff and Malabar Parantha looked almost like buttered Tandoori Roti.

Nevertheless, it was a good experience visiting the outlet. Polite staff, a clean spacious property, music in the background and quick, timely service added to the positive experience.

Thank you to the staff of Tippling Street for hosting us and making our evening memorable.