In a nutshell:

A take home joint that serves pretty good Kolkata Biryani & rolls & excellent Chaap.

Meal for 2: Rs. 150 onwards

Home Delivery Numbers: +91 9999311547, +91 9312733913

Cuisine Type: Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian

Short Description – In case u r in a hurry:

Bongo bondhus in Gurgaon, good news for u. At last there is a Biryani shop that serves good Kolkata Biryani in Gurgaon – higher than Kolkata prices but lesser than Gurgaon standards. For all of my non bong friends – I think u will really like this a lot since u might not have a benchmark like most of the Bongs from Kolkata wud have.

The shop is located at the end of Civilization in Gurgaon (joking) – Sushant Tower in Sector 56. I will be surprised if someone tells me that an architect was paid a fee to design this mall / shopping center / I don’t know what. In short – distant location, horrible layout & pretty bad maintenance of the building.

On reaching there we realized that the shop is just a take away place while we ended up there thinking it’s a small restaurant. The guys at the shop were very nice & helpful. With no choice left, we had to get our stuff packed & eat back at home – except the roll that we had there.

Detailed Description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:

We started the evening with a Egg chicken roll. The paratha of the roll was not ‘laccha’ (like in the mughlai shops of Kolkata). It was plain paratha like u get on the roadside stalls & it was fried in very little oil – Gurgaon influence I wud say.

Since we were at the shop, we cud see that boneless chicken pieces were tandoored & kept aside already. On us placing the orders, the cook sautéed the tandoored chicken in little more oil & spices. Thankfully he did not add any tomato sauce. Just added onions & thinly sliced green chillies.

The tandoored boneless chicken was good to taste & flavorful. The paratha was slightly crispy towards the corner. Together the taste was good though it was quite dry – Maybe healthier than the real Kolkata version but at the cost of taste.

I wud give the roll a score of 3.5/5 in a situation where a good Kolkata roll like Kusum roll Park street / Zeeshan Park Circus / Ballygunge Dhaba wud be between 4 – 4.5/5.

Then came the biryani. For the uninitiated, Kolkata Biryani is a variant of Lucknowi Dum Biryani. It was introduced in Kolkata when the banished Nawab of Lucknow came to Kolkata with his retinue of chefs , nautch girls & loads of wealth. So essentially the Kolkata biryani is cooked in Dum style – rice & meat are slow cooked over a long period of time in slow fire. The two unusual add-ons to a Kolkata Biryani are a half-potato & a boiled egg.

The Biryani had long independent grains of rice with very good flavor of rice itself, the meat & spices – Full marks till here. The rice was however not as soft as say in Aafreen, Arsalan or Shiraz & was also less ‘oily’ than the latter. I wud not say ‘oily’ is a virtue but I guess that took away a bit from the feel of the biryani rice.

Since I reached the stall & cud see whats cooking inside, I saw something that they wud not have wanted me to see. The meat peiecs of the biryani were kept separately. As we placed order for the biryani, the meat pieces were sautéed with spices & added to the pack. I was very surprised at this act & asked – ‘Isn’t this a Dum Biryani where meat & rice is cooked together?’. The answer was ‘ Yes, of course it is Dum but we keep them separate post the Biryani is cooked so that it is easy & fast to pack!!!!’.

The taste of the mutton was good (4.5 / 5) – almost perfect but the texture was bad (0.5/5), thus making the overall mutton pieces ranking to (2.5/5). Reason – simple, it was hard & not anywhere near to ‘melt in the mouth’ that u get in the likes of Arsalan or Shiraz.
The egg was just boiled & inserted in the Biryani. I thought it was supposed to be sautéed for a while. The aloo was very good – though a tad more sweet.

Overall for the Biryani – I guess I wud call it good (3.5 / 5) if Arsalan / Shiraz is (4.5/5). The taste is good – texture has issues as described above.

For all my friends who have no ‘arsalan’ or ‘shiraz’ benchmark in ur mind, u will simple love this Biryani. This is better than most low to mid range Biryanis sold in Delhi NCR.

The dish that I loved the most at this place was the Mutton Chaap. Thick & spicy gravy that was mildly sweet (due to lots of onions). The mutton pieces were soft & tasty as well. Slow cooking the mutton with spices ensured that the flavors of the spices & the mutton intermingled.

Super liked this dish & wud say it is 4.5 / 5.

Caveat for the ‘health freaks’ – U might get a heart attack by just seeing the oily gravy. However, taste-wise it is just too good & u can take care of health by working out more for the next few daysJ ………… win-win, u see.

Overall – An eatery in Gurgaon that serves good food that u will enjoy more if u do not compare with the best ones in Kolkata.