YUMMRAJ demytifies the legend of Kake da Hotel
In a nutshell:
Perfect value for money proposition with some super YUMM, some just about YUMM & some ordinary food.
Address & other details: Outer circle CP
Meal for 2: Rs. 160 onwards
Cuisine type: nonvegetarian & vegetarian
Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:
As most of my Indian readers wud know, ‘Hotel’ here refers to a restaurant.
If good ambience is a must for u stepping into an eatery, Do not go here. U might come across uncomfortable scenes like swarms of flies, a guy lying down in the first floor corner, loud co-diners , heaps of semi processed onions or worst, even a rat. However, if u wanna have good to great food at prices lower than imagination, check this place out.
A restaurant that has been around for 80 years, Kake da hotel has quite a following. Situated in the outer circle of Connaught place, the hotel, like its neighbours (National Restaurant, Royal Restaurant etc), has a tiny seating area on the ground floor & has a slightly spacious first floor. The first floor is supposedly for ‘family’ crowd but I prefer the ground floor as that shows the real character of the place.
Very Few ladies cud be seen on the ground floor that is usually packed with individual / groups of men. Unknown people share tables due to lack of space. The area is quite crammed – u can hear almost every word that is being spoken in the table next to u.
The entrance to the Restaurant is beside a Glass front that has become smoky. Behind the Glass wall are a row of 8 – 10 dekchis (huge metal containers) on which meats of different kinds r constantly being slow cooked.
People walk in, order a curry, eat that with as many rotis they want, ask for just gravy coz that costs less (than ordering a full repeat of the dish with meat).
As soon as order is placed, the curry is picked up from the dekchi to serving plate & served immediately. The gravy is usually all over the plate & no one bothers to clean that up before serving to the customer.
There are several types of rotis on offer & Roti takes a while to make & serve – ‘garma garam’.
All food is made from pure desi ghee – proclaims a writing on the wall. In some dishes that comes out very clearly, in some others it does not.
By Delhi standards the prices r a steal. Price of the curries is approx. INR 130 – 140 per plate & rotis start at INR 5 per piece!!!
Service is as fast as it can get. Waiting staff have been around for years & some of them have become numb. They r obviously not ‘Hotel Management trained’ like their swanky restaurant counterparts – just being a normal nice human being yields good results. I tried asking our waiter for a recommendation. ‘All is good’ was the answer. I tried 3 times with interval of 10 – 15 minutes. Answer was consistent. He was however very attentive of the way we were finishing up. As soon as we were left with 25% of the roti, he wud appear – Do u want another one?
Detailed description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:
We ordered for a mutton curry to start with. The mutton was soft but not melt in the mouth. Pieces from all over the goat cud b found in the curry. The taste was good but not great. The gravy was ordinary without a twist…………….not the level expected from a Legend. I wud give this 3/5.
The roti was 5mm thick, made of atta, perfectly crisp at the corners & soft within. Excellent I wud say.
Post the mutton came Delhi’s famous ‘Butter Chicken’. This was very good to taste as it is but was not the real Butter chicken. The real one usually has a creamy texture & has cashew paste added to it. The one here was just a tomato base.
In terms of taste, the gravy was not at all tomatoee inspite of having loads of tomatoes in it. The gravy was infact very good to taste. The chicken was soft & had the perfect texture. I wud give this dish a 3.5/5 .
I just got a comment regarding authenticity. Look forward to ur views as well.
The third item that we had was Keema Kaleji – Goat meat mince with goat liver. This dish had a layer of ghee on the top & the gravy had the flavour of ghee & masalas. The flavours were as good as they cud get & so was the taste. I wud give this a 4/5.
Overall the rating of food at Kake adds up to 3.5/5.
I haven’t tried the vegetarian food here but I have not heard great about that either. I wud revisit this place to try the saag meat that have heard a lot about. Will keep u posted.