In a NUtshell:

A restaurant inside Bihar bhawan in delhi that serves very enjoyable Bihari food

Address & other details:  The potbelly

Meal for 2: ₹300 onwards

Cuisine type :  vegetarian and non vegetarian

Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has paid for the full Bill & tips also. http://www.yummraj.com does not have even one featured / sponsored reviews.

 

 

YUMMRAJ believes in going to a restaurant in anonymity, as a normal guest, experience everything & give a honest account of the same to you.

I rate all the food items & then give a final overall rating which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster

Short description- in case u r in a hurry

Years back we went to a restaurant in a village in the megapolis of delhi – Shahpur Jat and enjoyed a lovely afternoon in a restaurant called potbelly. Interesting name that is unique and sticks on to the mind. We loved our food there and the memory stayed on.

Delhi is an interesting city in terms of themed restaurants serving regional cuisines of india and also food from across the world. Two other cities where I have lived , mumbai and kolkata, are no match.

Bihari cuisine is among one of those cuisines that had almost no restaurants those days and my exposure to the cuisine was at few of my Bihari friend’s houses. Potbelly came as a relief to people who had no access to eating at a friend’s house.

Few months back my friend Varun sent me a picture of a dish ‘Khara masala chicken’ he had absolutely loved and said he ate it at Bihar bhawan. So we decided to visit Bihar bhawan with Varun in my next visit to delhi.

Once there, I realized it was potbelly who was running the canteen of Bihar bhawan.

The canteen had to be accessed thru a path along a lawn. Near the entrance of the Restaurant was a whole setup of Littis being made.

Inside the restaurant the decor was rustic and beautiful. Loved the attention to detail.

The menu card was a long one. It had a very nice cover.

Water was served in a copper tumbler.

Service was warm, partially professional, a lot like being invited in someone’s home – in short, great.

Loved the food.

Detailed description – in case u hv the time to njoy reading:

As we sat we were served 4 kinds of chutneys. Loved all of those.

We first ordered Litti mutton. It had 3 littis, baingan chokha, aloo chokha and mutton curry.

For the uninitiated, in oversimplified way, Litti is an atta ball with sattu (powdered gram) stuffing. Traditionally these were cooked with heat generated from charcoal and cowdung cakes.

The Litti at potbelly had a crisp outer layer and it was perfectly cooked ( a big challenge of Litti is to get the layer crisp – a bit here and there makes it hard / rubbery.

The filling was very good. Loved the pungency of raw mustard oil and the flavours of sattu.

Loved munching it as it is as well as with the accompaniments. Rate it 4.5/5

Baingan Chokha was lovely. Perfectly seasoned. Smoky flavor and great to taste. Rate it 4.5/5

Aloo chokha was very good as well. Loved the fact that it was a bit lumpy rather than being uniform. Perfectly seasoned as well. Rate it 4.25/5.

Mutton curry was very good. It had an intense strong taste. Flavours of meat were almost overpowered by flavours of masalas. Taste was very good. Rate it 4.25/5

Khara masala chicken with paratha came next. Excellent I must say – coming from a person not too fond of broiler chicken. The spices made their presence felt. Thick and spicy (not hot) curry was just too good. Chicken pieces were perfect. Rate it 4.5/5

Once we were done with the above two, we sought suggestion from our server. He recommended Champaran style mutton and it turned out to be a class apart. Mostly dry gravy with flavours of meat expressing themselves very well. Excellent to taste and melt in the mouth texture. Very different from the rest, yet outstanding. Rate it 4.75/5

Stuffed paratha came along with champaran mutton. Super soft, warm and great to taste. Rate it 4.5/5

Dahi raita (thin dahi based liquid) with chonk was outstanding as well. We drank it till the last drop. The tempering on top made it even better. Rate it 4.5/5

We were so full after all this that we skipped dessert. We walked out of Bihar bhawan , turned right and a little ahead found a paan shop buzzing with activity. As we reached there he asked our preference. What happened next was memorable – the guy came up with a paan Slightly smaller than a tennis ball, held my head with left hand, asked me to open my mouth and shoved in the paan inside!!! That’s how they feed paan here. After few minutes of shock we started enjoying the paan. Try it out if u eat at Bihar bhawan.

Rating of food at Bihar bhawan averages out to

Wud surely revisit.