Boju’s (1st floor, 32nd avenue, gurgaon)

In a nutshell:

If u haven’t been here, you have missed a lovely home cooked Darjeeling meal in gurugram.

An unreal experience- home cooked food served in a commercial restaurant. The recipes have not been tweaked much to meet commercial needs. Result – explosion of flavours, interplay of textures & simple food that tastes great.

Address & other details: boju’s

Instagram: boju’s

Facebook: boju’s

Meal for 2: ₹500 onwards

Cuisine type : vegetarian & 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.

YUMMRAJ rates all the food items & then gives 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

We got to know about boju’s from the social media.

What convinced us to go there was the fact that a mother-daughter from Darjeeling, who started off as home chefs, have opened a restaurant. The mother was & is a journalist by profession & the daughter is into digital marketing (got to know this from a post by LBB).

The restaurant is 4-5 months old.

Boju in Nepali means ‘grandmother’ as seen in google:)

The restaurant is located in 32nd avenue, on the first floor. Most customers enter the campus of 32nd avenue, go straight, turn right, do a full parikrama (walking around) the building & finally struggle to find the place. Happened to us in day 1 as well.

However it’s very easy to find Boju’s if you read this section carefully. As soon as you get off your car, look right. There is a staircase that goes up. It’s even before the security check booth. Just climb up the stairs & boju’s is the first restaurant on the first floor.

The restaurant has a visually attractive outdoor seating. With 8 months of extreme weather in gurgaon, this is not always enjoyable. However, breezy summer evenings & winter days can be real fun here.

Most of the space inside the restaurant is allocated to an open kitchen. There is a table with two seats & a bar with few high chairs, for customers. An additional table is also arranged when there are more guests.

However, keeping the space constraint aside, once we reached the restaurant we were warmly welcomed as if we have been to a relative / friend’s place. The interaction was so warm & lively that we did not get an opportunity to think about the limited space.

The fun of sitting in a small restaurant with an open kitchen is that we could hear the sound of cooking (frying, steaming etc) & also were constantly enjoying the aroma of good food that was either ordered by us or even by anyone else.

The floor tiles were colorful & attractive.

The menu card was descriptive & had clear sections

Loved the collage of framed black & white photographs of ‘life in Darjeeling’. They rekindled memories of our trip to Darjeeling in 2015. Read about the trip here – Darjeeling & see this amazing video

Crockery was all white, western – simple & elegant.

Boju’s also sells Darjeeling tea packets & some dips that they make.

Food was outstanding. We went back in a gap of two days.

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

Day 1

Mutton Sadeko – It had a Strong flavour of sesame, the Sourness was just right, Super loved the Juicy meat of the mutton momo. Lovely. The overall taste was Kind of chatpata.

Spices used in the sadeko were not on the face. The spices were effective, yet not too subtle. I would say the spices did not overpower the meat flavours. Wah

The Crunchy onions did a good job of contrasting the textures.

Never had a sadeko like this before

This was like what we can imagine as ‘home version. We would have eaten a commercial version’. Rate it 4.75/5

For the uninitiated, Ghoom is a beautiful place in Darjeeling. Ghoom chicken tasted fab – this had been cooked with no garam masala, simple spices that enhanced the flavour of the chicken, timur chilly that added to the flavour & gave a hot aftertaste. Wah. Rate it 4.5/5

Aloo dum was very nice. It again had simple spices & less oil. Home like. Loved the gravy. The aloo was not the best variety. This aloo dum could have been amazing with new potatoes or good potatoes from Chittaranjan park (like they sell in Darjeeling). Rate it 3/5

Iced tea was made with Cold Tea second flush Darjeeling & Assam. Loved the flavour of freshly brewed tea, balance of taste, the mild astringent feel of tea & the perfect temperature. Re-ordered the drink. Rate it 4.5/5

Chicken sekua was super subtle, did not have ‘on the face’ spices like most commercially made ones, yet it had a beautiful flavour of spices. The juicy chicken was slightly crisp towards the edge occasionally. This was cooked in an outstanding in-house made sauce. Wow. Rate the dish 4.75/5

Day 2

Pork momo had a super thin wrap – did not seem like normal maida. Tasted very good. The momo was juicy & was borderline low on salt. The taste & flavours was subtle. The momos tasted fab with the two in-house made dips – Peanut dip orange & tomato.

Rate the dish 4.25/5

Note: they bottle the peanut dip & sell it too.

Pork thukpa – loved the flavour of pork in the soup, the perfect texture of noodles – soft enough but not sticking to each other, independent strands. The soup had beautifully incorporated the toasted sesame flavour. The thukpa had small pieces of pork with the right amount of fat clinging to it. Ginger made its presence felt. Rate the dish 4.75/5

In-house made, add on condiment for thukpa

Chilly pork – not over sauced (like most places), taste not bulldozing into the senses, subtle yet robust- a great balance. The meat was soft yet chewy. The ratio of meat & fat was balanced. Bell Pepper & onions were crunchy & enjoyable. Loved it & rate it 4/5.