In a nutshell:

Unmissable if you are in Ranchi & if you want to eat the real local food that is eaten at tribal homes here. Simple home like interiors, traditional floor seating & also dining table seating. A ‘slow food’ restaurant

Address & other details:

Instagram – ajam emba

Facebook – ajam emba

Google – ajam emba

Website : Ajam Emba

Phone for reservations / enquiries: 

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 

I first read about ajam Emba on chatGPT when I asked about best authentic local food in Ranchi. The other options given by chatGPT were regular restaurants with ‘local’ added in their hashtags with almost nothing/ minimal local on the menu.

Later our tour planner Vana Safaris also suggested the same & we finalized the option. 

Ajam Emba means अति स्वादिष्ट (very tasty). It was founded almost a decade back by Ms. Aruna tikrey, very well known in the social services space. Read about her bio here. 

We were lucky to meet Ms. Tikrey in person as she was around when we were dining. We had a short & insightful conversation with her.

The approach to Ajam Emba is through a narrow road which seemed to be a dead end initially but  we soon found out it’s not. Once inside, there was good car parking in the campus. 

On one side in the campus was a series of built houses with thatched roof. The rooms included the dining halls, the kitchen & an open area where one could dine as well. 

Two different types of traditional drums were kept in one corner. The nagara (flatter shorter one) sticks were made of deer antlers. 

We also saw a with a traditional raincoat made from dried leaves. 

During a tour of the property, we peeped into the kitchen. They had the traditional stone utensils for making paste, the ‘dhenki’ for de-husking paddy & converting to rice. The kitchen was very well maintained. We saw two ladies making the food we had ordered. 

In the dining hall there was an option to sit on the floor & eat, like in traditional village houses. 

We opted to sit on table-chairs. 

There was no menu card on arrival. The menu (photograph of a white board on which the day’s menu had been hand written) had been shared with us in the morning – we ended up choosing 1 portion of many items so that we could experience a wider selection of food rather than have a lot of a few. 

The menu every day is based on the best ingredients that are of course local & seasonal. 

The lady serving us explained each dish & fed us with a lot of warmth. 

Before we started to eat, she brought some water in a Kansa pot, to help us wash hands in the traditional way. 

We absolutely loved every bit of the food though most of those were different from what we are used to eating usually. It felt like very good home food, made with a lot of care, using the best local natural  ingredients. 

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

In the beginning we got a Soup. Maar katai – the base of the soup was ‘Maar’ (excess water after cooking rice/ starch of rice) cooked with a saag called katai & tamato. Garlic flavour made its presence felt. 

We got to know that Children are given this soup during winter.rate it 4.5/5

Kudrum chutney was made from a red flower petal called kudrum. It was tangy & had alternating sweet notes. Lovey. Rate it 4.75/5

Brahmi saag chutney (green) was really good to taste. Perfect seasoning. Rate it 4.5/5

We wanted to taste locally brewed alcohol. It was nice to taste. Not too sweet. 

Not rating this as we do not have a well developed palate for alcohol. 

The drink was served with a lovely dry dish made with Bengal gram, onions & garlic. It was juicy & had perfect seasoning. The grans were perfectly cooked – not mushy, not hard. Rate it 4.5/5

Ghugni made with the same gram had small pieces of potato in it. Simple, perfectly seasoned & really nice. Rate it 4/5

We really loved the Dhuska here. 

For the uninitiated, Dhuska is a traditional dish from Jharkhand and Bihar, India. It is a deep-fried savory pancake made primarily from a batter of rice and chana dal (split Bengal gram). The batter is seasoned with minimal spices for added flavor.

This was the best dhuska we have ever had so far. Very well fluffed up & soft in the center. Crisp on the outside. Bablu said the ones made at his home is not as good as this. Rate it 4.95/5

Dal pitha ol (elephant foot yam) chutney – rice dumpling with outer casing of rice flour & daal (lentil) paste in the middle. The ol was very very tasty but our throats started itching immediately after eating. We finished the full portion inspite of itching, as it was so tasty. Rate the pitha-chutney combination 4.5/5 

For cereal we had a steamed  crepe like dish named chhilka – made of Rice  flour (white) & of marwa (ragi) in brown colour. It was Super soft & paired very well with the food. Rate it 4.5/5

Sanai phool aloo small subzi (see the yellow uncooked flower in the foreground of the picture below). We liked it so much that we bought some flower from the local weekly haat (market) the next day before flying back to gurgaon & cooked it as per the recipe given by our driver in Ranchi, Bablu.turned out very well. Rate it 4.5/5

Aru ki subzi / aaru tiyan was curry of a root vegetable. This was similar to but different from ‘mete aloo’ that is popular in rural Bengal in winters.  Rate it 4/5

Demta ka chutney – ant eggs chutney was Very good to taste as it is. The chilly was too much for us & we got distracted towards the Seville quotient.

We could not feel the taste of the ant egg specifically like we felt when gitika saikia cooked a dish with ant eggs in mumbai at her north east pop up. Rate it 4/5

Handi Chicken was a robust, rustic & unputdownable curry of desi chicken. Absurdly good. The meat had resistance, yet it was soft & juicy. Meaty flavours were present in every bite. Rate it 4.95/5 

Handi Mutton was another great dish. Slow Cooked super soft pieces of mutton were just pure love to have. Wah. Rate it 4.75/5

We loved eating the curries with local variety of hand pounded rice

Overall rating averages out to 4.5/5. That’s a phenomenal rating considering so many dishes. 

Repeating again – if you are in Ranchi & would want to experience local food, this is the place to be. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BY YUMMRAJ.