Urban Tales of Hunger: ANAND The Saviour

So it was another saturday afternoon and i was sitting at home, lazing around in my pyjamas, binging on some milkmaid left in the fridge when an over enthused foodie friend of mine called up. I could feel excitement dripping from his tone and somewhere in the back of my head i knew the reason behind his call. the call started with the usual "howdy's" and "whattup's" and all the swearing. 5 minutes into the conversation , the talk shifted straight to our most favourite topic. Food.

We both were hungry and out of options.We both had to go for work in the evening. The only viable option was picking something on our way to work. Those were the days when we both were interns at Hindustan Times and the timings werent a major problem, thanks to our "cool as ice" boss. We both got out of our lazpants, changed to a pair of cheenos and chappals and left for work.

Now the HT building is surounded by a number of small food outlets serving chili potatos and samosa chaat,but we werent in a mood for the usual knickknacks. I had to call up a friend from my food trip group for ideas.

Cut to the restaurant
We crossed the road and took the first right from scindia house. After coming across a few restaurants, we saw a couple of guys soaking boneless pieces of chicken in some heavenly smelling gravy filled with some out of the  world spices. The board outside read "Anand" and boasted of specialising in biryani.

We entered the place which looked a little shady at first with the dim lights and the torn cusions. The place was filled with a couple of guides with some goras who seemed to be thouroughly enjoying the food in front of them. We looked at the menu and without taking any time, we placed an order for a plate of chicken and mutton biryani, which the restaurant boasts about being one of  the finest in Delhi. The service was quick and within 10-12 minutes of placing the order we had our food in front of us.

Now this is the part where i am going to get into the details. The moment the food arrived there was an aroma in the air, which is unexplainable. It was a sweet smell at first mixed with the aroma of the desi ghee in which it was prepared. I took a good five minutes to just get over the smell of that heavenly biryani. The portion wasnt huge but wasnt too small either. I tried both the chicken and the mutton variants of the biryani. The minute i took a spoonful of the rice, it simply melted into my mouth. Now you as a reader might be thinking, that rice melting in my mouth is just me blabbering and exaggerating about my experience, but there is no other way in which i can explain how amazing that first spoonful was.

Food melting in my mouth was something i had never experienced before. I almost felt like i had just discovered a sixth sense in my body. A sense that was meant to just taste all the wonderful flavours that existed around me. i had almost forgotten about work. Now the flavour of the biryani was so different from what i had tasted till now.and for just a mere 120 bucks the biryani was a steal.
Anand is definetely one of the finest biryani makers in Delhi and with the price it comes for, it sure comes in the top 5.

Now what happened in between was that my foodie friend whom i had called for help, was working on his weekly food blog and Anand was one of the restaurants he had decided to praise. With the kind of food they serve, i am sure there are another million blogs coming on them. Go Anand!