The Haleem Jamboree: Gyaarah Handi!
When you are invited by a restaurant to partake of not just one, two or three, but eleven varieties of haleem, the goat meat-broken wheat-lentils porridge delicacy cooked in “pure ghee”, which occupies the average Hyderabadi’s tastebuds and mindwidth during the entire festival, the mind boggles. However, when the restaurant in question is SodabottleOpenerWalla, (SBOW) you also know that you are in for a good thing.
So, there I find myself seated at the bloggers’ table, with Shaaz Mehmood, one of the partners of SBOW Hyderabad, hosting and taking us through the “Gyaraah Handi Ka Haleem”.
We start off on the two vegetarian haleems (which is considered quite an oxymoron by hardened Hyderabadis), roasted corn and vegetable haleem. While the vegetarian haleem was just about okay, I quite liked the taste of the roasted corn one. Some of the corn had been nicely blended into the haleem, while some kernels had been deliberately kept coarse to give it a crunchy texture. Perfect!
The Roasted Corn Haleem was the perfect choice for vegetarians with its well-blended and yet crunchy texture…
With nine more of the “haleem handis” to go, I did a quick elimination of two, the duck and turkey ones being fond of neither meat. Tried and out to the test were the other seven: prawn, fish, chicken,mutton, special chicken, special mutton and finally, Anaida’s original Persian.
Prawn Haleem
Special Mutton Haleem
I liked most of them, especially the prawn haleem though the fish haleem was a bit, well, fishy in taste thanks to the sea fish ingredient, “rawas” in it. But since most haleem is either chicken or meat, I shall restrict myself to talking about the other five varieties. Chicken and mutton haleem were good, nothing out of the usual, but the special tag for both mutton and chicken meant talawa gosht ( a Hyderabadi speciality of fried boneless mutton) and chicken 65 as garnish, and I liked the Special Mutton Haleem the best in that regard. Their signature special was presented as Anaida’s original Persian haleem, using the Iranian family recipe of pop star (of the 90’s) Anaida, who has a yen for cooking and eating.
Frankly, however, the “signature” special failed to impress and did not strike me as anything extraordinary. The experience of savouring various types of haleem was however both unique and worth it. There is even a haleem sampler with all 11 varieties on offer. (pic below).
The Haleem Sampler with all 11 varieties is worth a try !
The haleem is also priced very competitively at between Rs 150 for the vegetarian haleem to Rs 450 for the prawn haleem, The eleven-haleem sampler is priced at Rs 450 too.
(The Gyaraah Handi festival is running at SBOW until Ramzan, which is scheduled for Monday June 26th. Go for it! )
posted by đăng ký nhãn hiệu on June 27, 2017
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