As Indians we are blessed with the fact that almost every part of the country has a unique cultural offering. And they don’t come more unique than Amritsar where even vegetarianism’s harshest critics admitted defeat.
Anthony Bourdain, vegetarianism's greatest bête noire since Bengalis, said after eating at Kesar Da Dhaba in Amritsar: "If this is what vegetarianism meant in most of the places that practice it in the West, I’d be at least half as much less of a dick about the subject.” In this article, Avinash Mudaliar takes a trip through Amritsar’s lanes, searching for the answer: who makes the best Punjabi food?
Also, Avinash asked every dhaba owner, chaiwala and anyone willing to lend him an ear: “What makes the food so special?” And they said: “It’s the water.”
Of course, that’s not surprising since Amritsar literally translates to “the pool of nectar”.
PS: For our loyal foodies, we’ve linked every place’s Google Map location so all you’ve to do is save it for the future. Please note that Avinash paid for all his meals and none of the restaurants mentioned here had any inkling they were being ranked or reviewed.
The Holy Trinity of Punjabi Cooking
There’s a muhabara (idiom for all you International Board snobs) in Hindi that goes: Raag Rasoi Paagdi Kabhi Kabhi Ban Jaye (It’s impossible to replicate one’s tune (raag), one’s dish (rasoi) and one’s paagdi (turban). While raag and paagdi are outside our jurisdiction, we did find a few joints where the rasoi appears to be replicable.
Just like gym bros judge one another based on their Bench Press, Squat and DeadLift one-rep max lifts, the key to decoding, ranking, and quantifying the quality of Punjabi cooking is to rate them based on three basic dishes:
1) Sarson ka Saag
2) Palak Paneer
3) Yellow Daal
So, Avinash made it a point to try the sarson ka saag, palak paneer and daal at every place. There’s an elegance to the simplicity of these dishes which makes it easy to separate the wheat from the chaff. The restaurants which made the finals of the Saga of Saags – the culinary equivalent of Dance of the Dragons – were Yellow Chilli Restaurant, Kesar Da Dhaba, Brothers and Bharawan. Please note that being number 1 is worth three points, number 2 two points and number 3 one point.
Palak Paneer
1) Kesar Da Dhaba 🥇
2) Brothers Amritsari🥈
3) Bharawan Da Dhaba 🥉
Honourable Mention: Yellow Chilli Restaurant (it was Mutton Saagwalla)
Saarson Ka Saag
1) Brothers Amritsari Dhaba
2) Bharawan Da Dhaba and Kesar Da Dhaba 🥈
Yellow Daal
1) Kesar Da Dhaba 🥇
2) Bharawan Da Dhaba 🥈
3) Brothers 🥉
Overall
1) Kesar Da Dhaba – 8 points 🥇
2) Bharawan Da Dhaba – 6 points 🥈
3) Brothers Amritsari Dhaba – 5 points 🥉
And just in case you’re a fan of baingan bharta, the best place was Bharawan Da Dhaba, followed by Kesar Da Dhaba.
Bharawan Da Dhaba Vegetarian Delights
Long before Independence and Partition, a man from Sialkot (now in Pakistan) started selling Punjabi food in a tent in Amritsar. That tent became an eatery whose culinary expertise withstood the vagaries of time and economic churn caused by the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971, and then the 1984. The current owner Subhash Vij joined the business in 1975 after graduating and they have not looked back since and Bharawan Da Dhaba is now a must-stop.
Just a ten-minute walk from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the vegetarian dhaba is a favourite with all and sundry, and some of its more famous dishes include chole kulche, baigan ka bharta and paneer subzji. However, we found that while the daal makhni is a crowd favourite, sarson ka saag, palak paneer and the yellow daal are out of this world.
Gian Di Hatti’s Lassi
A few millennia ago, evolution played a clever trick dividing the world into digestive haves and have-nots. The haves were those who could consume the OG superfood milk as an adult and the have-nots were those who couldn’t. This ability to break down lactose (in milk) after becoming an adult is considered one of the best examples of natural selection in humans. This was essential because for a long time, milk was the OG superfood helping humans thrive in times of turpitude. It’s believed that 1/3rd of the human population gained this trait in just a couple of millennia thanks to famines and disease, in essence creating a superior group which has better mineral density, height and vitamin D.
Therefore, even evolution agrees that those who can relish lassi (the greatest form of milk that exists, the true crème de la crème of milk-based offerings) are superior, and no one does lassi better than Gian Di Hatti.
The shop is en route to the Golden Temple and there’s hardly anyone who doesn’t make a pitstop to savour this mouthwatering offering. According to Prabhpreet Singh, the fourth-generation owner of the shop, it was founded by his great grandfather Lala Gurditta Mal in 1927. In fact, his father Gurinder Singh and elder brother Charanjit Singh also sit in the shop to serve the customers. Besides, lassis, Gian Di Hatti also makes amazing khoya burfi, pedha and milk cake.
Chai Pe Charcha at Giani’s Tea Stall
There’s a delightful reference to tea in Asterix in Britain, which in our opinion is one of the top three offerings by Messrs Goscinny-Uderzo. On a trip to that sleepy island, Asterix and a group of Brits are forced to face off against the Romans without any magic option. And that’s when the tiny Gaul remembers that he has some tea leaves in his pocket and goes on to create British’s favourite non-alcoholic drink.
It’s a drink firmly lodged in the firmament of many countries, including Britain whose favourite dystopian author George Orwell even wrote an article on 11 Rules for Tea Making. Of course, the son of Bihar would’ve discovered utopia if he just visited Amritsar.
Amritsar makes great chai with the denizens preferring a milky sweet masala version as opposed to the kadak Mumbai iteration. While chai is a top-tier drink in almost every shop in Amritsar, if one had to put a name one would choose Giani’s Tea Stall. Not only is its tea top drawer, but it also has amazing kachoris, bread omelettes and paneer pakoras.
When a hardcore carnivore bows to the magnificence of paneer pakoras, you know it’s something special.
A Non-Vegetarian Side Trip
Loyal readers of this newsletter will be surprised with the lack of non-veg options and we wouldn’t want to leave them hanging. Some of the better ones that we tried in Amritsar were Beera Chicken House, Surjit Food Plaza (excellent chicken and mutton tikkas), Chawla’s white butter chicken and Pal Da Dhaba’s trotter soup and Friends Dhaba’s keema kulchas. Another notable mention is Makhan Fish and Chicken Corner, but if there’s one place on earth where it’s perhaps better to be vegetarian, it’s Amritsar.
A Delectable Dessert - Rana’s Fruit Cream
And finally, no meal is complete without a proper dessert and the winner in this case is Rana’s Fruit Cream, a non-descript shop that wouldn’t get a second glance in the city’s bustling Lohgarh area. While it might not look appetising to gourmands who value aesthetics over taste, a large fruit cream cup will make all your troubles go away. For a person like Avinash hailing from Mumbai, it gave Bachelorr’s, a legendary juice centre near Girgaum Chowpatty a run for its money.
The Great Kulcha Revolution: Can you smell what the pehelwans are cooking?
Every city has a dish that rises over every other offering to define its culinary landscape. Delhi has chole bhature, Kolkata the kathi roll and Mumbai the vada pav. And for Amritsar, it is the Amritsari Kulcha, a stuffed flatbread that’s quite different from the kulcha that’s served in other parts of India.
In fact, Michelin Star Chef Vikas Khanna recently shared a video of himself making an Amritsari kulcha and wrote: "Almost 40 years ago, I used to practice making Kulchas on the streets of Amritsar. Whenever I go back to the same places, they will always request me to make one. I think I still got it."
Soft on the inside and crispy on the outside, the Amritsari Kulcha is so delectable that it would make an atheist believe in God, because it’s not feasible that a creature which evolved naturally could create something which seems like the product of divine intervention. And it all started 67 years ago in the Walled City. Pehalwan Kulcha Shop at Dhab Khaitan is often credited with being the pioneer of the Amritsari Kulcha.
The story goes that in 1952, Pehalwan Atma Ram, a professional wrestler, borrowed the concept of the Peshwarai Khameeri Roti and flipped it to make the Amristari naan. North India’s warm climate made sourdough untenable, so he used maida and stuffed it with boiled potatoes to make a whole meal. Later on, tamarind-onion chutney and chana was added to make it a more wholesome meal.
Later Atma Ram’s son Nathu Ram, another professional wrestler took over from his father. But the kulcha's genesis is even longer. Its lineage can be traced back to Mughal kitchens. It was offered to Shah Jahan who loved it so much that he had it for breakfast and lunch, and the dish spread across the realm wherever the Mughals and Nizams went. In fact, Lahore’s culinary tradition was so similar to Amritsar’s that it was often said that if one toured both cities, one’s tastebuds wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Much like hilsa formed an important part of the clarion call for Bangladesh’s independence, the kulcha became the official symbol of the Hyderabad state flag thanks to the Asaf Jahi dynasty. Just imagine, choosing a kulcha while other states had lions and elephants as their official insignia. But there’s a good reason for it.
Asaf Jahi I and VII
The Asaj Jahi Dynasty (the Nizams of Hyderabad’s official title) was founded by Mir Qaram-ud-Din Khan Asaf Jahi, who was a courtier at the Mughal court. Jahi’s family had served the Mughals for generations
When Mir Qamar-ud-Din was appointed the Governor of Deccan, he was given the title of Nizam-Ul-Mulk. Before taking up the job, he went to meet his spiritual guru, the Sufi mystic Hazrat Nizamuddin Aurangabadi. According to legend, he was offered a meal of kulchas tied in a yellow cloth. A famished Mir Qamar-ud-Din devoured seven kulchas and the Sufi mystic prophesied he would rule for seven generations. And so, they did till the last Nizam Asaf Jahi VII was outmanoeuvred by another epochal man named Sardar Vallabhai Patel. But let’s not digress, that's a tale for another time.
While the Asaf Jahi dynasty eventually lost control of Hyderabad, the wrestlers are still going strong. Today, inside the Walled City, there are 250 kulcha shops within a mere 10-km radius and they are always teeming with foodies.
Today, Atma Ram’s grandson and Nathu Ram’s son Harish Kumar runs the establishment. They have stuck to tradition, keeping the kulcha oval-shaped and stuffing it with potatoes, mint, green cardamom, khada masala and ground garam masala. The only compromise is an olive oil version for health-conscious tourists but then again, they don’t taste as good as the original.
In fact, if you are planning a trip make sure you go there between 8AM and 2PM. A kulcha costs Rs 50 per piece, the unlimited chana is complimentary and the taste heavenly. So next time you’re in Amritsar, make sure you go with an open mind and an empty stomach, and you’ll be in a gastronomic heaven.
All the Eating Joints Mentioned in This Article
9) Chawlas
12) Pal Da Dhaba
13) Friends Dhaba