A Punjabi Palate

After a meal at Kesar Dhaba, one can head to Ahuja Milk Bhandhar in Amritsar for its famous thick, creamy sweet lassi, a rich treat, served with malai and almonds. A warning: It can take up to 15-20 minutes to finish the huge one glass, which costs only Rs 40. Outside the Golden Temple, a must-try is the kesar and rabdi stick and faluda matka kulfis. A trip to Amritsar remains incomplete without trying the staple diet of Amritsaris, crisp, hot kulchas. One of the best places to have fresh, earthen oven baked kulchas is Kulcha Land in Ranjit Avenue area. The stuffed kulchas (Rs 180 to 200), topped with butter are served with chana sabzi and onion-imli chutney and you can choose from stuffings like aloo, gobhi, pyaaz, paneer.

A few hours from Amritsar, the industrial city Ludhiana has much to offer when it comes to famous eating places. For street food, head to the famous College Road, where the Hoshiarpuri Chat Bhandar makes the best aloo tikkis, which are sold out in just a few hours. Also famous here are bread tikki, hot dog and dahi-bhalla. On the same road is the Rama Samosa and Sweet Shop, also popularly known as ‘Pandit De Samose’ known for its crisp, hot piping aloo and paneer samosas and incomparable, melt-in-the-mouth gulab jamuns.

Jalandhar’s Ajay Dongre creates his own version of Chhole Bhature.

Serving food since 1961, the shop closes in a few hours as soon as the samosas and gulab jamuns are sold out. At Pannu Ke Pakore on Gill road which makes aloo, paneer, palak, bread pakora etc the specialities last only a few hours, especially on rainy days. For tandoori tikka lovers, ‘Bukhara’ in Sarabha Nagar is a big hit, serving paneer, mushroom, aloo and chicken tikkas with soft rumaali rotis. Basant’s stick and matka falooda kulfis, Rawat’s fruit cream, Haqiqat’s sweet lassi and Manjit’s fruit ice-cream are the to-go places for those with a sweet tooth.

Among the modern eating spots in Ludhiana is Hawai Adda, a discarded airplane turned into a restaurant known for its North Indian cuisine, while ‘Tea Hut’ in Sarabha Nagar serves several varieties of tea, served in steel kettles and dhaba style small glasses along with the good old’ Parle-G biscuits.

In Jalandhar’s Lal Bazar is a small shop that for the last six decades has been serving kadhi-chawal for lunch and dinner and is so famous that now even the chowk of the market is called ‘Kadhi Chowk’. Now, the third generation runs the shop. “My grandfather Harbans Singh opened the shop and now we are also preparing rajmah and aaloo wariyan. We make the masala for the kadhi, which makes it so special, and is served with boiled rice and it’s our cook Ram Masih, here for the last four decades who is instrumental in creating this dish,” says 28-year-old Anshaypreet Sethi.

The Falooda Kulfi at King Kulfi shop in Jalandhar’s Imam Nasir market is ruling the hearts since 1946 ever since it was opened by Sardar Hukum Singh, who migrated here from Rawalpindi in Pakistan. Now the fifth generation is running the business, with the family using the same Standard Operating System (SOP) since 73 years. “We use milk carrying 6.5 % fat content and a set system of sugar and dry fruits,” he says, adding that their kulfi turned famous when the iconic Bollywood actor Rajinder Kumar, who was the relative of Sardar Hukum Singh, visited the shop in Jalandhar in 1960s and people turned crazy to have kulfi from this shop. Aaloo tikki with dal stuffing and ‘Pahar Ganj Ke Chhole Bhature’ are the other delicacies of this shop since decades.

The Falooda Kulfi at King Kulfi in Jalandhar.

Forty-seven-year-old Ajay Dongre came from Amroti in Maharashtra to Jalandhar at the age of seven with his uncle and started working as a cook in a hotel in his teen years. After working for two decades, he set up a small shop of his own version ‘Chhole Bhature’ and now has everyone eating out of his hands. “I only make chhole bhature, chawal and lassi and everything is sold out by 4 pm,” says Dongre, who runs Ajay Refreshment at Alaska Chowk of Jalandhar. Tempted? Take your pick.