Sikandari, no frills, fresh food, made in front of your eyes or in the alley next door. if your eyes can't see it being cooked, your nose will smell it being cooked.
my friend vishal and i had gone to this little joint that had been on our radar for more than half a decade. we finally mustered the courage to get past our elitist and health apprehensions to waltz into sikandari, one balmy september thursday evening. what we had ignored for the fear of becoming a debacle, was anything but. the aroma of something delicious accosted our noses as soon as we entered. that turned out to be chaap, or mince beef, but more on that later.
the menu is tiny, not negligible. 8 items, if my drooling memory serves me right. the size of the place complements the menu nicely. 5 tables which can seat 4 each. every table has a metal jug for potable water. the tables are clean enough to not have any immediate remains of food.
we had fried potato pieces (aaloo chop), mince beef (chaap), naan (rounded conish pieces of bread), gurda (kidneys), round beef kebaabs, ghotala (sweet and sour double-egg omlette) downed with thums up, the only drink strong enough to do justice to such a meal. the only items we skipped / missed were the omlette (single egg this, we had the ghotala instead) and the khiri (udder), the latter of which was over by the time we reached, 20:10. missing out on the udder was not a pleasant experience, the items to get sold out fastest are among the best, this is something you will notice anywhere.
The gurda is something to miss. It had paalak, lots of paalak. The preparation was the same as paneer paalak but the paneer had been replaced by gurdaa. Despite being a gurdaa fan, this was just unpalatable. Ugh! The kabaabs were crusty. Really crusty. The crust was half a centimeter thick. I wonder how long they had been frying in the pan. Crusty kebaabs were no fun, stealing the kebaab of its succulence. The taste of beef was buried under the taste of flour / maidaa. The ghotaalaa was nothing special. It was good, though. Cannot fault the preparation. It was a surprise to recieve the ghotaalaa in the form of an omlette, the first of its kind i've eaten in a restaurant. Tasty yes, mind blowing no. The aaloo chop was nice and my friend vishal polished off two plates, i think, all by himself. Like his guru Fc, he cannot seem to ever get enough of fried food.
This brings us to the item we ordered as soon as we entered, Chaap. Beef mince. Tasty, zingy beef mince. It was the only thing on the menu that got a full rating. The beef mince was perfectly spiced, not overpowering and was quite addictive. The plate it is served in is small but the price is proportional. The mince was fresh, tender and did not seem it had been cooking the whole day, unlike the kebaabs. The mince was fresh as the rate at which it was being sold mind boggling. Almost everyone who came in bought it. I am privileged to know why. It was one of the tastiest minces i have ever had and the tastiest beef mince ever. I am yet to raid Hyderabad and Lucknow for their beef minces.
Overall, if one discards the ambience and rates the place solely on food, i would give it a 3.5/5. If one takes ambience into account then you should question yourself, why am i here? If you're willing to eat in the presence of a cute cat milling around your feet and the aroma of food swirling in the air while discarding the dodginess of the environment, Sikandari is the place for its Chaap. Oh yes, the most expensive thing is Rs. 15/-, it is cheap.
hormazd
