I was really longing to eat some authentic Awadhi (Lucknowi) cuisine when my friend Rizwan told me about this restaurant in Pune called Nawab – Asia. Finally, last week during my visit to Pune I got a chance to go there along with a couple of friends for dinner. **The Setting** – As the name suggests, this place has two very different cuisines....
One is authentic Awadhi food & the second one is a mix of South Asian fare. It has a lounge like feel to it & is quite spacious. Its divided into two sections....one where there’s lounge music playing is the bar called Asia and another where the music is much softer.
We chose the later as we did not want to get distracted while digging in. **Now the Food** – The Menu boasts of a variety of Lucknowi kababs, curries (salan) & biryanis. It was so difficult to decide what we wanted as the description below every listing was so enticing that we wanted to eat everything we read. They supposedly serve good vegetarian fare but none of us even bothered going through that section.
We started with ***Gilouti kabab*** which is a patty of finely minced meat with some light spices. It just melted in our mouth before we knew it. I perhaps would have wanted it to stay in my mouth a bit longer so that I could savour the taste. Next came the ***Barra Chops*** which were roasted chops with a spicy marination. **The first bite and I was sure where heaven was – it had to be Awadh.*
As soon as I took a bite, there was an inundation of juices which stirred my taste buds. The meat was perfectly cooked with just the right amount of marination. The chops could have done with a little more meat on it as we were left scavenging the bones for more. ***Peshawari Boti ***was a boneless version of the barra chops and was ordered for obvious reasons. But I felt that the Chops were better. Needless to say, the starters were washed down by some chilled beer.
For the main course we called for ***Kheema Hari Mirch Do Pyasa*** and ***Khasta Roti***. The kheema though good, lacked a bit of spice which I feel is necessary for any Kheema preparation. The Khasta roti was crisp and went very well with the Kheema. We ended the session with ***Kacche Gosht ki Dum Biryani***. I had a lot of expectations from this one but it failed to live up to the high standards set by its predecessors. Probably we had raised the bar a tad too high. It was the best meal I had ever had until I found myself back at Nawab-Asia next day for lunch. I just had to mention it once and everyone agreed to go back without batting an eyelid. We just called for ***Sikandari Raan***. It can serve 2-4 people. It’s a whole leg piece of goat meat roasted and curried to perfection. The meat was succulent and and the thick gravy was something to die for. We had it with Pudina Paratha. None of us uttered a word apart from the occasional umm!!. The portion was huge and came on a big plate. After a while it was a no holds barred fight for the luscious meat. We were like a pack of wild dogs attacking a vulnerable prey. My friend Madhav paid tribute to the chef by swiping the plate clean & claimed to have attained Nirvana. That would have made **Mr. Preet Singh**, the restaurant owner, proud. I went & thanked him for the lovely food, great ambience and good service. One thing for sure is that any trip I make to Pune henceforth would be incomplete without a meal at Nawab.
*Note** - All starters are around Rs.200 & Sikandari raan is at Rs.490. Though a bit steep, its money well spent & am sure you won’t come out repenting.