How Ahmedabad's New Irani Restaurant Helped me Rediscover the Joy in Friendship.
Disclaimer: This review is preceded by a long personal essay of my relationship with food, intertwined with personal anecdotes of the sorrows and joys I've faced in my adult life
If you are just here for the food review, which is also quite comprehensive, I'd recommend you to scroll down to the part where it starts. If not, then here's the essay for you!
Food, and the act of consuming it, goes beyond the sensations felt on your taste buds, the grading of dishes on a spectrum of good to bad, or the attempt to carefully balance contrasting flavours to craft the perfect meal. Food has the power of being an extremely strong communal experience, whether it be something as routine as a few college friends enjoying a plate of momo after classes, or as special an occasion as a migrant worker meeting their family after months at lunch on Eid. Some may say that food is best enjoyed while shared, and the intimacy that is involved in sharing a plate with their loved ones has the power to elevate the platter on display to new heights, ones that even the world's most decorated Michelin star chef cannot eclipse.
My relationship with food is slightly different. Readers of my blog and followers of my twitter would know of my extensive journeys around Delhi - roaming around the city, exploring more than 175 restaurants over the course of a year, and touring out to places like Dharamshala and Lucknow just to experience the culinary delights they have on offer. But most of these journeys have been solitary ones. My year in Delhi was the culmination of two years of online classes that hindered my ability to socialise, a terrible fallout with the few people I did share a good bond with, and a debilitating episode of mental issues that made it hard for me to get out of my bed to attend classes. My college days in Delhi, which were supposed to be the prime time of my life, left me hopeless when it came to my future, love, dosti and life itself. In hindsight, a lot of this was self-induced, and I should have been more proactive in reaching out to people, making new friends, and rejuvenating old bonds. There was definitely a lot that I could’ve done to make my situation better, but hindsight is always 20/20. The past is the past. There’s no changing that.
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In these hopeless times, when the depths of my heart felt like the void of a deep ravine, food became a form of escape for me. My weekly expeditions to Humayunpur and Jama Masjid became the only thing I looked forward to, and the quest to exhaust my map of food places in Delhi became the only thing that gave me some semblance of purpose and direction in life. I became somewhat of a solivagant, roaming aimlessly from katra to katra just for a nibble of a kebab, and spending hours travelling by metro and auto to reach remote urban villages just for a shawarma. The first bite into a juicy, cheesy burger or a creamy, tender plate of butter chicken would overwhelm my senses, and momentarily, the void filled by loneliness in my life would disappear, replaced with the flavour of cardamom and the scent of kewra. Perhaps this too, is why I preferred the over-stimulating gullies of Okhla and Matia Mahal, with the horns of activas and e-rickshaws blaring an ugly symphony into the night sky, and the smoke of skewers shoving a blindingly grey fog in your eyes, to the hushed, upscale cafes of Jor Bagh and Khan Market, and is also the reason for my relative dislike of the milder Afghani cuisine; it perhaps is that the flavours in their food were not intense enough to overpower the sorrows induced by the void in my heart.
In 2024, I moved back home, in a year that was marked by contemplation and stagnancy. Eventually, I ended up reconnecting with some school friends, and rekindling friendships that had grown barren due to the physical and emotional distance induced by college. If 2022 and 2023 were defined by loneliness, then 2024 became the year when I rediscovered the joy of friendship. We spent our days playing pickleball, the Xbox, cricket, had more sleepovers than should be physically possible, went on trips, mythologised the simplicity of life, and made multiple visits to what is now my favourite restaurant not only in Amdavad, but in the entire country- New Irani Restaurant.
The New Irani Restaurant is a 120-year old café in the heart of the walled city of Amdavad, one which you would easily mistake for a Parsi establishment due to its name and reputation for good chai and muskabun. You won't find any bottles of Pallonji's here though, despite its confusing name, it is a Muslim owned-and-operated eatery, serving some of the most scrumdiddlyumptious Gujarati Muslim food that you have ever had. The benches of this establishment are more crowded during teatime than during dinner, as friends and families staying in the area grab a cup of their famed chai, dip a muskabun, or two in it, and spend hours gossiping, lounging and enjoying the little joys of life in the bustling old city. It is here that we, people who reside in the newer side of Amdavad with little-to-no connection to the walled town, except for ancestral connections and a shared love for chai, decided to make a regular hangout spot, travelling long distances at odd hours to relish the sense of community that we found within the four walls of this place.
We shared stories of sorrow, of love, of the most trivial matters that vanished from our minds not an hour after discussion, and of the most serious issues gripping the world and our hearts as well. It is at New Irani, amongst other places, that I rediscovered the joy of sharing a cup of tea with friends, of devouring a mutton bhuna and collectively relishing the joy of the meat. If earlier, I was a lonely bard singing paeans in praise of kebabs and burgers, now, I was the qawwali singer in a group of devotees who would sing a hymn in praise of their Lord.
The Chai here is well rounded, very creamy, the perfect level of sweetness, and very rich. Order one of their excellent muskabuns – ounces of thick, creamy white butter lathered between two pieces of fluffy bread – dip it in their chai, and you’re good to go. New Irani does this classic pairing very well, the richness of the chai completes the blandness of the muskabun, and the layered textures of the muskabun go very well with the one-dimensional chai; it makes sense why people sit here with their pals for an hour or two without ordering anything to eat. For other hot beverages, you can order their coffee or their Suleimani Tea (black tea, no milk) as well, which are honestly quite good too, but nothing matches the joy of a warm cup of chai and some muskabuns on a crisp Ahmedabad winter morning.
New Irani’s Mutton Bhuna is elite enough to rival the best restaurants in not only the city, but the country as well. The flavourful meat falls right off the bone, and sinks into a curry flavoured with simple masalas, allowing the meat to shine. It is a shame that Ahmedabad has a reputation as a vegetarian-only city, because this is truly one of the best-cooked plates of mutton I have ever had in my life. For this dish alone, New Irani deserves to be spoken of in the same echelons as Lucknow’s Tunday or Delhi’s Karim’s is (though the latter is quite below average in my honest opinion, but the mythical reputation it has amassed is one that New Irani desperately deserves).
New Irani’s other meat dishes are almost equally as good as their piece de resistance. Their Mutton Qeema is extremely flavourful as well, the flavour of the meat being enhanced with a gravy of whole spices, most notably pepper, star anise and clove. Their Fish Masala and Fish Fry are prepared using the Nariyeli fish freshly sourced from the coast of Gujarat, and while both are lip-smacking, I in particular enjoy the fish fry a lot – fried on a tawa to a golden-brown perfection, perfectly crispy on the outside and tender and succulent on the inside. A bite into it feels like a bite into solid gold, and it’s hard to imagine a place that does better seafood than they do in the city. Their Bheja Masala is dish that takes a simple preparation and elevates it to new heights by nailing the fundamentals on its head, a stew of goat brain flavoured with simple ingredients such as dhaniya, hari mirch, tomatoes and other masalas found in a normal Indian household. It’s hard to point out a meat preparation that would be considered below average here. Everything on their menu is at least a 9/10, and you really can’t go wrong with what you order.
They also have a variety of vegetarian dishes on offer. Their Egg Qeema is prepared similar to their Bheja Masala (and frankly, given the taste and texture of bheja is so similar to egg, it tastes almost synonymous to it as well), and is a good option for those looking to have a light breakfast. They have a vegetarian sabzi of the day, which is usually either sev tameta (sev and tomatoes) or mag nu shaak (a sabzi made of moong daal beans). I have had their sev tameta on multiple occasions, and while it does lack the punch of the garlic a good sev tameta usually has, it’s a perfectly serviceable option for vegetarians accompanying their carnivorous companions on an outing to this place -- very spicy, very flavourful, very soft.
2024 was a welcome departure from the two years that preceded it. It gave me hope for life, it healed the broken parts of mine, and most importantly, it made me believe again in the love that can be shared in friendships, the simple joys of drinking some nimbu-jaljeera soda after an evening scooty ride, the intimacy in sharing a morsel of food, and the joy of just being physically present with each other, regardless of whether we end up doing something or not. I'll always love New Irani for bringing me one step closer to love, one step closer to friendship.
Location:
Opp Sunheri Maszid ,Salapose Road,Relif Road, Ramanlal Sheth Marg, Bhadra, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380001
Recommendations:
Chai (8.75/10), Muskabun (9.75/10), Sulaimani Tea (8/10), Coffee (7.5/10)
Mutton Bhuna (9.75/10), Mutton Qeema (9,5/10), Bheja Masala (9.5/10), Fish Masala (9.25/10), Fish Fry (9.75/10)
Egg Qeema (9/10), Sev Tameta nu Shaak (8/10)
another gem from Amdavad :)