Toothless wonder

It takes just about one arm to create the impossibly soft and moist Tunday Kababs but more than two hands to manage them before they reach your mouth and melt

What happens when Lucknow's legendary kababchis: Tunday Kababi decide to open shop in Bangalore? They challenge the shape, flavours and even angry red colouring of most city versions of kababs. For Tunday Kababs are soft, sublime, delicate and crumble at a touch. And they are mighty famous. So, when we heard that the famous Kababchis have started a branch here, we couldn't wait to try it out.



If you are looking for a nawabi atmosphere of dining, then, Tunday Kababi might disappoint you. This is a no frills kind of a place with a live counter at the entrance where you can smell as well as look at hot kababs sizzling on the flat tawas, some getting grilled in tandoors amidst handis and dekchis.
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The atmosphere is strictly clinical with simple tables and chairs and the decor is along neat lines. The walls are lined with images of famous cricketers who have visited Tundays in Lucknow over the years.

Tundays is as steeped in history as the rest of Lucknow is. This , more than a hundred years old, little kabab stall was started by a bawarchi with a missing arm in 1899 in the busy bylanes of the Chowk area of Lucknow. Tunda, as the bawarchi was nicknamed, is Urdu for without an arm. Originally prepared with beef, today mutton variations are also available.

What makes Tunday Kababs so special is the secret masala believed to be made out of powdering over 160 types of spices made by the women in the family and is a heavily guarded secret. These kababs are made with mutton or beef mince (the Bangalore brach serves only mutton) mixed with the secret spices and softened by papaya and grilled over hot charcoals. But sadly at the Bangalore branch, they serve only mutton and chicken.

We started our meal with Mutton Tunday Kababs (Rs 80) and a half portion of Barbequed Roasted Chicken (Rs 120). The roast chicken turned out to be regular tandoori chicken served with onion rings and mint chutney. The chicken was quite succulent and had been sprinkled with some secret masala which added to the flavour when we added a dash of lime to them.

The Tunday Kababs turned out to be the scene stealers as predicted. The kababs were soft, with the top slightly charred and crumbled at a touch. When we put a morsel in our mouth, the first expression that came to mind was melt-in-the-mouth but it's such a clich ufffdd to describe a Tunday Mutton Kabab with that expression. You really don't need any teeth to do justice to this kabab.
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The kababs were delicately spiced but was not hot at all and the meat had been minced so finely that no fibres were visible. Needless to say we gobbled it at one go. To go with our kababs, we had ordered parathas (Rs 20) and a Mutton Korma (Rs 135) as mains.
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The Parathas made with a dough of egg and flour were not chewy but soft and just perfect to mope up the very tricky Tunday Kababs. Pieces of mutton cooked in gravy thickened with cream, nuts and couscous came in the form of the Mutton Korma. The Korma was rich but surprisingly not very spicy and left an aftertaste of caramelised onions.

Tundays also makes rolls (chicken, mutton and paneer) along with fragrant biryanis (mutton, chicken and vegetable) and other kababs and gravies. But every other dish on the menu here can only play second fiddle to the great Tunday Kababs.u00a0

For dessert, there's only Awadhi Kheer(Rs 25), which tastes and looks just like phirni. However, vegetarians will hardly find anything on the menu except paneer rolls and gravies.

At Tunday Kababi, 479, KHB Colony, 5th Block, Koramangala.
Call 97315 53030
Tunday Kababi didn't know we were there. The GUIDE reviews anonymously and pays for meals.