I woke up in a strange hotel room last Sunday and reached for my morning paper. Bleary-eyed, I worked out that I wasn’t at home, wasn’t even in India and that therefore, I would not get to see that week’s Brunch. Well, yes and no. Read more

One of the earliest Rude Foods I wrote was about the club sandwich. I confessed to being a club sandwich fiend and explained the lengths I had gone to in an effort to track down the origin of the club sandwich. The most likely explanation appeared to be that it was invented in railway dining cars on American trains some time in the last century. Read more

The simplest egg dishes that we eat at breakfast are the hardest to make. And most Indian restaurant kitchens don’t know how to cook them properly. So, I’m not the only one who loves eggs! When I lamented, a couple of weeks or so ago, that Indian cooks were unfairly neglecting one of nature’s great treasures, I portrayed the egg as a humble object, passed over by mighty chefs as they reached for the lobster, the lamb or even, the chicken. Read more

I have been eating Ritu Dalmia’s food for far longer than I have known her. Years ago, when it was almost impossible to get good Italian food at reasonable prices in Delhi, I began to frequent MezzaLuna in the Hauz Khas Village. Read more

Anybody who works in the restaurant business knows that the key to profitability often lies in the details – and in the mark-ups. Consider your own position as a punter. You go to a restaurant and order say, a tandoori chicken. If you are eating the chicken at a dhaba you’ll expect to pay one (quite low) price.
Read more

For as long as I can remember, I have been in love with eggs. There is no other food  (with the possible exception of milk, another ‘vegetarian’ animal product) that is more versatile.  You can eat your eggs in the simplest way possible, just by boiling them. If they are nicely soft-boiled, then all you need are a few fingers of toast and some salt and pepper. Read more