Wednesday, August 09, 2006

A Random Plate of Dum Biryani

Dum Biryani

One of my Indian co-workers says that his favorite dish in the world is dum biryani. I happened to see some guy selling it today at some random hawker stall, so I figured that I would give it a shot to see what it was all about. He gave me a choice of chicken or mutton; I opted for the mutton.

Maybe I got my hopes set too high, but it turned out to be nothing more than just a simple plate of rice and curry, together with some pickled vegetables on the side and a crispy papadum. Actually, I did rather enjoy the taste: this guy made his nice and spicy, and it all paired up very well (and the portions were very generous). It was quite satisfying in the end. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that it is my favorite dish in the world, but I'm sure that there are so many variations of this thing too that there are probably some great ones out there that will hopefully knock me off my feet.

11 comments:

lol said...

I kind of remember dum biryani as having the rice and meat both cooked together (no gravy too).

This looks more like Nasi Biryani...

Anonymous said...

Yes Dum Briyani is a big pot of basmati rice with the meat pieces cooked together.

Thats definitely Nasi Briyani (another variation with the meat sauce poured on top).

Anonymous said...

yes, dum briyani has the meat cooked in the rice, my impression is also that it's not gravy laden as a result but has the gravy more of a dry paste. The meat helps to infuse the rice with more flavour. What you ate may be normal nasi briyani (of which there is also good and not so good), not dum briyani.

Anonymous said...

I had it at Masala Art. There is a promotion now till September. Buffet at $16 for lunch and $22 for dinner. They charge $13.5 for chicken briyani on their menu. So for $16, you get to eat as much as you can. It claims to have the longest North Indian Buffet spread in Singapore too.

bma said...

Wow, so I got duped, eh? OK thanks for clarifying. That's just all the more reason for me to go find the real stuff then.

Ah yes...Masala Art...those are the guys next to Inle Myanmar and Komala's. I figured that it wouldn't be good, seeing that it was a buffet. Is the food there any good?

Anonymous said...

Hey bma, have you tried any south indian food? My favorite indian food is dosa with sambar. Have you run into any south indian restaurants in your travels?

Anonymous said...

There's a stall at Tekka market (the hawker centre; not Tekka Mall) selling the most delicious mutton briyani i have ever tasted. It's not 'dum briyani' but it's really good. It's the stall with the queues.

Murky

tlc said...

try gayatri - i do think that they have the best dum briyani on the island. my preference is for the fish dum briyani. they cook them in individual pots so each serving is laden with flavour!

Anonymous said...

Yup, they took over the space occupied by Komala previously. I'm not sure if your taste is the same as mine. But judging from your posts, I guess it should be good enough. The buffet is a great chance to try out their spread before the promotion ends. If you like chapati, they make them on the spot for you.

bma said...

I think Komala's is still around...those Masala Art guys just moved in next door, right?

Anyway, thanks for the tips, guys. I plan to make a trip out to some of those places soon. I'd been to Gayatri a long time ago and remember the meal being decent, although I didn't have the dum biryani there.

And yes, Singapore has a big South Indian population, so food places are aplenty. Where do I even start? Here's a more recent post. Just click through the links and you'll see tons of stuff nested behind. Or simply just type in your search terms into the search bar on top. For some reason, Google's search function isn't perfect, but it should get you there.

reviveramesh said...

go to tekka market on a nice hot afternoon. order a beer from one of the stalls...drink the beer. just walk around a bit to get the beer down a bit...you will see 2 stalls selling biriyanis with some sort of a queue in front of the stalls - one of them is Allaudins I think - the biriyani here is DUM ( meat *rice*spices*cooked together) and there is both mutton and chicken and for $4 it is a steal...just across from Allaudin on the other side is another stall ( i forget the name) - a spicier and tangier version of the same - both the stalls deserve loads of kudos and praise for delivering such good quality biriyanis at such prices. And no delhi belly after eating them...mmmm I am going there next week