A evening on Devon

If you want to be guaranteed of seeing someone, position yourself near something they can't live without. It looks like as long as we occupy this strategic location just outside of the jaws of Little India, we'll be assured of seeing mollpeartree and princeofcairo at least twice a year. (Lest, of course, the unthinkable happens and a South Asian food store opens in Hyde Park.)

Just to be sure, though, I also cleverly situated myself in an adjoining building to primary sources for mollpeartree's research. So it was that we scampered off together with the intention of rendezvousing with her husband at India Book House, but fate conspired that we should all meet at the Loyola bus stop, where we gambled on passing up on the first of a pair of very tardy Devon busses and were rewarded for our guile with seats.

Our first stop was Mughal Bakery, ignorant of the fact that they have extended their hours and are now open until 9 p.m. (or 8 p.m. "if there are not many people"). The owner was in and, as ever, even more dedicated to seeing everyone eating his food than my grandmothers ever were. Moll resisted heroically, forcing him to reach for the free samples of jam prints. (Every customer has their Achilles biscuit!)

Wait, no, that's a lie; our first stop was Patel Café, as we were single-minded in our mission to make "Madras coffee" reveal its secrets at last. I can tell you that it's very milky, and beyond that you'll have to ask my companions. I had a masala chai, plus an order of pani puri to blunt the hatchet edge of our hunger. Despite being right next door to it, we did not go into Patel Brothers. Not, I think, so much for the practical reason that we didn't want to be weighed down by sacks of groceries so early in our visit but because no pilgrimage culminates immediately in a visit to the inner sanctum; the holy of holies can only be approached by degrees.

Traditionally, of course, by circumambulations. But, alas, Devon Avenue is not laid out in a such a way. So we headed off in the exact opposite direction for our first taste of Khan BBQ, a place recommended to me by no fewer than three cab drivers at this point. Certainly not our last, since you know that when a your "safety entree" (in this case, the Bihari kebab) turns out to be the weakest dish of your meal, then you have a menu which demands further exploration.

Still it would take a real find to top the dish princeofcairo called "quite possibility the best goat I've ever eaten". (And if you know him, you know that is no faint praise.) This was the goat daal, one of five or six goat dishes on a two-sided laminated bill of fare. There was also much praise for the alu palak (though I will go on record as saying it didn't beat out the palak at Sabri Nehari) and the tandoori tilapia. (Again, it does not impugn this in the least to say that it's a notch below the grilled fish at Usmaniya.)

Our server was amused by my request for a "salted lassi, no salt", but I was only imitating the woman at the next table from our meal the previous night at Klay Oven. And as unexpectedly good as that meal, it naturally suffered by comparison to a dinner on Gandhi Marg. In particular, the onion naan at Khan was everything I'd wanted my onion kulcha to be the evening before but wasn't, but they had no ajwain naan, so there's still a feather for its cap.

Fortified, we made the assault on India Book House and rewarded our temperance (only one book for me, three for the Prince) with a run on Sukhadia. Yes, we found the fabled gujia described by our server the night before, essentially a hunk of halwa wrapped in pastry and fried.

Of our trip to Patel, I can say nothing except that it was all over sooner than any of us had reckoned with. This caused me to rashly suggest a return to the café for an answer to the riddle of gajar halwa ice cream, but this was quickly rejected; some unknown pleasures must remain for the next journey.