GREAT KABAB FACTORY - DELHI
Fans of Mughlai food will have little hesitation in acknowledging that, not withstanding the kadhai and the dum creations, what really sets them on fire are the kebabs. It is around the kebabs that they plan their culinary journeys. The Great Kabab Factory works on this premise.
Open only in the evenings from 7 to 12.30 pm, eating at the Great Kabab Factory is simplicity itself. Walk into the restaurant and you will be ushered to an appropriately sized dining table without a word. (That is, if you’ve booked a table in advance. Otherwise, you might want to take a good book along!) After you’ve ordered your drinks, the waiters will bring in plates and, without the preliminaries of a menu card, promptly commence filling these plates with a variety of finger-licking good kababs.
A couple of dals, raita and salad will show up too, but you will notice that everybody just ploughs into the meat of it (unfortunate pun regretted) and dispenses with the rest. The waiters will keep coming back for as long as you fail to slip with exhaustion beneath the table. When you can finally stand no more and refuse, they nod sympathetically and bring on the biryani, and then the dessert of the day.
The Great Kabab Factory is a fixed price, fixed menu, fixed obsession kind of place. For Rs 625 (Rs 525 for vegetarians), what you get is six varieties of kababs served with two kinds of dal (makhani and moong masala), biryani (gosht or mattar khumb pulao), raita, green salad, one green vegetable and a range of Indian breads, followed by a dessert of the day. The kabab list remains unchanged and features galauti, bhatti ka murg, malai seekh, chaamp Multani, gosht ke paardhey and lasooni mahi tikka. Vegetarians get to do just as well. Their kababs are sabz galauti, tandoori sabzi, paneer ambi ka tikka, hara kabab, sabz ke shikhampur, and gilafi alu. Satisfaction is guaranteed!
Curiously, what the Factory has not done is make one of those zealous cuisine statements in the decor. Notwithstanding whatever you may read in their fliers, the ambiance here is, as you would expect, American: pleasant but not specifically regional. The largish stone-floored hall has a creamy, back-lit ceiling. Tiled pillars in deep blue are the only allusion to the Islamic heritage of the food served here. Plain wooden tables with wrought iron legs and chairs upholstered in green, blue, maroon and gray complete the package. It is well lit and the profusion of potted plants add to the upbeat mood. It is also very noisy.
Great Kabab Factory is an extreme package. It is where we generally take overseas guests who have been to India before and like kebabs. We’ve yet to hear a complaint.
Great Kabab Factory, Radisson Hotel, National Highway No. 8, New Delhi,