The highlight of our trip (yes, for folks staying in the city, this is quite a trip) to The Leela Bhartiya City was the dinner at Falak, the fine dining Indian restaurant. Falak, which means sky in Urdu, goes beyond the regular Indian restaurants in Bangalore and brings to the table a spread of unique and forgotten options from the pre-partition era to the lesser-known dishes from the Awadh, Old Delhi, Amritsar, and Multan (in Punjab, Pakistan). Masterchef Farman Ali, who's behind the menu, and specialises in a number of cuisines including Awadhi and North-West Frontier dishes dropped by to say hello and give a bit of background on the spread before us. "Everything's slow-cooked," he told us and that really was the highlight of the dishes we had.
Chef Prabhjeet Lehal who assists Chef Farman mentioned to us how the ingredients are sourced from various parts of India such as the butter from Amritsar that's used to make the slow-cooked Dal-E-Falak (a take on the popular Dal Makhani). We had second helpings of this 24-hour slow-cooked dal -- it's that addictive butter. The Multani Seekha Kebab is something we are definitely going back for. But the star of the night for us was the brilliant Shahi Nalli Nihari which literally gave us goosebumps. We could have ended the meal with just that. But we didn't and instead proceeded to scoop some of the Moge Wala Kukkad with bakharwani (a type of Indian bread). Finish off your meal with a Mughalai dessert, the Bhalai Ka Tukda.
There's a lot we are going back for especially the Raan-E-Sikandari, Tandoori Chicken, and the Koyla Atta Chicken. The last one is a tribal delicacy from the northwest frontier and is popular in Kotkapura, Punjab.
