Yes, there’s the Golden Temple and the Wagah Border. But there’s also Bharawan Dhaba, Ahuja Lassi, and hedonistic spa treatments in this city in flux.
Strangely enough, my first bite in Amritsar — fabled city of food and worship — is from a pizza. My five-year-old has, predictably, decided to forgo local specialities at Ista, our hotel, and opted to go Italian in kulcha city. But the thin-cruster, with a child-friendly, grilled chicken topping, is inviting and among the best I have eaten anywhere (in a decade-long career as a food critic). The crust is just right, the mozzarella suitably stringy and the chicken—in kukad-land, that’s one thing they always get right.
The pizza sets the tone for our visit. Amritsar, after all, is a town in flux. Ista, which opened two years ago, is the city’s first 5-star hotel. The huge mall adjoining it — popular for weekend parenting —opened 7–8 months ago. As are a multiplex, a day-old flyover connecting the old city to GT Road, and KFC and McDonald’s. The last have found a toehold in this foodie city just some months ago.
Beyond Wagah’s touristy tamasha and the mesmeric Golden Temple, does the old Amritsar live on? We’ll find out.
For all its holiness and history, Amritsar is emerging as a favourite modern-day spa destination. While the colonial Rajit Savaasa has a decent spa managed by ITC Welcomheritage, Ista, sister property of Ananda in the Himalayas, beckons another set of tourists and upholds Ananda’s reputation. Both treatments are wonderful, but the best bit are the sub-Delhi prices. Considering that the products and the therapists are the same as at Ananda, these are a steal. The most expensive treatment is just Rs 2,500, against the usual Rs 3,500 and upwards in Delhi.
So far: it’s all the new Amritsar. But a trip through the old city convinces me that the traditional co-exists. For the princely sum of Rs 50 (round trip), I go rickshaw-hopping from one foodie fix to another: At the impossibly narrow Katra Ahluwalia, adjacent to Jalianwalla Bagh, a nameless jalebi shop sells the best in town. While this is the place, faint-hearted tourists are often directed to Novelty at Lawrence Road for the best chaat (aloo tikkis made with onions and black gram, with the potatoes shallow-fried before they are made into tikkis and fried again — the calorie - conscious may not find much pleasure here) and jalebis.
Outside the temple, shops sell badiyan (made from dried urad dal seasoned with a variety of things, including guava) and aloo papad, another traditional treat. I find the papad is exactly what you’d buy in Benares. Aggarwalji, the shopkeeper whose family has been in Amritsar for 200 years, offers a plausible explanation: women from UP settled here have been running this thriving home-business.
The rickshaw-puller keeps up a constant chatter, and I learn that the best milk barfi is to be found at the Longewala Mata Mandir near the Golden Temple. He takes me to Gyan Halwai, opposite DAV College, for lassi. Arriving in big steel tumblers, the frothy, cream-topped concoction is intimidating. I barely manage a quarter of a glass.
The walled city around the Golden Temple, the oldest part of Amritsar, is vegetarian. So are some of the oldest dhabas here. Bharawan Dhaba (so named as it was set up by two brothers) was established in 1912 by Jagannath Vij, well before the Partition exodus made eating out acceptable. According to Vij’s grandson, who now mans this destination, in earlier days people would bring their own atta, ghee and other ingredients and merely have these cooked here. Today, of course, this is a bustling enterprise. The house speciality: dal makhani is slow-cooked in a copper vessel all night. It’s a place for a whiff of nostalgia, even if the setting has plasticy table-tops.
The other instutution is Kesar ka Dhaba, but I am still in a stupor when the rickshaw takes me to Hindu College, next to which stands another Amritsari favourite: Ahuja Lassi. In the mornings, you can sample their famous kesar ki lassi (saffron “threads” are ground and mixed with milk before the yoghurt is set) but even the usual non-flavoured glass is creamy and lip-smacking.
I head out to Lawrence Road for some non-vegetarian treats. The tawa meatwallah near Adarsh Talkies has shut down; Beera’s chicken (for tandoori style eats) at Manjithia Road is still the best place for fowl; but Surjeet, mentioned in Lonely Planet and a favourite with Bollywood stars, is clearly thriving. Instead of the small fish shop near the railway station, where the story began, there is now a new AC restaurant where you can sample Surjeet Singh’s delicacies. We try the Amritsari fish, the totally fabulous mutton tikka (instead of the plain tandoori version, this one comes coated in a secret masala, having been fried on a hot iron griddle after being oven-roasted), first-rate tandoori chicken and soft, fluffy aloo kulchas.
We are swollen, and not just with Amritsari pride.
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Ranjit’s Svaasa — ITC WelcomHeritage runs this 18th century colonial mansion
Tel: 0183-2566618 / 3298840
