At the Nagaland Kitchen, the meat is smoked over a fire oven for four to five days to give a real smokey flavour while retaining all the juice intact. Shrabasti Mallik checks out some specialties
Call it our ignorance but like most people, we have somehow associated North East cuisine with chillies. Mainly the bhoot jolokia. But our perceptions changed when we decided to skim past the world cuisines and try a few Nagaland delicacies instead. Nagaland Kitchen, at Green Park, did not disappoint us.
The place is quaint and welcoming — every inch depicting essence of the Naga tribes and the culture. Our welcome drink was the Raja mircha bloody mary. They say that a name says it all, but on our request the hotness content had been made a little less. One sip from the glass and we have to admit that it packed a good punch. In a good way, of course. If you like your drinks real hot and spicy — they will be happy to customise it for you.
We went with the fish bamboo shoot chilli, a simple preparation of fresh sole fish cooked in a bamboo shoot. It had a very distinct tannin flavour to it because of the bamboo and one has to develop a taste to really enjoy it. We on the other hand found it a bit hot but then again, we are not particularly fond of spicy food. Nonetheless, it tasted delicious and went rather well with the drink.
In a real Naga meal you will not find many vegetarian options. But they have plenty in the menu to cater to their vegetarian customers,too. “Because we love meat,” laughed owner Chuba Manen longkumer. He suggested we try their smoked chicken naga chilli and we thank the food gods that we did. Believe us when we say that the meat was actually smoked — no fancy technique and no advanced cooking methods involved.
They use a traditional technique of cooking the chicken, or every smoked meat for that matter of fact, over a fire oven for about five to six days depending on the meat. Fish takes about a day or two while pork takes a good nine to ten days to turn deliciously juicy. The result, you may askIJ We could taste the smokiness in every piece of the chicken we had.
We tried pork ribs, their specialty. Needless to say, it was juicy and succulent and cooked to the right tenderness. We suggest you try this dish if you love pork and are ready to try a different taste of the meat. You will not be disappointed.
Meat lovers, on the other hand, can feast on the Naga meat platter. Four different meat preparation in one plate — sumptuous, we would sum it up. There were chicken wings cooked in dry bamboo shoot, pork chilli, chicken gizzard cooked in dry bamboo shoot and chicken prepared in dry bamboo shoot.
Meat prepared in a dry bamboo shoot and fresh bamboo shoot is distinctly different in flavour and only one with an experienced tongue would be able to tell the difference. Nevertheless, they were delicious. The chicken cooked in dry bamboo shoot was a tad dry and chewy but the chicken wings were a surprise, considering it was a traditional Naga presentation. “We have to keep up with the times and chicken wings are quite popular. So we have prepared this specially,” said longkumer and mentioned that in two weeks he would introduce chicken wings dry bamboo shoots. You can give that a try, too, if you decide to have a meal there.
Half way through the meal and we realise that the cuisine is more than just chillies. It is also about a lot of flavours, much like the North Indian or Bengali cuisine. The secret to that are herbs like thyme and basil and colocasia (arbi leaves). And they use organic vegetables which they bring from Nagaland. They add some extra taste to the food.
We also gave a shot at their Naga thali, an ongoing promotion till June 30. “It is a traditional thali of homemade food,” longkumer said pointing to the pork, rosep aon (a preparation of bitter gourd and organic bringal), daal, boiled vegetable, pork bamboo shoot gravy and fish bamboo shoot dry accompanied with simple alu chokha on the side. After all the hotness and spice we found the boiled veggies bland. longkumer explained that the blandness is to balance out the string flavours of the meat.
All in all, we had no place to complain because when you visit the Nagaland Kitchen, you sign up for chilles, spice and everything hot. “But we do ask customers how much hotness they can take before preparing the dish,” longkumer wrapped up.