Moti Mahal Dinner Series featuring the Grand Trunk Road
I attended a dinner recently at Moti Mahal in Covent Garden featuring the culinary and cultural heritage of the Grand Trunk Road. For those of you unfamiliar with the GTR (as it’s commonly called) is an ancient trade and military route that linked the East and West of India for centuries. The road was crucial in the process of migration to Britain and has close links to Britain today.
Moti Mahal in Covent Garden*
The GTR is dear to the heart of Moti Mahal chef, Anirudh Arora whose cuisine starts its journey in West Bengal continues through to Benares on the banks of the Ganges to Delhi, up to Amristar, through the hunting country of the Punjab, across the rugged mountains of Peshwar’s Khyber Pass and into the heart of Kabul. I have dined at Moti Mahal a few times and each time the food has been excellent. The dahl has to be the best I’ve had in along time and the kulfi ice cream is not too sweet or too heavy.
Moti Mahal guinea fowl*
Moti Mahal kulfi*
The evening I attended was the first in the series and featured a talk and the photographs of Tim Smith. Tim (former writer for The Observer) works on long term photographic project and his main interest is Indian and Asian culture. Throughout the dinner, we were treated to a beautiful slide show of Tim’s photos with a running commentary on the who, what and where of each photo.
Tim Smith
Moti Mahal is featuring a series of dinners over the next few months, including a Beer and BBQ evening, in collaboration with a number of London’s upcoming microbreweries, a talk from an acclaimed filmmaker and an Asian wine pairing with New Zealand wine-maker, Matt Thompson. For more information, visit the Moti Mahal website.
Palace of the Wind, Jaipur*
Decorated Pakistani goods truck passing down the Grand Trunk Road*
*All photos courtesy of Moti Mahal