Its Eid- Al- Adha today popularly known as Bakri Eid. It is the festival of sacrifice to commemorate the day Ibrahim was willingly ready to sacrifice his son Ishmael to show obedience to God. However, God intervened and provided Ibrahim with a sheep to sacrifice instead the life of his son. 

This is still practiced in which a goat bakri is slaughtered and the meat is used to prepare a feast for the family and community. Biryani, kababs, goat curry are the popular dishes. 

There was a thread of discussion on biryani cravings on the Mumbai Food Bloggers Page. Papa just told me that Shaffi uncle's wife is sending us some homemade Lucknow style biryani and kababs. I'm really excited. Its my birthday tomorrow so this is going to be a treat to eat homemade super sexy biryani from Lucknow. 

However, I remembered that I had taken some lovely pictures of Ramzan a few months back. I had taken my friend Mark to Mohammed Ali Road at the Minara Masjid area for to check out food scene. I had seen this post on Mumbai Paused and could not stop drooling. 

It was the monsoon and it was raining that night. We walked down the street during prayer time, it was a solemn affair. Right after the prayers, the place was alive. Stalls selling- chicken soups, kababs, tikkas, botis, niharis, fried chicken, breads, and of course biryani. Stall after stall, some sit down restaurants. Turn in a different direction and there are dessert stalls frying up malpua, jalebis, serving cold firni, badam flavored milk, pancakes, ladoos with fried puris. It was alive, energetic and most of people despite fasting without food and water all day were very friendly, explaining the food and tradition, open to discussions, and most of all everyone had a smile on their face. A nation of smiles. And why shouldn't they be, after a long hard day of fasting, this food would be the ultimate satisfaction.

Back to the best biryani debate- I ate some really fantastic biryani here that night. The best chicken biryani ever.

So without wasting more time & before I forget - I want to share with you the pictures I took during Ramzan almost 70 days ago. Looking forward to my biryani tomorrow. Yum!

Smiling away despite all the smoke. Some really succulent chicken kababs.

To die for Nihari- the restaurant owner told us that he sources his marrow for the Nihari for Rs 400 a kgs. The nihari is cooked for hours.

Also have you seen The Dewarists yet. The second episode with Zeb & Haniya and Shantanu and Swanand in Mumbai - they go to Minara Masjid for a meal in the rain and eat some really amazing kababs as well. We could have crossed paths that night. They came up with the most amazing song in collaboration as a group. I love this song and the lyrics are beautiful.

Last month I attended Sula Fest. Initially, I was not entirely impressed with the whole thing. It was alright. The food was Ok, the music performances were short of stellar and the energy level could have been taken up several notches. The line up was Something Relevant (the saxophonist Ryan who I love), Petri Dish project with Ashu of Blue frog and Monica Dogra, Anushka, Pentagram and Medeival Pundits (I took a rain check on the last). However the wine was lovely of course and Sula owns a fantastic property in Nashik. But the more I think about it that maybe this festival wasn't entirely about the wine or the food or the music. I think what I really had fun was checking out the haute couture. What with Lakme Fashion Week 2011 coming up this Friday I thought it would be great to share my attempt at fashion photography.

This adventure to Sula was only possible with the help of my two friends Keith and Nishanth and my mom's car. Nishanth was a total trooper to drive all three of us from Mumbai to Sula (Nashik) and back in one piece all in one day. I had been to Sula before in the monsoon and the views from their tasting room are decadent of endless rolling grapevines and interspersed with lakes. Absolutely beautiful.
Like I said the food was passable- burgers, kheema pao, Italian, Chinese, Indian- the whole spread. Nothing really stood out to me. The Bournville Dark Chocolate and wine pairing was interesting. The wine was delicious but was served in plastic cups. Considering it was a huge festival I suppose thats forgiven. But really delicious wine. My favourite wine is the Dindori Reserve Vignier. So good.
But most interesting was the hot fashion, the shortest skirt, the cute sandals, men in linen shirts, sexy jeans, women with fun hair dos, sunglasses, smiles and grins.
So channeling my inner Sartorialist - here it is Food Blogger turns Fashion Blogger-

The beautiful Sheetal Malhar

Last year I came down to the vineyards during the monsoons. We were designing a wine bottle label and toured the wine country for inspiration. Check these beautiful photos. Totally worth a visit don't you think.

FOLLOW ME AT

Please write to me at