Food review: Anyone for Indian street food that’ll tickle your taste buds?

Dubai - The Desi-Videsi food fest at Dubai's The Huddle Sports Bar & Grill serves Indian street food with a fusion touch.

It’s been a challenging time for expats craving delicacies from their hometown. The Covid travel restrictions and other safety risks have deterred people from travelling home for a long time. Now, a resto-pub in town aims to entice you and soothe your travel blues with their appetising offer: “If you can’t go home to India, we can certainly bring India to you.”

With the raging pandemic leaving us grounded, we were indeed attracted by the aptly titled offer, Desi-Videsi (meaning local and foreign in Hindi) food fest, at The Huddle Sports Bar & Grill in Citymax Hotel, Bur Dubai.

Now, we don’t always eat food just because of the fancy offerings that attract us to the table. Often, our love for food, especially when we’re out of our home countries, is driven by pure nostalgia. How can one erase the delicious memories of staples from back home — like simple home meals, street food or dishes from popular eateries.

The chefs at Huddle, however, indulged us in a spread that reminded us of the street grub from India, but with a fusion twist. The menu featured Indian favourites that blended international flavours. For instance, their Tundey Kebab Pizza. This famed, succulent kebab species from Lucknow, made of minced lamb kebab was delicately blended as the pizza topping and served on a base of crispy laccha paratha. Their Kakori Kebab Speedies, another nawab-era dish from the erstwhile capital of the Awadh region, was stuffed in a mouth-melting rumali roti and spiced with Kurkure Chaat. Now, how’s that for innovative cuisine?

As we walked into the dimly-lit, pub setting on a Monday night, we were expecting a quiet weekday outing. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find the place buzzing on a routine working day. The place was divided into two sections. One seating area surrounds a large stage, where we assume a live band plays (perhaps on weekends). And the other area, for guests who prefer a tranquil ambience, away from the din. The decor is what you’d expect at any resto-pub — a large counter serving mixes and tables spread out evenly, and service staff were busy on their toes delivering orders.