Ramzan food walk in Old City

Food walks during Ramzan are not to be missed. This year we chose to walk towards Chowk ki Masjid from Hussani Alam

With the COVID-19-induced restrictions easing up and life getting back to normal albeit with safety precautions in place, Old City was the destination of choice for many food lovers. I did the same with an organised group of walkers comprising a few Hyderabadis and some tourists from Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai.

The group met at the designated spot-Badshahi Asurkhana. History walker Yunus Lasania gave the group a brief history of the significance of the Asurkhana for the Shia community. 

When all the members of the walk finally gathered, it was time to begin sampling. We started with haleem from Shadab, but with just a spoonful or two each, since we were looking to explore many other dishes. 

Once done, Yunus led us to take a right at Shadab towards the High Court Road that has stalls that are a delight for those with a sweet tooth, or a weakness for snacks including samosa, kachori, dhokla and mixture.

As we headed towards High Court Road, the smell of fried jalebis dipped in sugar syrup from stalls opposite the Court’s Gate No 5 worked on almost everyone’s appetite. So an unplanned pit stop was made to savour piping hot jalebis and dhokla. Until then, I had never understood why ‘hot jalebi’ was so popular. The jalebi shops share space with stamp sellers. Moving ahead, we tried the soft, salted dhoklas at these shops.  

After that, the group turned left towards Ghansi Bazaar, a hassle-free road with no food stall. Here we discovered a mini Kolkata. The narrow, half-kilometer stretch has sign boards in Bengali. Here we got to see a lot of canteens that sold Bengali food, sweets, provisions used in Bengali households, Bengal cotton clothes, and jewellers who specialised in traditional Bengali designs.

 At the end of that long narrow lane, we reached the Ghansi Bazaar-Hussaini Alam road, walked for a couple of meters and reached the place we were most excited about— the famous Sonu Kebab corner. This place has two food stalls, one selling marag, paya, and chicken in different curries, and the other roadside stall selling just kebabs, fried meats, meat on stick, spring rolls and chicken 65.