A dish with scores of varieties like Hyderabadi, Awadh, Bengali, Malabar and our own Donne, all of which are equally loved, the biriyani has long dominated the taste buds of Indians.
Ajwa Thalassery Biryani on Sarjapur road in Bellandur has joined the list of restaurants serving authentic Thalassery Dum biriyani in the city. The restaurant, with a seating capacity of 75, opened five months back and largely depends on online orders.
Ajwa serves veg, chicken, mutton, fish and prawns biriyani in Thalassery style. Among chicken, they have two varieties — normal chicken biriyani with broiler and an Ajwa special with leghorn, which takes longer to prepare. They claim to use only natural ingredients for preparing their biriyanis; no artificial ingredients like added colour or masala is used. The rice for that comes all the way from West Bengal while they buy natural ghee and coconut oil from Kerala.
In the cooking process, the rice, after being cooked separately, would be placed over the masala and kept under dum. This way, the rice would have the taste of each flavour used in the masala. The biriyani is served in a bowl with an Ajwa-special date, carrot and beetroot mix pickle and curd.
The portions are extremely generous but the taste allows you to finish it. It is not very oily.
They are also planning to serve more dishes for dinner such as Kerala parotta, chapathi and curry items. Currently, the chicken fry is the only starter they serve; it is prepared in coconut oil but they can use sunflower oil on request.
Ajwa was started by four friends from Kannur district in Northern Kerala, Muhammed Naushad, C N Mammooty Keyi, Mujeeb Shamsudeen and A C Abdul Razak. During a tour to Southern Kerala, they found no authentic Malabar biriyani available in the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram.
The friends then conducted a Biriyani festival in the capital city and their cooking skills got them such an overwhelming response, they opened a takeaway in 2008. Now, Ajwa has two outlets in Thiruvananthapuram and one in Kannur. Bengaluru is fourth outlet. They are set to open one more outlet in Electronic City soon.
Ajwa Thalassery Biryani is located on first floor, GRS Towers, Sarjapur Road. Phone number is 080 4374 9355.