City Food – Chicken Samosa, Maxim’s Bakery, Kailash Colony
Samosa with a difference.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
We all know that the samosa is the ideal graveyard for the potato. But there have been experimental rebellions now and then. A few eateries in Chandni Chowk serve samosas stuffed with green peas. A restaurant in Connaught Place makes jumbo-sized samosa crammed with oily chhole. A sweet shop in CR Park has mutton samosas. And now Delhi finally has a place for arguably its best chicken samosas.
The longtime Maxim’s Bakery in Kailash Colony Market, since 1969, may not be as wildly famous as Wenger’s in Connaught Place but it does enjoy a cult following within a limited set.
The bakery serves an array of creamy pastries — including one studded with almonds — besides patties, pizzas and salads. A few months ago it added a new item — samosas stuffed with lightly-spiced minced chicken.
The cute dainty triangles aren’t bulgy the way a samosa-next-door tend to be. Neither does the outer surface look crispy.
Naturally, it’s not love at first sight.
And then, the first bite. No instant nirvana follows. In fact, one doesn’t know what to make of this weird samosa. It feels so different but… is it good? The second bite brings clarity. You begin to appreciate the understated flavor that spreads across the senses slowly but resolutely. Better still, the filling’s so soft that it seems to melt in the mouth, almost like the famous Kakori kebabs of Lucknow. The samosa also feels as light as bird food—may be because it is baked, and not deep-fried. This naturally heightens the risk of eating too many of these samosas at one go, and you feel the guilt-induced heaviness only when it is too late to regret.
In any case, there’s no better place to consume this samosa than in the bakery itself. The eating room with its pink chandelier often teems with the local Kailash Colony gentry, thereby giving a taste of the neighbourhood as well.
A new samosa edition
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