A DISH OF RICE AND MEAT IN HYDERABAD AND ELSEWHERE

HYDERABAD IS FAMOUS for its biryanis. One restaurant that is well-known and highly rated is Shadab, which is not far from the Char Minar in the centre of the old city. We have visited it on previous visits to Hyderabad and thought highly of its biryanis. Today, in late January 2025, we ate a mutton biryani. It was certainly very good, but not nearly as excellent as one we ate in Surat last year and another we ate at Berhampore (West Bengal) a few days ago. However, the best biryani I have eaten to date was a Moplah style biryani served at Paragon in Calicut (Kerala). Blending Arabic and Keralan flavours, this biryani, which we ate more than 20 years ago, was memorably fragrant and tasty: a symphony of flavours.