Sufi at Koramangala is our Happy Place
Located above Empire near JNC

Eating at Sufi has now taken on shades of a ritual. We seat ourselves comfortably on the diwans and order a large pot of Persian Tea and in preparation for the dessert that they always seem to run out of, ask them to keep aside a couple of bowls of Sholezaad.

Persian Tea is served in little tumblers that have portraits of the Shah and comes in a blue ceramic teapot. So Iranian. This is followed by a bowl of Haleem Bademjan with a Naan. (They don’t have the Taftan unfortunately.)

Sometimes I’m a boring non-experimental eater unlike K. I came upon the Chenjeh Kebab(Boneless pieces of lamb) and have been faithful to it for 2 years or so now. K’s standard order is the Logmeh Kebab. All of this had with platefuls of Chelo and at least 4 little sachets of Amul Butter.

Two weeks ago we had a friend visiting and that was an excuse to try out something new on the menu:

Kebab-e-Shishleek
Lamb chops and spareribs 

Kebab-e-Negindar
Grilled minced meat of beef and lamb topped with chicken

Followed by the usual order of Kebab-e-Logmeh
Juicy pieces of minced lamb 

In typical Persian style, all of these meats are skewered on swords so they come to the table all flattened out and served on blue ceramic plates.

We go to Sufi because it’s our happy place. We go there when we want our “creatine fix” or we’re craving butter and rice and kebabs or because we’re suddenly hungry at 5 pm on a Sunday.

Sometimes the charming owner Dr Karimi is around, telling us stories about Iran and India when he moved twenty years or so ago. One of those Sundays when we landed up at 5 pm and there was no one around we met a group of folk singers from Rajasthan who then went on to sing for the better part of an hour while we sat around on those diwans digging into meat.

Sublime and spiritual.