The Potbelly Rooftop Cafe is the much loved, cozy cafe in Shahpur Jat or as I like to call it, The Other Village. Homely wooden furniture, yellow brick wall counters, textured walls and nostalgic print chairs and couches with glass top tables. The Potbelly Rooftop Cafe is one of a kind place in Delhi serving Bihari cuisine. They have also opened an outlet in Bihar Niwas, Chanakyapuri. This outlet of Potbelly was incidentally even visited by Mr. Richard Rahul Verma, American Ambassador to India on his quest to discover Indian cuisines with Rocky and Mayur. Find the story here. The rooftop is lined with a kind of traditional mat with painted bamboos and gorgeously up-cycled lamps. The cutlery holders I just couldn’t get enough of – elephant doodles getting high on wine.
We started with some refreshing drinks. Sattu salty and spicy cooler, one of Bihar’s old time favourites, this was a very refreshing and unprecedented summer drink.
They have a brilliant variety of flavored iced teas apart from the regular peach and lemon+mint ones. We tried their apple and cinnamon, mixed fruit and nettle and lemongrass. All the flavors were so, so refreshing. The nettle and lemongrass one took a lot of time to come through, but when it did, it was totally worth the wait.
For starters we tried one of their house specials – Baggia basket – rice flour stuffed with masala wali chana dal. The puffs were exceptional, very subtle flavours and went well with the extremely fresh coriander chutney and tomato chokha.
Meat pakora basket – crispy chicken and minced mutton pakoras with the freshest coriander and mint chutney. The meat was to a delish tenderness and succulent perfection.
Dhamaaka Maggie – Spicy, soupy with a garlic tinge and cheese.
Golmirch Chicken platter – chicken curry, laccha parantha, sabutdana vada, brinjal condiments and fresh, crunchy salad. The chicken was decent, crushed whole black pepper in a creamy, yogurt laced gravy, the chicken pieces could have been a little more juicier. The brinjal concoction was surprisingly very interesting and the laccha parantha was done to perfection. I am a big fan of sabutdana vada at home and this one felt slightly overdone.
Champaran style mutton platter – shredded mutton curry, boondi ka raita, salad and moong dal rotis. This was one of the best platters I have had. The mutton was so luscious and tender in a pepper, thick spicy gravy. The boondi raita complimented the het of the mutton very well.
And for desserts, we had apple cinnamon cake with ice cream. A soft, warm cake served with vanilla ice cream, they could have turned up on the cinnamon zests though.
Enjoy the homely subtle flavors and do not miss on the Champaran style Mutton and baggia basket.
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