Meet Mr Murtabak

Down a lane, right at the noodle shop and like walking through a looking glass I'd suddenly left
Chinatown.

The aroma of spices, boiling ghee and a blocked drain mingled in a familiar way. Yes, I was in Little India. There were sunny smiling faces and happy garlanded gods, too. And incense and trestle tables laden with sweets and fried snacks - everywhere a sense of joyful abundance.


Feeling peckish (when am I not?), I popped into the ...........restaurant. Well, it was as if they'd been waiting for me. Their hospitality was extraordinary. I expressed an interest in the griddle action happening at the front of the restaurant and happily, Mr Murtabak was eager to display his talents, which proved to be ample.

Here's his Murtabak 101 class:



He takes a bit of his curried cabbage and onion mix








and adds a spoon of the curried beef mix.
He tosses in a little egg for binding and mixes well.
Then he fries this mixture for a good ten minutes until firm and cooked through.

Next, the tricky part. These are balls of roti canai dough - a very soft, elastic dough kind of like pizza dough.

He pats one out and brushes ghee all over
Then he repeatedly flings the dough out in a semicircular action, like a fisherman casting a net, until the dough is wafer thin and spread right out over the grill.

He then wraps it up into a little square (see how puffy it is) and rolls it out again repeating the process, thereby achieving a dough of repeated layers of pastry and ghee, something like puff pastry.
Next, the dough is flung out again, the murtabak patty is placed in the centre and he makes a little parcel of the whole thingy and griddles away for another 10 minutes or so until its browned, crispy and flaky. FABULOUS. And only a buck each!
Not done there, he wanted to get started on Tandoori 101, but I was more interested in getting stuck in to my murtabak.












Down the street I came across a sweets shop. Not quite completely stuffed, I resisted the urge to walk on by. Inside, on parade was the usual ensemble cast of delicious milk sweets. I chose a ladoo - a super sweet, golden milky/buttery orb. Meltingly moist, it was excellent.
I also had a raisin candy and took away a packet of masala popped gram (kind of like curried popcorn) Then, I bypassed the Sri Krishna spiritual CD universe, and ducked past the temple and back to the hotel to put the feet up and think about dinner Mmmmm.