Peddar Road

Priya's caterer hadn't figured on his fresh mosambi sharbat being turned into daiquiris, or else he wouldn't have forced it on her like that. ("What if they get thirsty?" he asked, completely oblivious.) She had tried repeatedly to decline but could not inform him that the guests at her Ramzan party preferred Black Label, thank you. We preferred it, anyway, until we saw how smoothly the icy, minty sharbat mixed with Bacardi. Everybody seemed quite at home with this concoction in one hand and a kebab in the other.

Aside from their doctrinal differences with other Muslims, about which I remain ignorant, Bohras interpret the word "kebab" differently from other communities. At this party it meant "entire lamb shank on the bone." It was a sideshow-like exercise in dexterity to maneuver one around the clusters of backslapping college chums chewing the fat, nibbling it, tearing, gabbing, teasing, gnawing, chattering; all of a piece. That was all for appetizers, with crudités set out for a laugh.

I'd been told to expect a non-veg affair, but when Priya uncovered the chafing dishes my jaw dropped. (Sometimes I forget she's leggy like a game-show hostess, and for a moment I knew how it felt to be a contestant on The Price Is Right — er, Khulja Sim Sim.) The meat here came in configurations I had never dreamed of, let alone tasted. Left to right:

"Dabba" gosht, named after the box it was cooked in to lend its porridgy base a smoky tinge. A very Bohri biryani, fragrant without a trace of garam masala. Last but not least, cream beef, which looks something like a seekh but dissolves on the tongue as if it were hot, meat-flavored kulfi. It must have begun this life as a blob of haleem-like paste with a skewer at its center. That's baked and lightly breaded, a lollipop with a texure so smooth you can wolf one down in two seconds flat.

Which I did, as the last guests willing to drop me at Prabhadevi walked out the door at 4. Thanks, Priya and Musti.