Delhi in a box

When Daryaganj promises you a home delivery concept they do just that. Deliver. The 5 Senses Delivery box by the fine-dine restaurant is their attempt to bring the entire restaurant experience to your home and titillate all your senses. Let’s start with the touch. The red velour-like box your meal comes in is pleasing to the hand, preparing you for the varied textures of the foods that lie therein.

The next thing thing you notice is the smell. And we are not just talking about the Burra Kebab and Butter Chicken. Daryaganj’s signature fragrance, which was developed for dine-in at the brand’s outlets, has been incorporated in a welcome note, which is an olfactory reminder of where your food is coming from. Then there is a curated signature playlist of tracks, which are a fusion of contemporary and retro music, that are played in the restaurants.

You can tune into the same by scanning a QR code given inside the packaging. That however is not the only QR code. Scanning a second one uploads visuals from the brand and you can see, or rather watch, the brand story, going back to when Kundan Lal Jaggi helped invent the Butter Chicken, way back in 1947 in the actual lanes of Daryaganj.

And that of course brings us to the food itself. It would be sacrilege to not order the restaurant’s culinary cornerstone and the first bite of that bright orange Butter Chicken, tender and tangy, leads you to quickly polish off, in between bites of soft garlicky naan and the far more robust Mutton Burra, enmeshed in spices and smokiness from the tandoor.

Completing the Delhi belly’s triumvirate is the rich, utterly decadent Dal Makhani, which again lives up to its name. While more and more people are stepping out in Delhi-NCR as the country’s Covid cases continue to plummet, Daryaganj’s 5 Senses Delivery box gives you the luxury of remaining home a while longer. Better safe than sorry never made more sense (s).