I have been hearing from a couple of my friends who have been recommending me to try the Biriyani from Aasife Biriyani for quite some time… But the place is not near to where I live and was hoping to visit when I end up going anywhere near the area… However, to my surprise, Aasife Biriyani started appearing for my location in the food delivery apps and so having recommended again by my friend, decided to try having their food delivered for lunch. So, in this post, I am covering two lunch orders that I had from the place thru which I got to try their Chicken Biriyani, Chicken Mughlai Biriyani and their Prawns 65 along with it (its a Malabari thing 🙂 )… The food arrived as shown in the pics below… 🙂
Lets begin by talking about the Chicken Biriyani… As can be seen in the pics below, the Biriyani arrived along with a cup each of their Onion Raita and Brinjal Gravy as accompaniments… The appearance and aroma reminded me of the Tamil style biriyanis I have had back when I used to live in Chennai…
First of all, the biriyani had two pieces of chicken where one was a rib piece while the other was a boneless breast meat piece… The rib piece was so perfectly cooked that the meat came off the bone at the slightest touch and the meat just melted in my mouth like butter… At the same time, the other breast meat piece was sadly overcooked and hence tough to chew and eat… As for the taste, the dominating taste appeared to be that of caramelised tomato and onions along with the subtle taste of spices and if I am not mistaken, a hint of Lime and Yogurt as well in it… There was indeed the flavour of Ghee but mostly felt like made with Oil… The Brinjal gravy reminded me of the quintessential Kolambu curry thats very popular in Tamil Nadu cause of its tamarind, tomato and pepper based spicy and sour taste… The flavour of Brinjal was strong indeed in it… As for the Raita, I wish they had sent twice the quantity of it as it is the one component that helps cut down the richness of the Biriyani and the gravy and prevent you from feeling bloated… I ended up quickly making some onion raita at home to have when the given raita was over… Overall, I did end up liking this Biriyani… 🙂
Next up is the Chicken Mughlai Biriyani… This biriyani again was served with the Brinjal Gravy and Onion Raita as can be seen in the pics below… This Biriyani certainly did look and smell different from the regular Chicken Biriyani… As for the look, to be frank, I did feel for a minute whether they sent me a fried rice instead of the biriyani cause of the pieces of scrambled eggs seen along with the rice… As for the smell, it did kind of reminded me of a spicy Chicken Mughlai… 🙂
Coming to the taste, first of all, the Raita and the Brinjal Gravy was exactly same as with the regular biriyani that we talked about above… As for the Biriyani, this one was clearly much more richer than the regular biriyani as I could feel the taste and richness of the cream used for the Mughlai masala… To be precise, think of it as the regular biriyani masala but with the Mughlai gravy mixed in it making it taste like a spicy version of the Chicken Mughlai… The meat was indeed perfectly cooked, but I felt that the pieces itself tasted too salty for my taste… The presence of egg seemed to help balance the saltiness and also add to the richness, which makes this Biriyani feel quite extravagantly rich… The only downside was that the whole biriyani felt too greasy for my taste and the taste of that caramelised cream seemed to dominate the flavour profile… Overall, I did end up liking this Biriyani, but I wish the salt level and the greasiness were in control…
Last but not the least was the Prawns 65… As I mentioned above, having fried Prawns or Fish along with Chicken Biriyani is a Malabari practice and being originally from a Malabari family, I too tend to get especially Prawns to go whenever possible, with Biriyanis… The 65 masala is a very popular Tamil style spicy masala thats used to marinate Chicken typically and then fried to make the famous Chicken 65… Here, instead of Chicken, we have Prawns… Thats it… Nothing more to say except that the Prawns were indeed cooked just right… Regarding the taste, I felt that the seasonings were just right but also felt that these Prawns tasted best when eaten as it is with the given Salad as the combination didn’t seem to work well when tried with the Biriyani…
When the parcel arrived, as can be seen in the pic at the top, I was surprised by the fact that they call themselves to be serving the world’s best biriyani… Though I appreciate their confidence, but at the same time can’t help being skeptical as usually places that make such claims don’t usually tend to fulfil them… Obviously the same is the case here but at the same time, I can say that the Chicken Biriyani that I got was definitely in the league of the best Tamil style Biriyanis that I have ever had but definitely not the best… At best, I think it can be considered to be the best Tamil style Biriyani in Trivandrum and even that needs to be verified at this point… But as I said, I do appreciate their confidence…
So, thats its for now… Inspite of what I have mentioned, compared to many places, these two Biriyanis from Aasife can definitely be considered to be fine Biriyanis and I did end up enjoying them for their unique taste… There are more options in their menu and so I am hoping to be able to try some of them too… Hopefully soon 🙂
