The Travelling Belly

Book excerpt: Meet the man who will go to any length in search of a good meal. Popular food blogger and Kalyan Karmakar has spent a lifetime being obsessed with food. In The Travelling Belly, he takes you on a delectable journey through the crowded lanes of India’s food havens, guiding you towards the good, and veering you away from the bad and the ugly of India’s multifarious urban foodscapes. Join him as he traces the many intricacies of the true-blue Bengali mahabhoj in Kolkata; dives deep into the kebab-laden alleys of Old Delhi; quests for the original Tunday in Lucknow; tracks down the crispiest kulchas in Amritsar and digs out the perfect Bohri meal in Mumbai. From sampling the biryani in Hyderabad to falling in love with the dosa in Chennai; from uncovering the best breakfast in Bangalore to getting to the heart of the home-cooked Goan meal, Kalyan’s food journeys will take you on a sensory experience that is as delicious as it is revelatory. Flavoured with the characteristic candour that his blog, Finely Chopped, is famous for, The Travelling Belly comes with recommendations from master chefs and food writers across India, providing a fascinating taste of the smorgasbord that is India’s cuisine and reaffirming how in India, more than anywhere else in the world, we are what we eat.