Halwa Puri

Halwa puri is Pakistan’s great weekend breakfast, and it is one of the few dishes that has to be eaten where it is made. It does not travel, it does not keep, and it is not the same an hour later. So the only useful thing a page like this can tell you is where and when.

Where and when we serve it

Five branches, every morning, 7am to noon. Four of them you can sit down in; one is takeaway.

• North Nazimabad — sit-in. Shop 8, Plot B105, Block H, next to Donisal Restaurant.
• Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block 10 (Johar) — sit-in. Near Lasania Restaurant, Main Rashid Minhas Road.
• Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block 6 — sit-in. Main University Road, opposite Bait Ul Mukarram Mosque.
• Clifton — sit-in. Opposite Forum Shopping Mall, Main Khayaban-e-Jami.
• Bahadurabad — takeaway only. Alamgir Road, near Alamgir Masjid.

Worth knowing before you set off: Bahadurabad does not seat anyone. If you want to eat it there rather than carry it home, one of the other four.

Come early if you can. It is made in batches through the morning, and the first hour is the best of them — the puris are going straight from the pan to the table. Weekends fill up from about half past eight.

Any branch on 0333 2 648424 if you want to check before a long drive, particularly on a public holiday.

What comes on the plate

The standard four, as it has been served in this part of the world for a very long time.

Puri. Deep-fried, and the whole thing lives or dies here. A puri should arrive inflated, come apart easily, and taste of wheat rather than oil. Getting that consistently, batch after batch, through a busy morning, is harder than it sounds and is most of what separates one halwa puri from another.

Halwa. Sooji halwa — semolina, sweet, softly set, usually orange. Eaten with the puri rather than after it, which surprises people who have not grown up with it. The sweet-and-savoury combination on one plate is the point of the dish.

Channa. White chickpeas in a thin, dark, heavily spiced gravy. This is the savoury anchor and it should be properly hot, not merely warm.

Aloo. Potato curry, thinner and tangier than the channa, often with a sourness from anardana or amchur that cuts through the fried bread.

Alongside it

The rest of the traditional breakfast counter runs at the same hours: daal bhari kachori, qeema kachori and Arabic parathas. The kachoris are worth ordering even if you have already ordered enough — they are made the same morning and do not survive to the afternoon either.

Ordering for a group

Halwa puri for a large family gathering, a morning at the office or a milad works well, and it is one of the few things we would ask you to give notice for. Not because of capacity — most orders are ready within 24 hours — but because it has to be made close to when you will eat it, and that means knowing roughly when that is. Bahadurabad is the one to call for a large takeaway order.

Call the branch directly, or email [email protected].

Why we make it at all

We are a mithai house first. Halwa puri is not mithai, and plenty of sweet shops do not bother with it.

We do because the two have always sat together. The halwai’s shop in Old Delhi sold the sweets and it sold the morning breakfast, and the skills overlap more than the menu suggests — sooji halwa and habshi halwa are cousins, both a matter of judging a pan rather than following a clock. The same kitchen that has been making habshi halwa since before Partition has been frying puris on the same mornings.

It is also, straightforwardly, the best breakfast there is.