Homegrown Year-End Round-Up: Our 12 Best Food Stories Of 2014

‘Tis the season to be retrospective. The clock’s ticking on this year, and as we race to the next, we take out a moment to thematically round up some of the pieces we worked on over 2014, a little something to remember it by.
How we have toiled on these food articles, trying out every single dish we’ve featured just to make sure it deserved to be on these lists. With food this year, we ventured the length and the breadth of the country, combing restaurants for the best dishes on their menu, with a marked fondness for porky delights surfacing. Trapmaster SuReal was kind enough to take us on a stoner food trail through the capital, and our piece on some of the most exquisitely reimagined Indian dishes had us push the boundaries of our very understanding of Indian food. Once you go through this lot, you’ll wonder why you didn’t spend the better part of 2014 in a food coma. Here’s the ones we loved the most and we hope that you did too:

I. Curry Of Duck & Bhatura Bites: Here Are 15 Of The Most Exquisitely Reimagined Indian Dishes

As the world falls voluntary prey to our gastronomic sensibilities, with Indian flavours and spices infiltrating the global palate, we got to thinking about how creative chefs have attempted to draw out even more from the Indian cuisine experience. Some of these are such simple reinventions of traditional Indian dishes that we wouldn’t blink an eye if we passed them at a street food stall, like a Schezwan dosa. But some are pretty spectacular culinary feats.
Click on the image below to take a look at some of the most creative reinventions of Indian food:

II. Devouring At Dawn: 17 Of Mumbai’s Best Places For Late Night Munchies

When the midnight munchies come calling, there are - despite the crackdown - a few places that by crook or by crook stay open well past the 1.30 am deadline, if only to satiate those post midnight hunger-pangs, most often brought on by a case of binge drinking. In honour of the upcoming inebriation as the year draws to a close, we take a look some of the best eateries that stay open until dawn.

Click on the image below to check them all out:

III. 21 Of Goa’s Best Meals You Shouldn’t Miss This Season

Season time is finally here, so rather than assist your inebriation (something you’re likely to have under your control with or without us) we figured we’d focus our energies on keeping your belly full and your hearts happy with our absolute favourite meals in the beach town, chronicled and compartmentalized for your viewing/ eating pleasure. If you want to do Goa right this year, we suggest you swing by these places, ravenous.
Click on the image below to read more:

IV. Delhi’s 18 Best Burgers For Different Budgets

Damn straight we’re encroaching upon capital territory. We ran right out of fresh Burger options in Bombay, sweet Bombay, so naturally, being the gluttonous gourmands we are, we’ve been exploring greener pastures. But is it really greener?
Click on the image below to find out:

V. 17 Of Delhi’s Best Breakfasts For Different Budgets

Breakfast, to us, is sacred mostly because it is the only meal that is acceptable to eat in bed. We’ve already rounded up a painfully tempting list of Mumbai’s Best Breakfasts but down to our perpetual hunt and undying hunger for the most mouthwatering food, and we decided to comb the Capital for some quality morning grub.
Click on the image below to check out a concise list of breakfast spots in Delhi that we keep going back to. You know, just to be sure it really was that delicious.

http://homegrown.co.in/17-of-delhis-best-breakfasts-for-different-budgets/

VI. 23 Of Mumbai’s Most Delicious Pork Dishes That Might Make You Cry

Our recent piggy back ride through the country, introducing people to all the glorious, indigenous ways pork is prepared in different Indian cuisines left us hungry for more - so we decided to keep it simple and go pork-hunting closer home, right in the city of Mumbai. No partiality towards any cuisine or any price range in here, either. If it’s made out of pig, and it tastes good enough to have made us return more often than we care to admit, it’s in this article.
Click on the image below to check out all the porky goodness we’ve gathered:

VII. Weekender Munchies: 19 Of Pune’s Best Meals For Every Kind Of Budget

In light of the fifth edition of the Bacardi NH7 Weekender festival in Pune, we decided to do a little recap of the past festivals and zero in on the one thing that we’d like to do differently this time around – dealing with the munchies. To keep dancing, you need some real food – so you might as well make it some of the best bites in the city. Do yourself a favour and do the Weekender right this time – here are the places you should make the effort to head out to before the festival to make sure you (a) avoid road rage, and (b) keep going strong until you can charge with teary-eyed war cries towards the food arena sometime late in the evening.

VIII. 17 Of Mumbai’s Best Thalis For Every Kind Of Palate

We’ve found that a good thali hits the spot at just about any point right from the much anticipated lunch break, all the way up until that post-work search for satiation and every moment in between because it’s always when you are exactly one mishap away from throwing a fit that the glorious thali will come to your rescue, bearing its inklings of home. Self-confessed gluttons, we accept all thalis for the purpose of this article, limited and unlimited, vegetarian and meat-oriented, in all their well-laden glory– and you should, too!
Click on the image below for the mother of all thali lists:

IX. Around India Through 18 Of Its Most Delicious Pork Dishes

There’s no denying that these are good times for pork lovers. Despite a huge portion of our population’s disdain for the fatty, juicy, delicious (ok we’d better save the adjectives) meat, it doesn’t mean that certain cuisines here don’t know what to do with pork. In fact, there are pockets of the country that are positively overflowing with porcine pleasures and we happen to have sussed a lot of them out right here.
Click on the image below to check them out:

X. Bombay’s Best Burgers For Different Budgets

In India, juicy, delicious burgers are a lot like unicorns. You’re teased by the possibilities they conjure up but really, we all know they are non-existent. Well, fear not, we found our own unicorns and god they’re good. For more credibility still, we teamed up with photographer, gourmet and bacon-cake maker Roycin D’souza, who helped guide us in our research to find some of the best burger options this city has to offer.
Click on the image below to read more:

XI. 16 Of Mumbai’s Best Breakfasts For Different Budgets

Breakfasts, for most of the swarming millennials taking over this city, might largely consist of a cigarette, some mouthwash and a serious frenzy to get to work/ their first meeting/ the least crowded train. Despite numerous warnings that it might just be the most important meal of our day, that is. But on those few odd days you do remember that there’s no simpler or greater pleasure in life than a leisurely (or not so leisurely) morning meal, you should know that this city is still your friend.
Explore your options by clicking on the image below:

XII. 4/20 Munchies: Su-Real Takes You On A Stoner Food Trail Of Delhi

“Hi, my name is Su Real and I like to get high. Although Indian society wants you to believe that there’s only 1 state-sanctioned day of the year to get high – Holi — I get high every day of the year, and I don’t think it’s a crime. It’s in our history, our ancestors used it and praised it, it’s in our blood, it’s all over our lands, the Cannabis Indica, the Soma. That’s why I celebrate 4:20 with special joy each year, and I hope you do too.”
This year, Homegrown asked Su to make a list of his favourite places to eat in Delhi when he’s baked, and this is what he came up with.
Click on the image below to see for yourself: