Rahul's Post

The Feast That Punjab Never Forgot On Novotel New Delhi's Punjab Da Swad, and what it means when a hotel gets Punjabi food exactly right! There is a school of thought — one I have long subscribed to — that holds Punjabi food to be among the most misunderstood cuisines in the Indian repertoire. Not because it is complex in the way that, say, Chettinad cooking is complex, where the layering of spices demands near-scholarly attention. Quite the opposite. Punjabi food is misunderstood precisely because it appears so straightforward, so unapologetically abundant, that most people never pause to ask what, exactly, makes a great Dal Makhani different from a merely competent one, or why the Amritsari Machhi you ate at that dhaba off the GT Road still visits you in your dreams twenty years later. The answer, as any Punjabi grandmother will tell you with the quiet authority of someone who has never needed a recipe in her life, is time. And generosity. Not just of ingredient — though that matters enormously — but of spirit. You cannot rush a proper dal. You cannot ration the cream. You cannot pretend. The cuisine sees through pretense the way only the truly self-confident can. All of which is why, when Novotel New Delhi City Centre announced Punjab Da Swad — a ten-day celebration of Punjabi culinary heritage at their all-day dining restaurant, Food Exchange — I approached the evening with a mixture of curiosity and the mild scepticism that any experienced food writer carries into a hotel food festival. Hotel food festivals, it must be said, have a complicated history. They mean well. They often look spectacular. But they don't always taste like the thing they are celebrating. The Setting, and What It Promises Food Exchange is one of those hotel dining rooms that does its job with confident ease — large enough to feel festive, warm enough to feel welcoming, and laid out with the kind of spatial intelligence that prevents the all-day-dining chaos that afflicts lesser establishments. For Punjab Da Swad, the space had been dressed with just enough festive suggestion — earthy tones, the subliminal warmth of a Punjabi harvest.

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This post was published on 14th May, 2026 by Rahul on his Instagram handle "@rahulprabhakar (Rahul Prabhakar)". Rahul has total 68.1K followers on Instagram and has a total of 2.4K post.This post has received 103 Likes which are than the average likes that Rahul gets. Rahul receives an average engagement rate of 0.31% per post on Instagram. This post has received 134 comments which are greater than the average comments that Rahul gets. Overall the engagement rate for this post was lower than the average for the profile.