Desserts

Five sweets, and they come from two different traditions that happen to meet on this menu.

Shahi tukda is Hyderabadi and unapologetic: fried bread soaked in sweetened, reduced milk, somewhere between bread pudding and a dessert from a royal kitchen, which is roughly its history. Rabdi is that same reduced milk, and ordering the gulab jamun with it is the richer way to take an already rich sweet.

Kesari is the South Indian one — semolina cooked with ghee, sugar and saffron until it holds its shape, the sweet that turns up at the end of a meals plate and at every festival. Rasamalai is cheese dumplings in sweetened milk, lighter than any of them.

Gulab jamun needs no explanation anywhere in the world by now.