Savour Bohra Muslim cuisine at Tasneem’s

Tasneem’s Kings Kitchen has been serving Bohra Muslim cuisine since 2015. 

Bohra dishes come from a rich history as they are inspired by Gujarati, Middle Eastern, and Arabic cooking styles. 

Tasneem’s Kings Kitchen started from Tasneem Shahani’s home kitchen with no plan for a restaurant. Shahani says, “I had no plans to work when I came to Nepal with my husband. But doing nothing also becomes boring after a certain time. My friends suggested me to do what I love.”

Reminiscing the time she started, she adds, “About 17 years back, my husband and I decided that I would run a small food business from home. So we came up with a menu with five items and that’s how Tasneem’s Kings Kitchen started.”

Shahani started selling food on a KG basis and now she has a restaurant by her name that serves not only biryani but almost 80 other items. Tasneem’s Kitchen located at Pulchowk, serves food cooked in Dum Pukht style.

Dum Pukth is a style where food is cooked on low fire for hours. Shahani says, “We built a special kitchen with a stove for slow cooking. That is why we encourage our customers to pre-order because it takes a long time to prepare our food.”

Eating at Tasneem’s Kings Kitchen made me feel at home.

Their service was good and the environment was so friendly!

And the ambience of the place with lots of Bollywood posters and Hindi songs playing in the background added to the beauty of the restaurant.

I tried their special drinks and a whole course meal with two styles of naan - mutton-keema naan and Hariyali naan, special butter chicken, and mutton biryani!

Digging in the mutton biryani, Shahani told me the right technique to serve the biryani is to dig from the bottom.

That is because the biryani is made in layers - first are the meat and the spices, then the rice. So when you serve from the bottom you will get the bite of everything.

Eating the biryani, you can taste the spices but it was not too spicy and due to the slow cooking the mutton breaks easily from the bone. So the meat is soft when you bite it and in each spoon of biryani you can taste the spices.

Their stuffed naan was filled with ‘keema’ and onion, and their hariyali naan is topped with kadi patta.

And as you dip the naan in the butter chicken, you get the taste of chilli and spices blended perfectly.

In every bite of the curry, you can get a piece of chicken and the taste of cashew nuts as well.

I ended the heavy meal with their special drinks - aam panna, and kesar badam lassi.

Aam Panna, a summer cooler made out of raw mangoes, mint and cumin, is served chilled and also helps with digestion. So it is the perfect drink to digest after devouring a whole meal. And their special Kesar Badam Lassi is a concoction of saffron, almonds and yoghurt.

Tasneem’s Kings Kitchen is a good place for families to gather, connect and eat as they say, ‘A family that eats together, stays together.’

A good place with good food and good ambience!