Khao Supper Club – a Gujarati feast with the family
Two visits to one of my favourite London supper clubs, Khao.
I’m sure by now you know I’m a lover of good food and of eating out. But what you might not know is that I (for the most part) cannot eat alliums – yes, that’s right, no garlic (shock horror – and no, I’m not a vampire, not so far as I know), no onions (you read that right), and no, well, anything like that. I will on occasion eat something that has onions in if they’ve been really well cooked and if there aren’t many of them. No delicious French Onion Soup with a couple of rounds of toast, heavy with melted Gruyere, floating atop for me, no sweet, deeply flavoursome, oozing savoury-ness, caramelised onion tart either. Sigh. But wow, I really digress. Oops, soz. I miss garlic, there are whole cuisines I basically don’t eat anymore, one of those being Indian. But oh the flavours I’m missing out on.
Indian food I can eat, at last
Enter Khao Supper Club, a Gujarati Supper Club and catering company by the unbelievably lovely Punam Vaja. I think that lots of Gujarati dishes are low in alliums anyway, that’s the impression I have from Punam, but regardless, she is always happy to accommodate my dietaries. What a star. I cannot begin to tell you the pleasure I get putting a forkful of her cooking in my mouth. As the salt and heat and sweet hits my tongue, Punam’s food makes me close my eyes to completely savour my first few bites.
Khao were hosting a supper club in collaboration with communi.table at The Green Room Cafe on Holloway Road which isn’t that far from where I live, so it felt like this one was a must. My usual eating out companion wasn’t free and as we were due a family meal I hoodwinked the ex and the children into coming along.
Course I was a moment late(-ish) having double-booked myself – oops, with a rather OTT food experience – I’d agreed to meet a group of girlfriends at the rather beautiful Ham Yard Hotel for a late Afternoon Tea! It was great to catch-up and the tea WAS rather fabulous, the scones were very good (always my barometer), but it was a bit rushed and I regretted not being a better planner when I had to run off straight after eating, leaving them draped over sofas looking every bit like characters out of The Great Gatsby (or something).
Setting the scene with a warming cup of chai
It was worth it though of course. My lot were already there huddled in a little group (did I mention this supper club was outdoors?) sipping on warm oat masala chai heady with ginger and warming spices. I wasn’t so late that everyone was sitting waiting for me, but…Punam did call us to table not that long after I arrived, after I’d been served a chai and had a few delicious sips.
It was such a weird feeling, sitting to a gorgeous candle lit table with festoon with a group of strangers ready to tuck into a beautiful feast as the sounds of Holloway Road (a large number of sirens owing to the hospital up the road, and the general merriment of a busy London road) went on in the background. I absolutely loved it. Such a juxtaposition.
This supper club, called Daar Dinners, was in celebration of Daar (or daal as you might know it) a dish, as Punam explained, that she remembers fondly from her childhood. It’s made with yellow lentils and tomatoes, and is more of a soupy consistency than you might be used to for a daal, and is served with the rice already in the daar.
The food was spot on
The food itself was spot on. I know that not just because we all thought so but, I was sitting next to a Gujarati who does a lot of cooking and they said it was all bangin’ – based around dishes eaten around a Gujarati table but refined so rather than having a bowl of something tasty with a bread to mop it up, we had delicate rounds of Tareli Roti (a double cooked roti) and Sambharo (a cabbage and carrot stir fry), greens steamed with gram flour and then stir fried with curry leaves and finished with desiccated coconut (loved this), and Tamarind Chickpeas. The chickpeas were a revelation, Punam used brown chickpeas and cooked them in a fennel and tamarind sauce. They were stunning, SO much better than the weird yoghurt coated brown chickpeas I’d made the week before that were bad enough that I’d decided to not try using them again. Apparently, they can be soft and tasty and so incredibly moreish. Who knew? Punam, that’s who.
For pudding we had a delicate lemon and cardamon posset with a rose crisp. It was the perfect way to finish off a meal of many flavours and textures. A* Khao Suppers.
Celebrating Diwali with Khao
Two weeks later my sister and I went to the Khao Suppers Diwali Supper, this time at Potter & Reid café in East London. Diwali is the Festival of Light and is, in Punam’s words “a time for gathering, community, spending time with loved ones, and sharing a wholesome meal.” Whilst the food and drink couldn’t be faulted – the freshly made puri on tap by Punam’s mum were out of this world, I didn’t enjoy the experience as much as the Daar Dinners. We were sat at the end of a table opposite each other and next to us, in the same formation, were two friends who were obviously catching up and they just weren’t into connecting at all, it was like the rest of the table was closed off to us, even passing a dish or asking for one to be passed felt like an intrusion. That’s highly unusual for a supper club and was in direct contrast to the vibe Punam was trying to create – in her little intro to each course (and remember, this is a five course meal) she said how she hopes these suppers would bring people together and that the tables would chat amongst themselves. It did happen on some other tables, just not ours. Aside from that though, it was wonderful and a real honour to be able to share a Diwali celebration with Punam.
Supper clubs are about sharing a moment together over good food, connecting
I think one of the best things about supper clubs is that they’re not restaurants, they are about (for me) sitting at a table with other people, sharing a moment together over good food, connecting with people. They’re usually a really good option for people who are on their own because normally people will just include you. That’s what I hope for my supper club “Susie’s Kitchen Suppers.” It really makes my heart sing when I hear people who sat at the table as strangers, laughing away together as if old friends. It really is magic. The downstairs of my house, including the kitchen, is currently a building site so even though I’m starting to feel much better, the supper club is on pause for the foreseeable. I’ll let you know here once it is up and running again and I honestly can’t wait for that.
Tell me, would you go to a supper club on your own? Have you ever been to one? If you went to one with friends, would you include someone sitting next to you if they were alone?
The most expensive Advent Calendar
The past week has been spent making little boxes out of coloured card that I’ve had in my ‘stash’ for about a hundred years to make an advent calendar for Horatio and a shared one for Alex and P. In terms of cost, I definitely should have just bought a couple of the higher end chocolate calendars but, in terms of enjoyment…these were priceless. I had so much fun working out what to put in the boxes (it’s not all chocolate, not even all edible) and was really impressed with the boxes which have ‘hinged’ lids that open and close. Spectacular. Because Alex and P. are sharing theirs, I had to come up with a code to denote which day was for whom, so they’ve got to crack that first. Being as they’re both highly intelligent people, that should be a doddle.
I’ve made advent calendars for the kids before and I may well make them again but it’s definitely not going to be an annual thing. One of the many young people I seem to know (from working in the pub) was given a handmade calendar by their mum and, guess what… their mum was sensible and made them out of matchboxes!! Doh. Then again, 48 match boxes is a lot, even with my candle habit I’d struggle to get to a quarter of that number in a year. Perhaps I should start saving now for the next attempt in five years!
Have any of you gone down the absolutely mad route of handmade advent calendars? It’s tres spenny isn’t it!?
Listen, if you enjoy my Substack…firstly, thank you! I’m so glad. But secondly, please do share it with anyone you think might enjoy it.
Thanks a million.
Susie
Connect with me on Instagram
xx