From the King's Carte

Photos: Prabir Das

Let's go back to a historical era, the Mughal era for example.  Now let's imagine the emperor's den. When we think of the Mughals, we think of lots of things. Maybe a gold-plated turban which goes nicely with his highness's royal moustache or a glass made of gold in which the drink uses to quench his thirst.  Now that we are living in the 21st century, we witness and even live our lives surrounding some of the elements they brought to us. One of the smallest of them is the almond drink or as we all know, the famous 'Badam Sharbat'.

Though this drink was introduced in our land hundreds of years ago, Royal Restaurant, located in old Dhaka commercialised the drink just a decade back. This popular restaurant has catered to thousands with their mouth-watering Dhakaiya food. During such hot summer days, their almond drink feels like drops of heaven to the customers.

"We introduced the drink around two years after we had started our restaurant. We felt that this was something that should be brought back to our country. The drink was already quite popular in India, and we thought why not we start it here as well," says Abdul Malek, manager at the Royal Restaurant. Since its release, the sharbat has gained immense popularity, especially in the festivals like Eid or Pahela Baishakh.

The drinks are especially made from Kashmiri almonds and made daily in their kitchen. "The chefs are especially trained from Delhi to make this drink. It has its own measurement and little mistakes here and there can ruin the entire batch," says the manager. Royal serves the drinks in three ways- 60 taka per glass while a half-litre bottle costs 150 taka and one litre is 265 taka. 

"I have been living in old Dhaka all my life and till now Royal's almond drink has been our weekend speciality," says Shuvro Das, a loyal customer of the restaurant. People also prefer having a chilled glass of sharbat as a sweet ending to their meal. Regulars at Royal say that Royal's Kacchi Biriyani isn't complete without the sharbat in the end.

Though a lot of other restaurants have added the Badam Sharbat in their menu; Royal remains as the bon vivant choice. What they have done is beyond the culinary world, they has preserved one our finest heritage which was once included in the King's carte du jour.