'Making you toil for your lunch'

We ate around the city to bring you a list of daunting dishes, tricky to navigate. But once conquered, they make you want to lick your plate clean

It's one thing to whip up a difficult dish, and another to devour it. We are referring to all those times when you have quizzically looked at a humongous burger wondering where to start. For those who like a challenge, we built our appetite and scouted for the best restaurants that serve interesting foods that are tough to eat but worth the effort.

WTF burger

D:OH! All Day Dining & Bar, Andheri and Thane Rs 685

The WTF burger is a towering stack of carbs comprising a chicken patty that weighs a pound, strips of bacon, fried egg and cheese. The challenge is to first hold before you take a bite. Pawan Raina, Business Head, D:OH All Day Dining & Bar launched the dish on the menu last year with the intention of making jaws drop. "The Man vs Food challenges are popular and we thought we should build on it," says Pawan Raina, Business Head, D:OH. While seasoned food champs usually separate the bread from the patty, others just cut it into four.

Abheet Singh negotiates bites into the WTF burger

But, Raina suggests you eat it the way a burger should be eaten—at one go. The trick is to keep all the ingredients neatly tucked in after puncturing the yoke on the fried egg. "Most guests are overwhelmed at the sight. It's called the Godzilla of burgers, and is one of out most Instagrammed dishes. But it's a task to keep the yoke from spilling." If vegetarians are feeling left out, they have a variant of mustard-tempered potato and veggie patty with molten cheese, carom seed-scented crispy spinach and gram flour chilla on a bed of fresh veggies. "It tastes 'wonderful, tasty, fantastic', as its tagline says," says Raina.

Open-face sushi burger

At Indigo Deli outlets Rs 695

Most burgers need to be demolished using bare hands. The open-face sushi burger is not one of them. It includes crispy prawns, a sushi rice bun topped with pea shoot salad and dollops of wasabi mayo. "Most people struggle with it when they try to eat it like a regular burger," says executive chef Kedar Bobde.

Since there's no "right" method, pick your own unique way. "For beginners, I would suggest that you go about carefully deconstructing the burger; have the batter fried prawns on other side, then with every morsel of prawn, have some rice with a bit of wasabi dash."

48-layer cake

At Elementaria Bakery and Cafe, BKC and Lower Parel Rs 1,050

The 48-layer cake at Elementaria Bakery and Cafe is a contrast of textures. It has 24 layers of French chocolate sponge, 23 layers of French chocolate mousse and a slathering of dark chocolate ganache. A slice of it is equal to 1 kg and the entire cake weighs 12 kg. When brought to the table, it looks nothing less than a mountain waiting to be scaled. The goal is to bite from the top layer away from the spine till the bottom so that you're able to savour the melange of flavours.

Sagar Verma, COO, and chairman Arrjun Sharma. Pics/Pradeep Dhivar

But there's also the fear of tipping it over when you swipe it with a fork. "Because the pastry is huge, it gets messy. But that's where the fun lies," says Sagar Verma, chief operating officer. "We wanted to design the biggest pastry in Mumbai. There was also a challenge attached to it: finish it in 10 minutes and you get it free."

Slurpy Guantang bao

At Koko, Lower Parel Rs 250

We sampled the guantang bao at Lower Parel's KOKO at the insistence of the effervescent chef Eric Sifu. It looks like any other large dumpling, but has a filing of slurpy soup. Made by wrapping a gelatinous filling in dough, it is steamed so that the filling melts into soup. The tricky part is getting hold of the bun from the bamboo basket and onto your plate without rupturing it. "The dumpling is so hot and delicate, it can easily slip away from the chopstick," says Sifu.

You have to carefully sip the soup from the bun without scalding your mouth and then dip it in the dark vinegar without spilling the stuffing, he explains. "It requires getting-used to. But once you get a hang of it, there's no stopping." Sifu has trained his staff to guide guests in the technique. They serve four varieties including Iberico pork, imperial chicken, tom yum prawns and the vegetarian tom yum je.

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