In kebab country

"Eat the kebabs," was the instruction I received from my Mumbai colleagues when they heard that my next destination was Lucknow. And it would be rude not to.

It was not any old kebab I was going to go in search of, but the best kebab: the Tunday ke Kebab. Literally it means "one-armed man's kebab" because the inventor, legend has it, had one-arm and created the dish in a 17th century version of Masterchef. The Nawab of the state wanted the softest kebabs in town - he had no teeth - and held a competition won by Haji Murad Ali. His descendants opened a restaurant in the early 1900s and 120 years later, it's still there in the Aminabad bazaar.

I decided this was the place to get the South Africans on tour together for our first night out on the town. As you may know, our country is reputed for its love of meat and despite six trips to India, I still giggle (respectfully) that here, it's classified as "non-veg," and I knew I would find kindred spirits in my countrymen. True to form, we ordered all the kebabs on offer: chicken, mutton and buffalo and found them distinctly different and dare I say, more delicious, than the meat we get at a braai.

While our boerewors is flame-cooked and reliant on the smokey flavours of the fire, the kebabs were delicately flavoured with what Google told me are more than 160 spices. But the most surprising thing was the texture. I'd compare it to a tartare in its butteriness and an entire banquet in its taste. The only problem is that kebabs are not exactly the most photogenic of foods, and we were all too hungry to wait for me to try and style the picture, so this is all you're going to get.