Dashing into the sheltered enclosure in front of Hillion Mall with several packets of piping hot biryani in tow, Mr Navin Prasath stops to make sure the curry packets in his carrier bag aren’t leaking.
He is one of many who braved the rain for the past half an hour to queue for arguably the most coveted of food items at a pasar malam (night market) in front of the shopping centre located in Bukit Panjang.
“This biryani is worth it,” he tells me. “Granted, we don’t have many good biryani stalls in this area, but when these guys set up a stall here, it’s almost always sold out within one-two hours.”
“These guys” refer to Ajmir Biryani, or more specifically, the three brothers who run the business renowned for Indian snacks and sweets.
Ajmir’s flagship store – or stall, rather – is located at an overhead bridge just outside Admiralty MRT station. The outlet sells primarily sweets and murukku and the like – but every year, during the month of Ramadan, it also offers its much-loved biryani.
“The biryani thing started in 2012, by our father (who created and ran the Ajmir business),” Ajmir’s director Mohamed Ismail says.
“He had a lot of interest in cooking and loved experimenting with recipes, but his career took a different path despite his passion. I even asked him: ‘We already have a good business going, why do this?’ But he wanted to try making and selling biryani as a side business.
“At the time, fasting month was approaching, so we sold the biryani on a very small scale; like 5kg of mutton, which made about 20-30 packets.”
The response from customers grew favourable rather quickly, and a few days into the venture, 5kg became 10kg.
Mr Ismail’s father died months after that Ramadan, at the age of 59, but the family decided to continue selling biryani not just as a remembrance to him – but also by popular demand.
Initially, it was just once a year during fasting month, but in 2018, the brothers – which includes Mr Faizal and Mr Sabrudeen – set up a delivery business just for biryani.
The online business runs only from Friday to Sunday, and for lunch on public holidays. Ever so often, though, Ajmir also runs a stall at various ad hoc night markets islandwide.
At these pop-up outlets, such as the one at Hillion Mall last month, the biryani often sells out before lunch time.
When the rain ceased at around 2pm, workers arrived just in time with a fresh batch from another pasar malam stall in Tampines.
“Whenever we run out at one stall, we’ll replenish the biryani by taking it from another stall,” said Mr Faizal, who similar to his two brothers, is in his thirties.
“Wherever there’s a pasar malam and we get invited to set up shop, we will go. But our focus is still on our online delivery; even now, our online presence is better than our pop-up outlets.”
Intrigued by the dish’s popularity, I gave the mutton biryani a go, and understood the hype almost immediately.
While the rice is decent, the masala is everything in Ajmir’s biryani – spicy, but not overly so, and crucially, without too many cardamom seeds sneaking into every scoop of rice.
It’s a highly tasty biryani; one of the few versions in Singapore that you don’t need a dollop of acha (pickles) as an accompaniment.
In addition to chicken and mutton, Ajmir also sells – on certain days – prawn, lamb shank and even ayam masak merah (red gravy chicken) biryani.
“After our dad passed, we worked on the recipe and tried improving it along the way. My mum gave her input and later so did my wife and mother-in-law,” said Mr Ismail.
“Until this day, I think the recipe can still be improved. It’s always evolving actually. And (the taste) is a lot different from when we started.”
