For Delicious Biryani, Beat It Out Of A Bamboo Stem

The lamb shank biryani at 99 BISTRO comes with a show: it’s cooked in a bamboo trunk, brought to your table, then whacked lustily with a stick till its tasty contents tumble onto your plate.

- Florence Fong

We are sceptical. Biryani cooked in a bamboo stem sounds like a cheap gimmick. Since when did pots go out of fashion? This comfy cafeteria-style halal eatery in a nondescript “adult-learning campus building” in Eunos claims to be the first in Singapore serving bamboo biryani. It says the method has roots in Indian tribal cooking, where the bamboo was used for its “health benefits and aroma”.

We are interrupted from our cynical train of thought when the waiter comes bearing a stout brown pole. Tick! Tack! Tock! He uses a thin wooden stick to hit the bamboo with short, sharp taps. A coriander leaf-studded hard boiled egg plops out clumsily onto our plate, followed by an urgent tumble of golden and orange-hued basmati rice. Then, a brief pause. The waiter thwacks the bamboo more vigorously in a strangely mesmerising sort of percussion rhythm, coaxing a large hunk of bone-in Australian lamb shank to hurtle out of its bamboo prison. That was fun — and it smells wonderful, too. But how does it taste?

Bamboo Biryani, $24 (feeds one hungry person, or two pax)