Friday Feature: Faces of India

What: Street Food
Where: Delhi 6 (just like the movie!)

Crowded, sweaty, cacophonous, in-your-face; it was sensory overload personified.

These pictures were shot as we walked fast in Old Delhi or Delhi Sector 6. The smells wafting from these street carts were incredibly enticing but since we had wills of steel and stomachs made of jello, the best I could do was take pictures as Anita pushed us peering tourists along.


Daulat ki chaat (milk foam)


Deep fried and delicious


He's a hit with the ladies


They call it gol gappe but it's really pani puri


Samosas and kachoris


Aloo tikkis


Business is good


Cool those burning tastebuds with some ras malai

9 comments:

Miri said...

They may look like pani puris but taste so different ! I'm used to my pani puris and just find these a poor substitute. The aloo tikkis are unmatched though- the double deep frying us the key ;-)
Miri

Anjali Koli said...

Manisha even though I live here. In the midst of these tempting food galis smelling delicious I have rarely given in to the temptation. Most of these places are so filthy and in Mumbai many times they are above the sewer. Here in Blr. my friend took me to VV puram's food street, as food blogger I wanted to check it out but for a week after the eating out there I had nightmares of falling sick fortunately I didn't. Good thing you avoided it!

Anita said...

Chicken. I am talking about Anjali, of course. :-)

I eat if it is fried or boiling; and I hope to always live to tell the tale.

These are not pani poori. They are the original thing - gol gappe - invented by the Mughal cooks to deal with exactly what you are worrying about! Apparently the acid (tamarind) and the main spice (chilli) creates a medium in which bacteria find it hard to survive...it tastes great so I am not complaining.

notyet100 said...

I tried Daulat ki chat for the first time ,luved it,had twice :) I luv chandni chowk it's my fav place ,,,:)

Anjali Koli said...

LOL! Anita I do make exception though rarely and narrate it for posterity that I too did it and survived! :P Blush blush.

Once as a kid I ate Ragda pattice in Khaoo galli and I had looseies and was so dehydrated almost borderig to typhoid that I still don't dare that much.

About the fried stuff. I see the huge kadhais of oil and wonder what would be the vintage :P:P

Plus did you see the Pani puri wala citizen journalist episode. Gross!!!!!!

Anjali Koli said...

Forgot to add this. For all street food lovers
http://annaparabrahma.blogspot.com/2011/01/exploring-v-v-purams-food-street.html

Indian Food Rocks said...

Miri, so maybe I shouldn't quibble about the name gol gappa, then? :-D

Anjali, the food carts we used to frequent in Bombay were "reasonably clean and hygienic" and I never ate off the ones that sat atop open sewers. There used to be a batata-vada-wala who used to peel his potatoes while sitting on a plank of wood that straddled the sewer. He used to have the longest lines but I never joined them. Like you, I also wonder about the oil that is re-used over and over... But I'm glad you let your hair down and had some fun in Bangalore!

Anita, oooh! I know how to push 'em buttons, don't I?! So, are you saying that the Mughal cooks did a Steve Jobs on Mumbai's pani puri? You know, stole the idea, gave it another name and called it their own? Hmmm, but wait! Miri says they aren't anywhere as good as the real pani puri. So, maybe that's a bad analogy!

notyet100, you have a stomach of steel! Yes, Chandni Chowk is a very interesting place!

Priyanka@The Healthy Diary said...

I absolutely miss being in India this time of the year. I would my aunt in Delhi every winter and a lot of eating and shopping entailed!!!

Bong Mom said...

I fall sick, pop my entroquinols, wreathe in pain, spend half of the day in you-know-where, recuperate and eat again. I have TO eat at least two of those "phuchkas" before I take off.

Now that Anita has a scientific explanation to the whole thing it rests easy on my mind :)

And so that IS "Daulat ki Chaat" ? I am still vague-o about it..what foam ?