sheermaal

at times you come across the most unexpected things as you walk along the lanes of purani dilli. as we were walking through ballimaran to visit mirza ghalib's haveli a bit before these stacks of sheermaal took us by surprise. stacks of sheermaal made out of dough kneaded with milk and butter.
it's not for everybody, one needs to have an appetite to bite into those rotis. a perfect combination would be a pot full of mutton qorma to go along with a couple of sheermaals. though i have never been able to finish more than one of those in a go.
next time in purani dilli try one of those, it's gonna be a rich treat. 

Kebabi... Sirf Kebabi......

I dunno when it started. Who started it and why. All I know is that this guy in Urdu Bazaar, bang opposite Jama Masjid, next tothe shop that sells the Urdu magazines, sells some MEAN really Mean kebabs.

Lallu Kebabi has apparently been here for almost some 30-40 yrs and has scored with his Buff kebabs. Thanks to the " No beef" movement in Delhi, "Buff" is the base for these "morsels of hell". Well they do taste amazingly worth it, hence Hell is the call...

Skewered into the seekhs, each morsel happily rests on the hot, burning crimson like coal, deepening in flavor and enticing with its smoky aroma... Melt in the mouth, burst of flavors, perfectly charred, delectably smoky...

They serve both the Seekh kebab and the tikka... I prefer the tikka, not that the seekh is any less.. but i don like minced meat too much... i feel the identity just gets lost... and the spices predominate... Its the same here.. though since its buff the flavor is strong enough to identify the meat, but the tikka always seems more Rustic and meaty to me...

The place, the shop, the Butchery... aint for the week at heart, i can guarantee... Gory enough for a vegetarian or a timid non vegetarian to scream and run for a while...

Shops like these are scattered around in purani dilli, but a specialised buff place is rare...

Walkin through the streets one realises... abhi to bahut kuchh chakhna baaki hai...

" Cream Roll Laya huuuunnn !"

Unlike Delhi... Street food in Gurgaon is pretty uncommon... U really don get too many redhi/ thela wallas here... So the sight of this Cream roll guy made me jump with joy...

Cream roll was somethin we used to enjoy as kids.. a small little sweet treat fresh from the bakery...Its simply: Light Whipped cream stuffed into puff pastry rolls.. But that got taken over by the packaged cartons of cream wafers and stuff like that. Not as fresh and light as we used to get. and definately not at that price.

This guy, is one of the 120 ppl employed at a Ghaziabad bakery, who is given a 100 rolls to sell during the day and get back with the cash or the left over rolls. He catches the metro with his box well packed in a steel briefcase, gets off at the Sikanderpur station and leaves his briefcase there, and roams around satisfying many a sweet tooth.

I found him screaming at the top of his voice, " Cream roll laya huunnn" near the Sikanderpur metro station where all the wicker Furniture guys are. To tell you the truth at first i dint expect it to be any great, thought it wouldn be fresh and would have an overdose of sugar like most Delhi sweets are. But no! It was soooo light, the puff pastry so crisp and it was just right on the sweetness meter... It was DIVINE. Bliss at Rs. 5/-

I couldn resist: I bought 2 more :)

"Benda kalu ooru......."

The legend goes that King Veeraballa once lost his way in a forest. Hungry and dead tired, he came upon a hut where he met an old Lady. Seeing a lonely traveller and a hungry face, she gave him some boiled beans (known as 'Benda Kalu' in Kannada). The King found these beans tastier than anything he had ever had ( he was freaking hungry for sure). In memory of this incident, he named the place "Benda Kalu Ooru" (place of boiled/cooked beans). Which then slowly became Bangalore, and now back to the roots with "Bengalooru".

Now tell me, a place whose name is all thanks to food, how could it be anywhere far behind when it comes to a discussion about street grub.

Fresh cut fruits and veggies, fresh juice shops, chat wale ki dukaane, pani puri stalls, benne dosai on the road, you name it and its there. Be it typically south Indian delicacies or even the North Indian chat pata's, they have it all... But the 2 places that make them so so so different are:

the Hot Chip shops and the Bakeries(Iyengar bakeries)

The variety that one gets at the Hot Chip shops is fantastic. From the simplest potato chips to the wierdest bitter gourd( Karela) chips which are green. They actually have these huge frying pans half filled with oil right outside the shop, and have fresh chips getting made on and off. Potato, jack fruit, Bitter gourd, Tapioca, raw bananas....variety is the spice of life... Why have those packaged, artificially flavoured, expensive to the roof wafers when u can have such awesome fresh chips right around the corner.

Iyengar bakery's are a boon to the society.

Where in France u get freshly baked croissants and in Italy the Focaccia is to die for early in the morning... here in bangalore the Iyengar Bakeries get u addicted to fresh breads and cookies and buns and cakes... You would just hate to buy those branded packed breads with expiry dates to check, once u've had from them.In fact I know of ppl who know exactly when, at what time, the breads come out baked into the bakeries and trust me they don last for more than 30 mins. They just disappear. And then you have to wait for the next lot to come out. The breads are super soft, the cakes super spongy and the biscuits... well thats how the cookie should crumble.

Luck by chance ( Adarsh Vegetarian )

Plans went wrong.
PLAN 1: parathewali gali- too crowded. a waiting of atleast 15-20mins. too hard to handle our hunger.
PLAN 2: fatehpuri area- mostly closed on a sunday i guess. only some sweets were available. we need to have a full meal.

Net Result: two hungry guys
We chanced to stop by and have some super sweet rabri from roadside vendor. 2 good things happened.
1) the sugar kick made sure we survive for the next few minutes
2) the rabri guy suggested us to hop across the road for to get our lunch

rabriwala

 

Across the road in the not so narrow lane was Aadarsh Vegetarian. surely it didn't look like one of the joints for which we come all the way to Chandni Chowk. it was not one of those who may have a heritage dating back to the days of the Mughals or maybe of a more recent date like that of the Britishers. well this one had nothing to boost about in those sense. lets be real we can't wait for this restaurant to grow old. we need to have something on our plates right now as in RIGHT NOW. and we walked into this modest restaurant. nothing to be talked about the interiors or the other customers around, everything is just as regular as it could be.

adarsh vegetarian

we asked for the menu in return we where directed towards the cash counter to pay before we eat. there was nothing like a menu. simple thali system. and soon after paying infront of us landed little katoris (bowls) and a big thali. one by one the katoris got filled up accompanied by parathas followed by tawa rotis (layered in ghee) and then rice. the quantity and sequence can be of your choice. get as much as you want as whatever you want, refills are encouraged. the spread was not too wide, but well prepared.

the thali

THE SPREAD: Aloo Capsicum (Shimla Mirch) + Dal + Mungoori + Lauki ka Koofta + Kheer + Papad + Rice + Roti + Aalo/Paneer Paratha + Chutni + Neembu

What made me fall in love with the food was it's non-spicy, non-oily character. i have a long list of stuff i love to eat in purani dilli, but seldom have i come across food which i can manage to have day after day, food which may not threaten my digestive system. well here is one such thing.
a thali which i may not remember for long, as it lack those typical dilli flavours, what it has is the flavour of home cooked food. a plain simple thali which is probably the everyday meal for the nearby shop keeper. maybe one day some other hungry guy gets lucky to land up at Adarsh Vegetarian.

Where: Aadarsh Vegetarian, 483, haider Kuli Corner, Main Chandni Chowk
When: opens at 10:30 (i would say lunch time is ideal)
What you pay: Rs.100/- for unlimited refills