Heck ~! after seeing and tasting the dough filled with favorite ingredient under going the dip in Pure Desi Ghee , I can claim real paranthas have to be fried. No short cuts please.Tandoori paranthas are disgrace to the name parantha 
. I know – I have been brainwashed to believe fried items are not good for health. I cannot disagree more – it is the way of doctors/health freaks to divest us of our opportunity to savour few earthly harmless delights.
Visit to Delhi and specially old Delhi – area around chandni chowk took a foodie turn to bylanes of memories in Merrut (revadi, chaat), Pathankot (paranthas, lassi in massive tumbler). It all feels like just yesterday. With the food sights and sounds of yester years passed by like a flash …
I could not visit many of the acclaimed places like Nathoos,Anupama or was it annapurna Bhandar, Rajinder in Safdarjung, Gole market and sadly Dahi Bhallas too 
. Since I am not into eating birds or animals etc, I did not visit Karims and other haunts of similar genre. But more of the disappointment later.
The rava based golgappas in Sarojini market were delicious and the “water base – paani” of the right tangy-sweet taste. I think the sweetness arises due the right use of date and some other ingredient. Aloo tikki in Lajpat nagar can’t be beaten when had freshly made with dollops of Curd/Dahi and topped with sweet/sour garnishes of chopped coriander, onion and sprinkling of lemon(yeah I like lemon). A dash of chaat masala – does wonders to that. The moong badae(vade) had the freshly chopped radish/shalgam (yeah was surprised to see the latter – somebody was experimenting) on mint chutney. 5 of them disappeared without trace and opposition in the early morning.
The paranthas in the same named galli - were nice- but the accompanying vegetable etc was not that great. If given chance I will try out each of those variants across rabdi, lemon, khurchan(did not have space to eat more) across the 3 shops. It is always better to go to smaller place where you can stand outside and admire the passers by and feel the place. The kachoris and Samosas too were entrusted with delighting and they did not fail.Daulat’s chaat too was nice wrap up. The challenge is not to confuse the waiter with order details and not take what he has extra – most probably he gave wrong order/misplaced somebody else.
Only sweet that I dug into was the Jalebi - deep fried in Desi ghee and costed 30 Rs/piece. Needless to say I was overwhelmed with taste and had to wash down with light lassi .
As usual Almighty has ways to treat his faithfuls .
PS I am still searching for the elusive chole-bhature of the right taste. Here in Bengaluru – we are dependent on Kartik sweet’s Sunday morning expose. BTW I recently discovered best Jhalmuri in Bengluru is available at New Airport – Gangotri – for 20 bucks you get a song of dish. Advice for eating golgappas sounds so alien
Filed under: Food
