Delhi, edible

There are little more than a handful of places where I go to eat in Delhi. This might seem tragic in a city where food is cheap, abundant, and yummy – but the truth is that I keep coming back to the same restaurants because they’re just so gosh darn *good*. If you plan on visiting Delhi, eat at one of these places. Trust me: I’ve visited them enough times to know that they’re always, always delicious.

1. Sagar: the cheapest, best, and most popular restaurant in Defence Colony. The dosas, idlies, uttapams, and dahi wada are tasty, of course, but it’s the full-scale thali that takes the vegetarian cake. (A thali is a pile of food neatly organized on a platter: bread and rice in the middle; multiple vegetable preparations, soupy lentil daals, yogurts, and sweets around the perimeter. The thali is perfect for the person who can’t decide what to order.)

2. Haldiram’s: I know, I know. I’ve often written about how much I adore this multi-level food paradise nestled in the heart of the old city, but Haldiram’s is such an essential stop on Delhi’s food trail that I believe it deserves one more mention. The ground floor is lined by glass counters filled with goodies to take away. The left wall is devoted to endless variations of traditional Indian sweets: three kids of jalebis, ten kinds of laddoos, seventeen kinds of barfi, and on and on. The back wall presents a funny combination – on the left side are the Bengali sweets, and on the right side are the chocolate eclairs and upside-down pineapple cakes. In the back-right corner is the kulfi seller: he offers ten flavors of pure milk-made Indian ice cream, sold on sticks like popsicles. On the right wall are the savories and snack foods, best among them the Gujarati dhokla and the freshly fried samosas. (There’s much more than that at the snack counters, yet somehow I never seem to make it past the sweets on the opposite wall.)

But, as you know from previous raves on this topic, the fun starts one flight up. By now, I’ve tried almost every single type of chaat that Haldiram’s has to offer – and they’re all delicious. After all, all chaat dishes are prepared from the same basic ingredients: some doughy fried bread, crispy crackers, or puffed grains as a base, sweetened yogurt to drench them in, green chutney to spice them, tamarind sauce to make it all sweet and tangy, and baked potato cubes, chickpeas, or lentils to fill it out. The miracle is this: though the dishes are made out of these same ingredients, each one tastes completely different from all the others. Further miracles await: there’s much more than chaat at Haldiram’s, and it’s worth your while to extend your tastebuds farther. The North Indian thali, served like a T.V. dinner on a compartmentalized white tray, is a good place to start. It includes rich daal makhani, spicy vegetables, cool raita yogurt, rice, and roti bread freshly smoked in a tandoor oven. Beyond that, I’m a fan of the crowdpleasing paneer tikka – generous cubes of firm cottage cheese, rubbed with spices and baked just enough to make the edges crunchy and the inside soft. It goes well with the two kinds of paranthas (one plain, one laced with mint and coriander) available; each is a flakier, more buttery version of this heavy flatbread popular in the North. Finally, the chole bhature – two giant puffs of fried dough served with spiced chickpeas – is a particular joy, especially if you have the nerve to join the local breakfast crowd in consuming all that fatty goodness before noon.

3. The samosa and chai stand behind Khan Market: a favorite of my dad’s, and for good reason. Five rupees will buy you a hot, fresh mini-cup of chai; a little bit more will buy you a spicy samosa served in a banana leaf bowl. You eat standing, along with all the taxi drivers and shopkeepers, and if you’re a woman, you’ll definitely be the only one there. This corner is also a great spot for people-watching – it looks right onto Khan Market and all of its well-dressed inhabitants. The samosa man also serves something he calls “bread pakoras”: fried slices of white bread. Let me know if you’ve ever had one of these, or plan to.

4. The Turtle Café, also in Khan Martket: only for consumption after you’ve assuaged your upper class guilt by dining “with the people” at the five-rupee chai stand above. This one occupies the top floor of an English book store, and does not feature Indian food at all. (I knew I’d been in the country long enough when I started enjoying the overpriced Western goods at the Turtle Café a little too often.) In any case, if you have a yen for carrot walnut cake, safe salads, or pesto pasta, race to an outdoor table at the Turtle and let your tastebuds forget you’re in Delhi. And hey, don’t beat yourself up about it – as soon as you get there, you’ll see you’re not the only firangi dying for a slice of lemon cheesecake or a plate of baked ziti.

5. The HaveMore, in Pandara Market: it’s time to head back to India, and to the gravy-rich North in particular. Join the massive Punjabi families (and all their cute kids!) in enjoying the hot kebabs, creamy vegetable dishes, and crispy-yet-chewy breads on offer at the quasi-luxurious HaveMore. If it’s winter, get the sarson-ka-saag (spiced and pureed mustard greens) with makki-ki-roti (buttery, firm flatbread made of cornflour). Yes, you will want to have more, though your arteries will protest.

A few others:
a. Gulati, an upscale place next to the HaveMore, where the kebabs – and the tourist-watching – are even better.
b. Saravana Bhavan, which is a chain of South Indian restaurants similar to Sagar. They originated in Chennai, and they have two outlets in Connaught Place – one on Janpath, and one near the Regal Cinemas building. Here, again, a thali is a great way to go: Saravana Bhavan crams even more dishes onto their thali trays than Sagar does. It’s a little overwhelming.
c. If you’re staying in Paharganj (which I sincerely hope you’re not), try the restaurant on the roof of the Hotel Rak International, just off Main Bazaar. Word to the wise: don’t order off the menu. Instead, poke your head into the kitchen and ask the chef what he’s making fresh that day. A big bowl of masala mixed vegetables or palak paneer and a plate hot, fresh rotis is cheap and filling – plus, you get to bond with the European backpackers and watch the commotion on Tooti Chowk three stories below. If you show up around seven thirty in the evening, you’ll also get a concert of bhajans floating up from the temple next door.

Bon appetit!