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Chaat Chat

Three reasons for the intense craving for Pani puri right now: I could be pregnant (no!), or homesick (perhaps), or just a tad resentful of the scrum outside Al Mallah, where we'd to wait an hour for a piddly shawarma.
The shawarma was great. But pani puri rarely takes more than ten minutes. To make and consume.
If you're from the north of India, you know it as gol gappe, if from the east, as puchkas. The giants of Indian fastfood -- Haldiram, Bikanerwala et al - describe it on their menus as, erm, water balls.
Don't flinch. Take my word for it. Pani puris are toothsome marvels; one of India's greatest culinary concoctions.
Any idiot can assemble pani puris (again unlike shawarmas, which need some skill), but the true legends manage to put them so they hit the spot every time.
In Bombay it's Guptas at Chowpatty, Kailash Parbat at Colaba, the chap outside Elco Arcade. In Delhi it's Bengal Sweets at South Ex, Prince at GK I, and the UPSC chaatwallah.
Now for the ingredients: crisp, puffed-up, semolina shells, stuffed with permutations of boiled potatoes, sprouts, and ragda (curried peas). Lashings of sweet tamarind chutney and slatherings of the hot mint one, topped with tangy, spicy ice-cold water. Some add nylon sev -- named thus because it's textured like tiny fragments of golden yarn.
(The sev and sweet chutney is what Time Out's curry issue got horribly wrong, describing it as vermicelli and honey, making chaat sound like a Levantine dessert.)
It's not easy eating pani puri.
Those whose palates have never been singed by a simultaneous assault of fiery, sweet and sour flavours, a deluge of pungent water that can leave the unwary choking and spluttering, a once-benevolent spherical perfect puri shattering like a cone-nosed bullet into lethal fragments as it makes its way south, would be well advised to stay away.
When you make your way through a plateful, just desserts are a puri stuffed with potato and sweet chutney. The aficionados (masochists?) opt for more pani.
Pani puri was the sharpest pregnancy craving I had, while subsisting on dry rusks and ginger tea. Doctor's warnings, hubby's pleas, or the threat of numerous waterborne diseases -- nothing could stop me from lining up for a daily fix outside Prince's (the risk is reduced as he uses mineral water).
In Dubai, the search for a worthy successor continues. Kamat's is so-so, Sind Punjab is a no-no. At Bombay Chowpatty, the vendor is unfriendly and the ambience sucks, but it still has a slight edge over Puranmal's for now. The slight unpleasant aftertaste is from realising you've shelled out sixty bucks for what costed fifteen back home.
Oh well. Still the best kick money can buy.



This post first appeared on Dubai Dates, please read the originial post: here

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