Old Delhi food tour

So the last part of my sabbatical has arrived all too quickly and the seconds and minutes are going even faster. I arrived in Delhi and headed straight out on a food tour in Old Delhi. The contrast between Tokyo (the most populated city) and Delhi (the second most populated city) couldn’t be more extreme. Order vs disorder. Careful drivers vs crazy drivers. But I love them both. I met shikha, my tour guide, in a taxi on the way to the start point of the tour. It took me an hour and a half to cross Delhi, and a lot more seemed to have been taken off my life. At one point we were on a 14-lane highway with most people going in the same direction but everyone jostling for a bit of tarmac. 

The food tour was excellent. We started with a potato curry, two types of bread, a samosa, gulab jamun and a lassi. I realised I was going to have to pace myself. And I was brought up to eat everything on my plate. Not doing so, and particularly not doing so in India, seemed wrong. But Shikha explained it was fine. 

The secret to tasting curry is to take one spoonful, then a second and then a third. The first taste hits your lips and front of the mouth and is usually salty. The second spoonful hits you sweet and sour buds inside your mouth and the third spoonful gives you the spice in your throat. Try it at home!

The next stop was a bit weird. Here’s the picture…

A mango and paneer sandwich with jam on a slice of mother’s pride. Yes, I thought so too! But the sandwich was brought over by the British… The next stop was at a stall which was selling dhokla. This was amazing. It tastes like a really moist piece of cake with a hint of spice. It would be a closely fought contest between dhokla and chiffon cake. 

Passing through the streets of Old Delhi, we stopped at a guy selling naan khatai – biscuits cooked in oven the like of which I had never seen (they are cooking underneath that pan in the photo) and they too just melted in your mouth.

Time for some more white-knuckle rides as we hopped into a rickshaw and headed towards the spice market. The road was narrow and more pitted than Station Lane in Milford – I felt like it might topple over on a few occasions and we certainly got familiar with other road users – so close we could play Chinese whispers at times. I couldn’t help but feel for the guy pulling us along. Reminded me of another rickshaw trip I did with my brother in Jaipur – I felt me and Gray should be doing the pulling and then the guy got lost and it was miles out of the way… anyroad, it was thrilling this time around. We stopped for some delicious kulfi – a very famous kulfi maker in Old Delhi. I had some pomegranate sorbet with it. Wow! What patience that must have taken!

If you ever find yourself in Old Delhi, I would recommend a stop here. The spice market was very spicy – the air seemed to be thick with ground spices and I felt myself coughing and sneezing…but the smells were really something. We stoppped by Kumars and I stocked up on quite a few, and some mango green tea. 

The last two places showed how cooking chickpeas in two different ways, with two different types of bread, completely changes the flavour. The first was a traditional method where the chickpeas are cooked very slowly for 4-5 hours just in species and the second was the more modern way – cooking the chickpeas in water and spices for around 2-3 hours. I would go with tradition every time – but the modern ones were good!

There was time for just one more lassi – they were all out of mango lassi, so I opted for a keser badam (saffron and almond), before we got into a tuktuk and headed back to the  taxi. This was a great tour (foodtourinDelhi.com), and an excellent tour guide – Shikha provided a goodie bag with water, wipes, tissues and cleaning gel. And my tummy has been right as rain!