In this episode, we bring you our street food explorations from Ghaziabad, a city in the western part of Uttar Pradesh. Situated at a distance of nearly 42 km away from Delhi, it is an old industrial city that is now part of the National Capital Region.
For this, we arrived at Jawahar Gate near Ghanta Ghar at Old Ghaziabad city. The busy marketplace with various shops as old as over sixty-five years or more gave us a semblance of Old Delhi. There were lots of street food eateries varying from shops to carts. Like most other places, here too the people love to gorge on the zesty street food fares like chaats, moonglet, dahi bhalle, etc.
We started the food journey with the most preferred street food of Ghaziabad that is the moonglet. These toothsome and comforting pan-fried moong dal-based pancakes are a craze with the crowd here. It's the resemblance to an omelet hence it has been named so.
As we ambled down the crowded streets, we came across a cart selling Kanji Vada. It is a healthy dish comprising of deep-fried moong dal dumplings dunked in fermented mustard powder-based water. This one was refreshing and filling. It is quite popular in the states of UP and Rajasthan. The vendor here has been serving it for the past 35 years.
After being done with it, we went to have sweets from one of the oldest sweet shops in the locality known as Loknath Sweet. Here we were thrilled by the sight of the luscious Rabri and Rasmalai. We were recommended to try the above two desserts along with Chenar Kheer. These well-made classics didn't disappoint us at all. The genial owner of the shop Sanjay ji eagerly walked us through the details of the sweets that we tried and also treated us to a yummy lassi.
After such a sweet encounter, we thought of trying the Hathras famed aloo tikkiya. Hathras is a town in western Uttar Pradesh that is known for its Rabri and this sweet and sour tikki. This one was a simple dish of plain deep-fried aloo patties that was served with chutney and curd. It was not that outstanding but wasn’t very disappointing either.
Then we went to Rakesh egg place to try two of their best-selling dishes that were the egg lolo popo and egg curry. Both the dishes were simply scrumptious and no wonder, this place was the highlight of our Ghaziabad food tour.
Then came the turn of some chilled Dahi Bhalle. We spotted it at a mobile cart that was circling the bustling marketplace. The Dahi Bhallas or lentil-based fried dumplings were served with smooth and sweet beaten curd, crushed papdis, chutneys, and roasted cumin powder. Served chilled, it was truly lip-smacking.
Our ultimate stop was Goyel paan shop. It was our first trip to Ghaziabad and we were impressed by the wide array of street food options in this place. We couldn’t cover even half of the thing and so we intend to be back soon. Till then keep walking and keep exploring.