Yingbo W.
Yelp
Never stepped foot in this store because I ordered from Uber Eats! I have driven by it and it looks like a hole in the wall but whatever I love those!
This is my first experience ordering from a restaurant that exclusively sells chaat. I've tried samosa chaat at an Indian restaurant before but didn't know what chaat meant and never knew it could be made in so many different ways. I made a big Uber eats order (to be eaten over a course of few meals) because I was curious.
Turns out the experience was super fun and interesting! Basically the chaat come in all variations of chickpeas, crispy prices (fried dough strips or noodles of some sort), tamarind, fruits, onions, turnips?, this green stuff (I think mint?), and yogurt, seeds, all layered on top of each other and mixed together like some crazy weird dip. Some of them have meat and some of them don't. They all seem to be served room temperature minus the meat topping.
I tried the pani puri, samosas, samosa chaat, and chicken biryani. I also got some lamb chaat but they gave me bhel puri instead (I think) which was vegetarian. Uber refunded my money for the wrong order so I was happy. I also got medium heat which wasn't spicy at all. The samosa chaat was savory but the bhel puri was sweet and tart. The pani puri were these little hollow balls you had to crack and fill with the chickpea mix and the tamarind/date water. It felt like I was eating dainty little escargots--but not as gross and also vegetarian.
Everything tasted great except the chicken biryani which was really boring. It was like a halal guy's wannabe but no white sauce included!! Get halal chicken and rice instead or chicken biryani from your favorite Indian restaurant, just not this one.
For dessert, I got this pink milk drink with the rice noodles, faluda, which reminded me of Vietnamese che, and the carrot halwa, which I had tried once at an Indian wedding. I loved the faluda but the halwa was a bit drier than I remembered.
Overall, I'm super impressed with how authentic and unique this little hole in the wall restaurant is. It's Indian food but not your typical stuff like the chicken tikka, naan, curries, whatever that you would find at other places. I loved this glimpse into a subset of Indian street food. Coming from a person that knows the ins and outs of Chinese food, it is amazing to discover the variations of Indian food exist as well!
Oh and LPT, I found the chaat tasted better after leaving in the fridge for a day (like all Asian takeout and leftovers) so it's perfectly fine to take some home.