October 6, 2007

EATING OUT ON A BREEZY EVENING...

I have a penchant for tasting the roadside eateries especially sold by the Bihari-bhaiyas. My appetite grows deeper on sunday evenings when I usually take a long night-walk having shouldered the entire week’s work and getting prepared to face the week ahead.
I wouldn’t afford to miss the opportunity of gulping the gol-gappas (pani-poori) sold by my lovable bhaiyas. So. Yummy it is. And how corrupt my mind is, I once dreamt that I stole the entire sack of pooris and the pot of pani and came home running to eat it.

At the end of this article I am sure you would end up preparing the dish or go to a nearby stall to munch your pooris and drink the pani. Pani-poori aka gol -gappa is a favorite eating-dish of North-Indians. The pooris are hollow, round until you make a hole on the top centre. The poori remains incomplete unless it is stuffed with special spicy-potato and dipped in masala water to fill the dough. If you are a sweet-lover, you can go for meetha gol-gappa otherwise spicy stuff is good to eat.

Those frequenting high budget hotels may end up loosing the original taste of it as they are usually served in a plate with 5 to 6 pieces already prepared with too high a cost. By the time the dish reaches your table it becomes too soft like a cake.

Standing by the road-side on a breezy evening with the crowd huddled around the stall; with the vendor giving one at each time for a customer is a delightful scene. As you ask for pani-pooris, the immediate question is tikka ya meetha (spicy or sweet)..? You can ask for adha-tikka –adha- metha also as I would prefer. I would go for 4 rounds every time I visit the eatery. There are also flat-stomached men who go for 10 rounds of gol-gappas.They are not a heavy stuff until you confirm “no more!!”

The vendor should have a good memory as he has to keep a count on each poori served to different persons and also the choice of the dish…
Its now your turn to be the customer... get...set...go...to munch your pooris..

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