Taste of India

One thing that India is famous for is its street food. And it is completely deserved. Every city and even every street offers a different kind of dish made from different ingredients. The only thing that you can be sure about is that it will be really spicy and you might not actually feel the taste of the food at all. I am a person who loves to eat spicy stuff and put on my meal tons of sriracha and love to sweat while eating. However, India showed me a different level of spiciness. I sometimes couldn’t even open my mouth after having some street food.

Indians eat mostly with hands. It doesn’t matter how liquid their meal is. We tried it a few times and didn’t find it more comfortable than (for us) ordinary eating with fork and spoon. Close to every place with meals in India one can find some basin to wash hands. So what everything did we eat and how did it look like? Here are some of them:

Thali (meaning “plate”) is a universal word that you can say in nearly every restaurant or street food stand and you will get something. We saw this word mostly in the North but people would understand it also in the south. This meal made up of a selection of various dishes is usually served on some platter (in the north made of some iron, in the south in the form of a leaf)

Paratha is a flatbread that people in the south eat instead of chapati. I found it tastier than chapati but the reason could be that we just ate too much chapati during our trip to India. Paratha tastes a little bit like a pancake. In the south, they eat it mostly with potatoes and vegetables but it varies from place to place.

dosa – our favorite one. Dosa is a flat thin rice batter that originates from South India. We actually tried it for the first time in Jodhpur (on the northern India) during some wedding preparations. We were completely blown away by the taste of it and also by the taste of the coconut sauce that was served with that. One can try many variations of dosa but in most cases, it would be served with coconut sauce and curry potatoes. Dosa is a breakfast meal for south Indians.

Momos (steamed dumplings) were for me the number one when I had some digestion problems. Many people know the momos from Chinese cuisine (called dim sum) but it is widespread in India as well. Indians eat it them mostly with vegetables but we tried also momos with chicken meat and seitan. One can order them either steamed or fried. I always preferred steamed ones because I had enough fried food in India so I found every opportunity to not have steamed food precious.

Mysurpa (or Mysore Pak) is a sweet made of generous amounts of ghee, sugar, gram flour and cardamon. It originated in the Indian state of Karnataka, in Mysore. We saw in Mysore many places with sweets and tried one of them which was luckily this one. I am a huge lover of ghee and big denier of sweets but because of the ghee, I couldn’t resist trying this one. And it tasted amazing!

Samosa – mostly fried pastry filled with savory fillings – spiced potatoes, lentils or onions. One can find it on every corner in India but we ate it actually only on the train. It was super delicious and saved our hungry stomachs.
Kerala Egg Puffs – phyllo pastry with boiled egg is a pastry that I really loved. Not fried but baked and cooked egg inside with some lovely sauce. Great for breakfast and snacks!

Lassi – a yogurt-based drink that is mostly served sweet. Lassi is a mixture of yogurt (called “dahi” in India), water, spices and sometimes fruit (mostly mango). We usually drank it after food when we were not completely full but didn’t want to order any other food. For me, it was too sweet but luckily lassi doesn’t have to be only sweet. They have also a sugar free version which would be like our buttermilk. Just slightly salty.

Rice, rice, rice – in India you will eat a loot of rice. Everywhere you go. And if not rice than something made of rice (like dosa or idly)

Idli – savoury rice cake which is served instead of chapati or paratha with 3 types of sauces. The cakes are made by steaming a batter consisting of fermented black lentils and rice. It is pretty tasteless but very helpful when someone has diarrhea.

Chai – So typical for India right? Chai masala or just chai is literally omnipresent in India. Indians drink this spiced black tea with milk and a huge amount of sugar on every corner and it is something that is for me the most typical thing for Indian cuisine. Chai is actually pretty addictive. I couldn’t imagine a day in India without drinking chai masala. ❤️

Eggs (boiled, omelets, bread omelets, and all other combinations) are the most basic street food but for me maybe the most favorite one. Hard to find but when we found it we felt really excited about eating pure boiled eggs (wonderful right? How basic things can make you smile). Well. Not only boiled. They were of course mostly super spicy. But this is something that you have to count on when you visit India. They put masala spices everywhere. On mango, cucumbers, carrots, eggs even coffee.