... some crunchy chaat!
When was the last time put an entire gol guppa in your mouth, dripping fingers and all? If one was in Lucknow or Varanasi or even Delhi, you wouldn’t need a field guide to good chaat. Uttar Pradesh is, of course, home to the original, spiciest — ‘ teekha’ is the word — papri chaats and pani puris, and our favourite: the aloo tikki. But since you’re in the UAE, reeling from a week of good cricket matches, and possibly craving a plate or two of chana chaat and sevpuri — especially after that Mauka Mauka cricket ad (bit.ly/1MDgz00) — then we’ve got you covered. Dubai has plenty of places, nicely sanitised, that dish out good chaat. While some among us believe the more unhygeinic the surroundings, the truer the flavour of chaat(!), we recommend sticking to places where servers wear gloves to prepare the potato and chickpea stuffing. You don’t want grimy hands dunking gol guppas — or phuchkas, if you belong to a certain part of India — in the mint water and landing the germ bomb on your plate! We’ve had good chaat in Dubai at Bombay Chowpatty (in Karama, Al Nahda, Mall of the Emirates, Oasis Centre, etc), Puranmal (in Silicon Oasis, Bur Dubai, Al Rafa, Knowledge Village, Karama, etc), Chhappan Bhog (in Karama, Mankhool, Discovery Gardens, etc), Chatori Gali (in Oudh Metha and Barsha), and Elco Veg Dine (in Karama), Bikanervala (in Karama, Barsha, etc), Spice Kraft (in JLT), Khana Khazana (in Meena Bazaar), Chaat Bazaar (in Karama), and at Chowk Ki Chaat (in Karama). Need we say more?