Dheeraj Soni

The Grape and Wine capital of India. The place where the holy river of Godavari originates. One of the most important pilgrim places in India, where the Hindu pilgrimage festival of Kumbh Mela is held every 12 years.
There are multiple reasons to visit Nashik, mine was to explore their street food!

Shamsundar Misal

This is one of the oldest joint in the city of Nashik. It is known for it’s spicy misal pav. Misal here is made of Matki or moth beans, which is cooked in several spices. Accompanied with pav, it is served alongside papad, onion & lemon and curd (just in case it gets too spicy 😛). Tarri, a very spicy gravy, is served separately, which you can add to the misal as per your liking. On weekends, this place has a long queue. You might have to wait for your turn for nearly an hour. The hot and spicy misal is the best choice for breakfast on a cold winter morning.

Panch Pakwan

Fortunately, I was with a friend who is a local resident of Nashik. So I got to eat a traditional homemade Maharashtrian Panch Pakwan thal. It consisted of puran poli with katachi aamti, aloo ki sabji, dal, steamed rice, sevai, shrikhand, milkcake, gulab jamun, kanda bhajiya, khoshimbir, papad, and lots and lots of love. Except for the shrikhand and milkcake, every dish on the plate was homemade. To explain each item on the thal, I would have to write a separate blog as one paragraph won’t do justice to it. What stood out for me was the Puran poli – served hot with loads of ghee! This was the best dish through out the trip.
Apart from the food it were the people around who made it special. It was a perfect setup where all the cousins sat down together, pulling each others leg, the youngest cousin cracking lame jokes and the only one laughing at it, everyone enjoying the food while the mother was making sure that the food served was hot and everyone ate till they explode 😛
It was a perfect afternoon with good food and so much of love around. I was so satisfied with the food that just to savour those moments I could have gone another week without eating. (Just kidding, but you get the feeling 😝)

Sayantara Sabudana Vada

Established in 1968, this place has been serving the most delicious sabudana vada for the past 51 years. The vada is perfectly crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, which kinda melts in your mouth. It is served with this amazing peanut chutney, making it a perfect combination. The owner claims that their recipe has not changed even slightly since day 1. They also serve batata kachori but unfortunately it was not available when I visited the place.

Pav – vada

This is a local dish of Nashik, which you can find in every nook and corner. It is the traditional vada pav but with a twist. So instead of the vada in the pav, they put the masala directly in the pav and dip it in the batter before deep frying it.

Buddha Halwai Jalebiwala

This is a very old joint located in Old Nashik, which sells various kinds of farsan (snacks). The best seller is their jalebi. The crispy and hot jalebi is all you need on a chilly evening. You should also try their shrikhand. It makes me drool, just thinking about it!

Shaukeen Bhelpuri Centre

I got to try a very unique pani puri here, known as the Jhatka pani puri, signifying the jhtaka you get after trying it. Despite several warnings from my friend I went ahead and tried it. It is regular pani puri with the most spicy masala topped over it. All I would suggest you is do not try more than one of those unless you have committed a crime which only you know about and you would like to punish yourself for the same 😛. It will literally make you cry!

Jhatka Pani Puri at Shaukeen Bhelpuri Centre

Samarth Juice Centre

After getting the jhatka, I reached here to put out the fire in my mouth. This place serves a number of combinations of fruit juices, ice-creams and various desserts. Their best seller is the Pineapple juice with ice-cream. It was very soothing and the perfect dessert to end the day with!

There is much more to Nashik than just the places mentioned here, but more on that later!

Thank you for reading 🙂

Hi, I am Dheeraj, a resident of Mumbai. I am 24 years old and a big time foodie. I am one of those who live to eat and not eat to live 😉

At the age of 24, when I finally decided to go on a solo trip, and guess where it was – LUCKNOW. So here I was, in the Land of Nawabs and Kebabs, to explore the foodie’s paradise, as they say it.

Lucknow is known for its Awadhi cuisine. It is believed that the Awadhi bawarchis (cooks) invented the art of cooking food over slow fire. They use this technique to prepare a range of dishes starting from rotis (indian breads), meats, curry dishes to their biryanis. The weather here was very chilly and I was super excited to try out the Awadhi cuisine.

My first stop was Idrees Biryani. Located in the busy by-lanes of Chowk, this place is always bustling with biryani lovers. I ordered the mutton korma paired with sheermal (a saffron flavoured flat bread, which has a hint of sweetness in it). The spicy korma and the sweet sheermal complimented each other really well. After that, it was time to try the legendary biryani. I ordered the mutton biryani. They do not serve biryani in the traditional way that we are so used to. The rice and the meat are served separately. Curry is served along with the meat. Having the first bite, I was in a state of complete bliss and satisfaction. I cannot possibly exaggerate how good it was. The rice was cooked to perfection with hints of saffron, cardamom and cloves. The meat was very succulent and enriches the experience more.

Note: This place certainly does not focus on any kind of cleanliness. So if you are a hygiene freak, this place ain’t for you.

In the evening, I headed back to Chowk, to try my hands on some street food and visit the local market. I stopped at a food cart to try the famous Kashmiri chai. A sweet and milky pink tea. It is a must-try in the freezing evenings of Lucknow. There was a wide range of accompaniments to choose from, consisting of a number of sweets, breads and baked goods. I went ahead with the shahi tukda and enjoyed my Kashmiri chai in a ‘kulhad’. I did not indulge in a lot of street food as I was saving some room for my next stop.

For my dinner, I headed towards the most iconic restaurant of Lucknow, a place which is on every foodie’s wish list. The more-than-100-year-old ‘Tunday Kebabi’ in Aminabad (The original joint is located at Chowk, but I did not go there as they only serve beef). This place is immensely famous for its “Galouti” kebabs, which literally translates to ‘melt-in-the-mouth kebabs’. The place got its name ‘Tunday’ after its one-armed owner, Haji Murad Ali, who made the softest kebabs with over 160 spices in it, a secret recipe which is passed onto family members only. I ordered the mutton kebabs with rumali roti and relished on the kebabs melting in my mouth with mint chutney and onions. I went on to order chicken shahi with parathas, which I would strongly recommend once you are done with the kebabs.

The next morning, I started my day with a heavy breakfast at Raheem’s. It is situated at Chowk, quite close to the original Tunday Kebabi. I ordered a very traditional breakfast of Luckow, the Kulcha Nihari. Mutton Nihari – a dish that is cooked for hours over a slow fire, this allows the meat to be cooked in its own fats for hours, giving it a really nice flavour, accompanied by other spices. It is garnished with finely chopped green chillies and coriander before being served. The Kulcha – an Indian bread, cooked in the tandoor with a hint of sweetness. It is cooked to perfection which allows it to be soft in the inside and a bit crispy at the outside. This is one of my favourite dish of all time. Having this at the breakfast just made my day.

On my way out of the Akbari gate, I found a guy selling a sweet dish called ‘makhan-malai’. The most interesting part about the dish is the process of its preparation. After the milk is cooked ( I don’t exactly know the way it is cooked but the process that follows is what I found very interesting) it is kept overnight, in an open area like the terrace or the courtyard of the house, where it soaks in the dew drops which makes it more fluffy and creamy. It is garnished with sliced dry fruits, saffron and vark (a layer of silver).

The food at Lucknow, cannot be described with just mere use of words. I truly understand now, why it is a foodie’s paradise. I can spend days there keeping myself busy with just exploring the food.
I couldn’t visit half the places due to a shortage of time, just a result of not planning it well 😛 but considering it was my first trip, it’s fine. I intend to complete my list very soon. More on that later!

Thank you for reading!

Author: Dheeraj Soni

The street food of Nashik!

Lucknow – Land of Nawabs and Kebabs!