We’re lucky here in Silicon Valley to have access to the cuisine of several cultures. Growing in popularity lately is a “chaat”, or snack restaurant. Street snacks and dishes of a more formal nature are served at Chaat Paradise in Sunnyvale.
We had “thalis”, which are combination plates. It’s a vegetarian place, so they consisted of several vegie stews, lentil soup, yogurt salad (raita), roti breads, and pappadum. We also ordered mango lassis and an aloo paratha, a flatbread stuffed with potatotes onions and chilis and fried in ghee.
But the best was bhelpuri, a snack with no comparable dish in any culture. It’s a combo of puffed rice, potato chunks, cooked legumes of some sort, little crunchy fried noodles, and the whole is dressed in a green hot/sweet/sour cilantry chutney. Damn, that stuff was addicting. It’s crunchy, sweet, hot, and sour all at once.
This place also served any number of hot fresh cooked Indian breads and spiced yogurt drinks and sweets. Now I’ve got to try the food at some of their competitors. A nearby place serves “dosas”, ginormous crisp crepes which are served rolled around spicy potatoes and onions.