A different Chaat

There are many days when I just have chaat for dinner. The meals plate is too much rice for the nighttime and I have to drive out for a kilometer and a half to get to the decent restaurants. And even there I have to pay more for relatively unhealthy food. So I just go to the local chaat place and have one or two items. I even tried out the mobile chaat place. I reasoned that my immune system must be pretty strong now. But as much as my body can handle the unhygenic conditions there, my brain and eyes couldn't take it and I just had to stop eating there.

Chaat here is different in subtle ways from the way it was in Hyderabad. I haven't had good Pav Bhaji here. One place smashed the hell out of the veggies and the result was a goo that had more spices the vegetables. Then there's Dabeli. I haven't tried this yet, but will do so pretty soon. Imagine pav bhaji in which the bhaji is sandwiched into the bread and then served like a burger, that's pretty much Dabeli. The bhaji is supposed to be sweeter with pomegranate seeds or grape halves sprinkled over the stuff. I'm very curious to try it out.

There was exactly one place where Pani Puri was served in the traditional style - with the guy cracking opn the shells, filling them with peas and added the juices to the shells before serving each one in your place. Instead, even the mobile places serve them all them once - lay out the puris on the plate and then fill them all at once with the fillings. Maybe it's more hygenic (less dipping of the arm into the pot of juices) or maybe it avoids the confusion over how many puris you've had. After a plate of pani puri it seems routine to ask for (and sometimes be served even without asking for) a "masala puri". This is perhaps to cleanse your palate (ha!!) after the pani puri. It's just a single shell with the boiled peas but topped off with some combo of chaat masala, sev and some optional other spices. It's basically dry. If you get two plates of pani puri you get two masala puris!

At the chaat shop near my place I asked for Sev Puri once. What I got looked a whole lot like Dahi Puri. (In Hyd, Sev Puri consisted of veggies stacked on top of a flat chip.) I asked the guy what the difference between this and Dahi Puri was. He said "More Dahi"!

Bhel puri is different too. It's tastier (more flavorful), which isn't always a good thing. Actually in general a lot of the chaat items tasted sweeter than what I'm used to. Of course, this is an ongoing experiment and my data currently is confined mostly to local places. Once I explore the other parts of Pune and try the goods there, I'll get a better idea of Pune chaat in general.