JFores's Profile
Food trucks and Street Meat website/map
Much appreciation for the timely Wu Tang reference on CH.
The issue is probably more down to profitability. This is straying off actual restaurants, but street food or a truck based approach definitely has some benefits. You will have a lower start up cost, the ability to move if certain areas aren't working for you and more control over what you're actually cooking. In short, its probably good for innovation.
Is it a viable business model in the long term? Maybe not? Nonetheless it gets you a lot of publicity and the ability to reach a larger audience in a shorter period of time. It's definitely good for start ups even if many of these start ups view a storefront as their next goal.
If you look at immigrant street food its more of a long term situation. They aren't outfitting trucks; the carts that popped up around East Ham were as bare bones as they would be in India. The cost is genuinely close to nil with regulation or the threat of fines probably being the largest potential cost. This is mostly vegetarian snack food so very little is going into food costs. If you're renting a store front or indoor stall then its going to be much harder to make a profit. I've talked about this quite a lot with the owner of the Gujarati snack shop in Fashion Plaza on Green St. He hasn't made anything yet despite serving vastly superior chaat for slightly more money than the rest of the area's vendors. He also regularly sells out of food before closing and has lots of regular customers, but he's still not making any profit. This is largely down to the rent and utilities for his indoorstall. All of the cooking is done and home and yet they have to pay rent and utilities for a tiny shopfront in a row of Indian clothing stores. The owner is trying to find a proper storefront because he doesn't think street food or a shop open to the road (like what Khana Khazana had) is viable.
The prejudice against street food within India or China can be very dubious. I'm basing this off a period in China and a lot of contact with Chinese ex pats in London, but the more well-off community largely ignores these places without ever trying them. I was quoting the prices I paid for meals in China to Chinese course mates and they were in disbelief that anything could be that cheap. Similarly it falls into a desire to imitate a faux Westernism that's popular. I don't really look at it as a rejection of the quality of street food. Instead it's like someone was looking at a Yelp review where the food was given a 9-10, but the interior and service were straight 0s. It's not about the food. It's a setting that certain people find uncomfortable.
Kitchen size is also hard to attack. Kitchens are almost always small and they're never comfortable. The kitchen at Thattukada is probably between the size of 2 or 3 food truck kitchens. It's tiny. It just reduces what you can actually knock out. This isn't that big a deal for most of the Indian mini-businesses that I eat at as the chaats they assemble are pre-cooked, cold or only require a microwave. On the other hand, the Indonesian place that Limster and I went to recently would practically fall into the same categories and it's dead in the center of London. It's a decent sized stall in a mall, but the preparation area is easily 1/3 the size of a street truck kitchen. Most of the items are pre-cooked with the soups being assembled to order. This is similar to Indian places which are largely just heating prepared dishes or assembling cold ones. If those are the dishes you want to serve and you can prepare aspects of them in advance then you should not lose any quality because you're in a truck, a stall or a tiny shopfront in a mobile phone store.
Food trucks and Street Meat website/map
I don't get the new age food truck thing, but immigrant imported street food trends shouldn't be neglected. For some reason boroughs across London suppress immigrant street food with remarkable fervor. Take Newham as a prime example. High unemployment, low levels of restaurant hygiene across the board, numerous illegal or semi-legal restaurants, etc. In terms of sheer informality, these are areas where you can buy duty free cigarettes almost anywhere and in which aspects of restaurants' produce is literally smuggled in from other countries, but the only way you're ever going to get shut down is if you open an unlicensed cart (though given the bureaucracy in this borough even something as visible as 3+ carts on High Street North took 4 months to shut.)
London is not giving people a viable option when it comes to street food. Either more should be done to passively look the other way (as gradually became the case with many of the illegal carts in Queens which sold cheaper things like tamales) or a genuine path should be presented by certain councils which allows for the birth of street food. This has happened to a limited degree through an explosion of indoor chaat stalls in other businesses or within small malls, but even this requires more money.
Street food is not necessarily dirty, uncomfortable or unhygienic. I don't get why people go wild over the idea of eating something from a cart or a van (though I used to do that too) but I find it a lot more puzzling as to why street food has such a bad reputation in London. It's becoming increasingly popular here, but it's still being packaged into sanitized market stalls, clusters (like near Goodge St or Waterloo) or food trucks. What makes these settings so much better and "cleaner" than guys setting up pani puri carts in East Ham?
Petch Sayam - Leytonstone - London
This is more of a heads up to others who may want to experiment with this place. Though it looks as "bog standard high street Thai" as you can get, the place is entirely Thai run and the food was shockingly good. Not on par with The Heron, but worlds better than some of the highly lauded Thai places I tried a few years ago before I knew about 101 Thai (and now The Heron.) I took advantage of the fact that I realized the whole staff was Thai and just asked for everything we ordered to be done as Thai as possible. Spice wise and flavor wise.
The result was excellent chicken laarb with spice rivaling The Heron. Extremely tasty as well. All in all one of the better portions of laarb I've had in London. Green curry was also surprisingly good. They clearly make their own curry pastes and put some effort into the cooking here. Finally, a portion of drunken noodles was similarly perfect with extremely crispy ground pork and a surprisingly large amount of spice.
I may have just gotten extremely lucky and somehow had three dishes prepared perfectly for me, but I suspect that this place could offer up some Thai gems for those of us who live in East London. The waitress was from Isaarn, but I'm not sure if this reflects the whole crew.
Indonesia Mini Market - Indonesian Home Cooking in Central London
Just an extra note. The mie bakso appears to be a staple of this place while a wider selection of dishes revolve weekly or daily. The menus that are at the place have specific dates on them.
La Kinoise - Congolese in Forest Gate [London]
We recently made a second visit to La Kinoise as Fredor was shut when we walked over for dinner. Anyone know if Fredor is definitely still in business?
We were set on fish, but the staff steered us towards chicken as a second dish. Apparently chicken and fish are some sort of standard Congolese combination.
We settled on a black catfish which was grilled and then lightly braised in a similar vegetable based sauce to the dried fish dish above. Basically a relish of slightly translucent onions, peppers, and chilies with a thin flavorful "gravy." The fish itself was perfectly cooked with its slippery skin giving way to firm oily flesh. The grilling imparted a deep smokiness to the entire dish which went a long way in canceling out the "muddiness" of the cat fish. Excellent and eaten with cassava by hand.
The chicken was alright. It was a bit overcooked, though its accompanying plantains were pretty awesome again. The dish was a pile of roasted chicken topped with a chili based sauce which surprisingly contained mayonnaise. The flavor was fine, but if you overcook an already tough West African chicken (the chicken favored by these places is pretty legit; serious chewing may ensue) then it's going to be a nightmare to chew through.
Really good overall experience and I'm definitely keen on exploring more of the seafood. They will also cook virtually anything Congolese for you if you can ask for it. The chicken dish wasn't on the menu and it was proposed by the woman taking my order (who also cooked my entire meal.) Note that the waiting times can be a bit long as this is largely a one woman operation.
Indonesia Mini Market - Indonesian Home Cooking in Central London
Credit to Limster who spotted the signage for this place outside of the mall at 57 Charing Cross Road.
On the first floor of a cluttered mall with dreary looking Brazilian and Malaysian stalls, this "restaurant" immediately sets itself apart through its clientele and setting. An ever-revolving crowd of Indonesian customers enlivens this cross between a home kitchen and a restaurant where customers sit closely packed at the establishment's three tables. They're there to slurp down excellent bowls of noodle soup and larger dishes of rice and meat at what might be London's best home style Indonesian restaurant. To paraphrase Limster, this place shows that you can still find hole-in-the-wall style gems in Central London if you look hard enough.
On both of my visits I had an Indonesian noodle and meat ball soup (bakso or mie bakso.) Despite the relatively small bowl its served in, each portion is packed with noodles and meat balls. One almost wishes that there was more room for the broth as it is absolutely perfect; clear, but packed with flavor. Each portion comes with a crunchy topping and sambals are provided free of charge (homemade and non-homemade.)
Indonesia Mini Market
57 Charing Cross Road (1st Floor)
Unit M-9
WC2H 0NE
Nadi Curry House - Some very legit Sri Lankan food off High Street North (East Ham)
It's all good. The inspection thing is why they're not allowed to cook anything on the premises.
Nadi Curry House - Some very legit Sri Lankan food off High Street North (East Ham)
I'm gonna check with the owners to make sure they're licensed. If not I'm going to delete these posts, but you can private message me for more details regarding this place.
There's no number for the address as far as I know seeing as the building itself is pretty much a shack in a tiny parking lot on Sibley Grove. The Overdraft Tavern is misplaced on Google Maps as its actually on the corner of Sibley Grove with a Bairstow Eves opposite it. You make a right on this road (or even look right) and then you'll see the place immediately.
Their lack of inspections may be that they're licensed as a takeaway or something else that doesn't allow cooking on the premises (this is what they told me when I asked them why they don't make hoppers. They prepare all of the food at home and the building doesn't have a kitchen.) They moved the counter around and added a few more stools so it can now seat about 4 at a counter, but it's still essentially a takeaway and I've not properly eaten a meal inside.
Nadi Curry House - Some very legit Sri Lankan food off High Street North (East Ham)
Another update on an ever changing little restaurant.
I went back for the first time in a while today and the food's still excellent. They do meal deals now which allows 2 veg and a selection of meat based dishes with rice for 3.49. I ended up doing a dhal curry, chana and potato curry and chicken gizzard meal with rice. I also grabbed a full portion of pumpkin curry which I haven't seen on offer much.
The chana and potato curry was OK while the dhal curry was still very good. A little bit on the salty side, but so was Lihiniya's. The pumpkin curry was incredibly good though. Very simple rich pumpkin cubes with a strongly flavored gravy which had a tang similar to that found in the jackfruit curry. Not nearly as tangy though; this curry was more of a buttery combination of pumpkin and gravy with a slightly sour note and a higher level of spice.
I believe the sourness in many of the dishes is coming from very liberal amounts of ground kokum.
It should be noted that I tried to make it over there for breakfast this morning only to find that they were still closed. When I made it back around lunch time it turned out they didn't do any of the breakfast dishes today anyway. I need to talk to them about when they would actually have them as I've been hunting their kattu sambol and string hoppers for a month.
La Kinoise - Congolese in Forest Gate [London]
Thanks! I've just checked out some Congolese food resources and it seems that the preparation of cassava we were given is chikwanga. Otherwise I don't really have names for most of the items just yet, but I'll give this place another shot soon. I'm looking to hit up Fredor, a couple other African places I've found in the immediate vicinity and this place again over the coming weeks.
http://www.congo-pages.org/bas-cong.htm
La Kinoise - Congolese in Forest Gate [London]
ShekhaV and I found this place last night while looking for Fredor Zambian Restaurant and we were so excited that we passed up Fredor till later in the week. The immediate vicinity includes a storefront titled East African Restaurant which appears to be local "place where guys from Zimbabwe and Zambia sit around drinking beer while playing cards" joint while a Somali "cafe" serves a similar non-food oriented purpose on the corner. In terms of La Kinoise, I'm guessing the name is a reference to Kinhasa.
The actual interior of La Kinoise is somewhat upmarket. It's not fancy by any means, but it looks like the owners made more of an effort than a place like Thattukada. The menu is ad hoc with a number of off menu dishes appearing to be on offer. We ordered largely by talking to one of the women there who then dipped into the kitchen to cook most of our food.
We settled on a Pepper Pot-like soup, a dish of dried salted fish in a relish of chilies, onions and sweet peppers, grilled goat, a portion of fried plantains, and a portion of cassava.
The "utensils" so to speak came in the form of the plantains which were used mostly as a snack and the cassava which resembled mini-balls of Nigerian pounded yam. The plantains were as good as any portion you'd get at a Colombian place in London or a Dominican place in NYC.
The food came in two waves with the goat and the dried fish arriving first. This seemed somewhat odd as the soup was probably the only one of these dishes to not be made to order, but kitchens will be kitchens. The goat was a mass of small on the bone chunks of extremely flavorful meat which had clearly been marinated beforehand. It was grilled perfectly and topped with a liberal pile of raw onions for contrast. It worked really well with the chili relish provided (but it should be noted that the chili relish provided is nearly as hot as the jerk sauce at Tasty Jerk.)
Dried fish with a sauteed relish of onions, peppers and chili was similarly good, though somewhat difficult to debone as we weren't hand-eating. The other tables ate this dish with the semolina mash and we would do this in the future. A nice contrast between a light taste more akin to fresh fish, but with a texture like baccala. The relish and its thin gravy offered a contrast between the spiciness of thinly diced habaneros and the sweetness of sauteed peppers and onions. I'd order this again, but the rest of their seafood menu looks incredibly good (a whole grilled catfish for 12 quid and other similar things. Their seafood menu is surprisingly large.)
The final dish to come was a mixed soup of cow's foot, skin on chunks of beef and tripe. If you like cow's feet than this dish is amazing, but it's probably too gelatinous for most. Saying that, the hooves add a delicious thickness to a well flavored and extremely spicy broth.
All of this came to 25 quid and I'd definitely give this place another shot. Interesting environment with a huge local Congolese customer base (the place was nearly empty when we arrived at about 8pm, but it was packed by the time we left.) I don't know much about Congolese food, but many of the dishes, the spicing and the atmosphere all give this place a "home cooking" sort of feel.
Gram Bangla: More than a replacement for Sabuj
Glad you liked it and I'm glad to see CHers actively going to this place. I love it, but Bangladeshi food has gotten rather mixed reviews from a lot of posters (plus the environment in Gram can be awkward for certain groups or single women.)
Genuine Cassata Siciliana In the UK?
The owner's name is Felice. Just ask him about the pastries he gets and see if the guy could do cassata. This is a bit of a gamble, but Italia Uno has good sandwiches so it won't be a total loss if he says no.
I'll dig up the card from the place I go to in Ballaro when I get home.
Genuine Cassata Siciliana In the UK?
It would be Sicilian made but you can ask the owner of Italia Uno on Charlotte St (nice little Italian sandwich shop) if his pastry guy does them. The pastries and cakes that they usually have around at Italia Uno are quite high quality given the fact they're in the fridge for a while before they're eaten and the cannoli get a bit soggy as a result. All of his pastries are made by a Sicilian guy in North London out of his house so it's quite likely that you'd be able to order one specially.
Otherwise I can recommend you a very good cassata maker in Palermo, but I don't know if they do mail order.
Nadi Curry House - Some very legit Sri Lankan food off High Street North (East Ham)
Bit of an update from today's Sri Lankan food run.
The food is all cooked at home and then sold at the location of the place. Given their licensing they can't actually cook in their "restaurant" so the hoppers situation is not likely to be resolved any time soon. They've now added a little sign on High Street North itself that has some menu pictures and points you down the road to their place too. Still though, there's only 2 seats inside and it would be difficult to do anything Chow event-ish at this place right now.
The aubergine "curry" is a dish of quite spicy aubergine slices cooked in a rich oily gravy. It's not thick, more oily and translucent with a roasted flavor. This is the simplest veg dish I've had here and the flavors are more akin to something I would have at an Indian restaurant, but the appearance is extremely Sri Lankan (from what I'm starting to learn of a cuisine that I'm shockingly ignorant of.) Very good and the aubergines stood up to microwaving well.
The highlight today was a dish I haven't seen in here before. Dried fish curry! Completely different from something like Bangladeshi shutki, though the smell is similar. A strong fishy odor gives way to delicate white flesh which maintained its taste and texture despite the drying process (unlike say shutki. I think fermented fish would be a better description.) Though the scent is a bit funky, the flavor is pretty much akin to a mackerel curry. The thick black gravy is more strongly scented and flavored than the fish itself which is delicate and clean with a certain tamarind-like tanginess similar to the flavor I tasted in the jackfruit curry.
All in all great stuff. I haven't had a single bad dish here yet.
The other stuff the had today consisted of a chicken gizzards dish, lamb stomach, lamb curry, chicken curry, fried patties filled with shredded coconut and honey, fried cassava, various fried biscuit looking things with whole shell on prawns embedded in them, the stuff written about above, chickpea and potato curry, spinach, two types of biriyani, dal curry, etc. Probably one or two more that I'm missing.
Nadi Curry House - Some very legit Sri Lankan food off High Street North (East Ham)
I've been going to this place whenever I get the time (usually to grab takeaway which I'll have the next day) as every meal I've had there has been excellent, but I'm always on my way to Thattukada when I pass it. The restaurant itself is just off High Street North on the same road as The Overdraft (Sibley Grove I believe) with easily visible signage. The actual interior is extremely small with no real seating besides a few stools which were only recently added.
The business is family run with a different relative (or set of relatives) manning the counter each time I've gone. Nothing is prepared to order unfortunately, but the quality of the food in their steam table is extremely impressive. The prices are also shockingly low compared to somewhere like Lihiniya (which I need to get back to ASAP now that his wife is in town) and everything I've eaten at Nadi has been better than equivalent dishes in Cricklewood (though again, I need to give it another shot now that the owner's wife is back.)
So far I've had the maniokka (fried casava) with homemade chili chutney, the banana flower curry, the jackfruit curry, the dal curry, and the lamb curry. Everything has been incredibly good, though the real standouts were the jackfruit and banana flower dishes. The latter seemed to also have dried fish in it (so ask in advance if you're veg) which added a textural change to what was otherwise a mass of banana flower petals. Extremely nutty with a note of dried fish. This is also the first non-Bangladeshi banana flower dish I've ever had. The jackfruit curry was tangy with tender jackfruit and a much thicker "gravy." Very pungent tang with a lot of spice cutting it ever so slightly, but quite addictive. The lamb liver was also one of the better dishes I've had there though it was extremely simple. Relatively large chunks of liver were practically caked with chili and then cooked up with onions, chilies, peppers and scallions. The flavor was much simpler than the above two dishes, but the liver itself was delicious without an overly mineral-y taste. I had it microwaved at home the day after I bought it and it still held its texture and flavor without a strong aftertaste.
All in all I've spent about 15 pounds at this place for all of the above dishes I've tried. It's -really- cheap and the takeaway portions are large enough for a couple of meals. They seem to be doing decent business, but their location and lack of seating means that they could probably use the attention that Chowhound may bring.
The food is distinctly Sri Lankan and the owners are Sinhalese. They also have breakfast in the morning with kattu sambol, string hoppers, etc on offer. Unfortunately they don't have hoppers and given their steam table arrangement I don't even know if the cooking is done on the premises so this might not change.
And this is the part where Dave goes and writes a follow up post ;)
Food trucks and Street Meat website/map
Not technically street food, but East Ham and Upton Park have a rapidly growing population of small scale Indian vendors within other businesses or malls. Some of it is actually on the street such as Khana Khazana (though they were closed for renovations last I checked. Good freshly fried alloo tikki chaat.) East Ham itself used to have two exceptional snack carts, but both were illegal and disappeared after one summer.
The current places which I go to often are a vegetarian Gujarati snack stall in "Fashion Plaza" on Green St just before the intersection with Plashet Grove. Everything is about 1.20 and the highlights are the patra, dabeli, pav bhaji, pani puri, the Mumbai sandwich, and especially the khichyu. They also do a daily tiffin, but it tends to sell out very early.
In Venus Mall (further up Green St close to Chawalla (Gujju place) but on the opposite (east) side of the road) there are two notable stalls. On is a Kutchi Gujarati woman who exclusively does dabeli, bhel and pav vada. Both sandwiches are excellent while I've had both good and seriously below average bhel from her (her puffed rice gets too stale sometimes.)
In the same mall there's a place before the Gujju place that does pretty good samosa chaat.
Also local is Pride Halal in Queen's Market which makes excellent lamb samosa with very good turnover. If I go in the morning they're usually still burning hot from frying.
All of these places will cost you between 60p and 1.50 for each item. I've been to about a dozen others between Green St and High Street North, but these are by far the best ones I've been to (some are pretty grim.)
And FYI NYC's street food scene has existed for a very long time in the Outer Boroughs. The Manhattan board used to constantly get Californians harping on about the lack of Mexican chow in NYC around 07 or so meanwhile the Outer Boroughs board was painstakingly assembling maps of Mexican and Ecuadorian street carts. Trendy (read: overpriced) street food is a pretty new thing though.
Restaurant recommendations for near Canary Wharf or ExCel conference venue
You can take the DLR a very short distance from Custom House for Excel to Yi Ban. It's one of the best dim sum places in London and I would definitely go there if I had to go to anything at the Excel. Their dinner menu may also be very good as the quality of their dim sum is extremely high, but no one on here has really explored it yet.
Having lived in Custom House for a year, I would personally recommend that you don't even bother walking outside of the grounds of the Excel Center (a quick Youtube search for "Canning Town" or "Custom House Canning Town" will reveal why.)
Chennai Dosa, Tooting, London
This sounds like a promising dosa. The Chennai Dosa branch in West Croydon is also very good (or was. I haven't eaten there in years so I can't say anymore, but it's still very well renowned in the South London Asian community.)
I don't know about the Tooting branch, but the East Ham one is nothing to write home about. Their iddly sambar was pretty good, but their masala dosa was so bad that I doubt I'll ever go back. Vasanta Bhavan's still solid over there though.
Lihiniya, Cricklewood, London
Just a bit of an update on this place. I made it here a few weeks ago and my companion and I had a pretty good meal, but it was pretty much an amalgamation of everything they had that day. The buffet was off as the owner's wife (who is also the cook) is away in Sri Lanka until April 10th.
Saying that, egg hoppers were absolutely perfect. Kattu sambol was also very good and clearly homemade. It could've used a tiny bit more lime, but it was otherwise the best version I've had. Less stellar were the regular hoppers as they were not made to order (whereas the egg hoppers were.) The veg (dal curry and a spinach dish) were OK while the chicken curry was actually quite excellent (though they didn't even have a full portion of that left as we came very late on a Sunday.)
Overall the meal was good and the owner was unbelievably nice, but we need to make a return trip once his wife gets back. My dining companion gave Lihiniya her Sinhalese stamp of approval even with it seeming like the kitchen was operating at 10% of its potential.
Anyone want to join?
Brick Lane (London) Indian Restaurants
But the vibe isn't Bangladeshi. You go to Brick Lane for the market, the clubs and the bars. The half of the road that's actually quite Bangladeshi is a ghost town by comparison. Brick Lane has exploded as a tourist destination (and my primary first round of drinks on a night out spot) but not because of the Indian side. It's extremely hipster, Spanish, Italian, etc on practically any given night.
Brick Lane (London) Indian Restaurants
The whole stretch is pretty much the same bog standard trash except for a couple of Bangladeshi places. Gram is excellent. Sabuj Bangla (closed in 2007 or so) was also excellent. It seems like the legit Bangladeshi places were temporarily pushed out for a bit but now they're coming back. There's another one near Gram Bangla on the other side of the road and even the place at the corner of Whitechapel Rd and Brick Lane (opposite The Clifton) serves more Bangladeshi food now. "Feast" or something like that on Whitechapel Road near the tube also has a pretty extensive Bangladeshi menu.
Indians don't live there.
Brick Lane (London) Indian Restaurants
Thanks Paprikaboy
As stated above, I'd recommend you go further afield. If that's not possible and you're in town for a short time than you'd be better off going to Indian Zing, Dishoom or even Needoo. Brick Lane is terrible for Indian food, but there is one exceptional Bangladeshi restaurant called Gram Bangla. However, enjoying it is very much dependent upon your openness to Bengali food and the degree to which you like fish. Their fish chutney, lothia shutki with green yard beans, dal and karela and potato are all literally as good as a Bangladeshi mother would generally make. I ate there today (for the first time in nearly 2 years) and it was excellent.
{London] NY Times article on Indian restaurants
What is "no fuss" about Cafe Spice Namaste or Chor Bizarre? The prices are insane at both.
I can't really speak for the food at CSN, Chor or Sitaaray, but I don't see what his opinion of Tayyabs is based on. Possibly the best lamb chops anywhere? Fantastic dal? Both are pretty much the same quality as what you'd get at your average high street Kebabish or general Pakistani grill place (which are a dime a dozen outside of Central London.) The only reason anyone talks about Tayyabs is because of how central it is and because their seekh kebabs are good.
Looking for a restaurant with an authentic eat-with-hands experience in London
If you want both sit on the floor and hand eating then you could go to Pakhtoonkhwa Restaurant on Green St for Afghan/North West Pakistani food. I wrote a post on it earlier. It's basically lamb heaven.
Cambodian restaurants in London?
Beat me to it. I was just talking to DaveMP about this the other day and he put that forward.
Modest-Good Indian Options in London
Tooting's pretty South Indian and Sri Lankan these days. With the closing of Kastoori I don't even know if they have a Gujarati restaurant left in the area.
A Green St chaat intro [London]
Really good Gujarati chaat shop to add to this list!
It's simply called Veggie's Snackbar and it operates out of a mini mall which is dominated by clothing stores at 307 Green St. It's closer to the tube than Venus Mall.
The menu is extremely Gujarati compared even to the Kutchi place that does dabeli. I just sampled their pani puri, khichyu and dabeli all of which were very good. Most of the menu is a pound while the sandwiches (including vada pav, pav bhaji and dabeli) are 1.25. Gujarati snacks include Gujarati samosa, kachori, khandvi, dhokla, khamon, etc. They seem to offer a few things in store that aren't even on their written menu while other items have not yet been introduced (for example, ragda patties and dahi puri are coming "later this week."
In terms of what I actually had...
The pani puri had the best green water I've had on the street with extremely fresh melt in your mouth papri. The papri were really fresh compared to anywhere else I had. The filling was nothing special, but it was different as it seemed to include both beans and corn. The Urdu speaking 1 pound place in Venus Mall does a better filling, but these are significantly better pani puri overall.
The dabeli was different from the Venus Mall rendition with a bit less spice, no pomegranate seeds in the paste that makes up most of the sandwich and a fresher buttered roll. Cheaper at 1.50 and arguably better, though quite different from the other place. It's almost as if they're each serving their idea of dabeli.
The khichyu was really surprisingly good for something made earlier and sold out of individual closed containers. One pound gets you a small fist of what can essentially be summed up as savory cooked dough. Really good flavor overall though not as good as the best versions I've had. A bit salty. Come on though. It's a pound. That's an incredible deal for khichyu.
I'm going to run over there again later to try the pav bhaji, Mumbai grilled sandwich and something else.
