'Trying Mumbai\'s Famous Pani Puri (Golgappa)

18:56 Apr 6, 2021 2 2

'Mumbai is an awesome city for street food. There are stalls and hole-in-the-wall type shops everywhere and hygiene standards tend to be fairly good if I\'m comparing it to certain other cities in India. My local friend and I were deciding which snack to buy from a local bakery when the friendly owner engaged me in conversation. It seemed like he was deaf and he was talking to me by writing questions in English on a piece of paper. To go to that effort to chat with a guest in his country shows true hospitality. He recommended we try his Plum Cake, which was a moist and delicious sponge with chewy pieces of dried plum. I gave it the two thumbs up and he gave us the two slices for free. What a gentleman! The address for the bakery is Zeenat Bakery, 171 Maulana Azed Road. A short walk down the same street the bright colours of neatly stacked fresh fruit caught our eye. I\'m always in need of liquid refreshment in India so I love the fact that these juice stalls are ubiquitous and I can have a fresh, healthy drink any time I want and for pennies. This place was called Tahir Juice Centre and is also located somewhere on Maulana Azed Road. The famous Indian snack called Pani Puri seems to be slightly different in every part of India that I travel to. In Mumbai they call it Golgappa. We wanted to find a good Golgappa in the Churchgate area where we were walking so started asking the locals. A man selling white work shirts from a table in the street told us there was a stall right there selling Pani Puri but after we asked where the popular one in the area was he gave us some directions through the local pedestrian subway. His recommendation didn\'t disappoint. The Golgappa at the Ari Sareeta 144 shop were delicious and at 6 for 25 rupees an absolute bargain in my opinion. I had some trouble getting anyone to tell me what the ingredients of the Pani Puri actually were but then out of nowhere the owner showed up with perfect English and knowledge to let me know. Apparently the shop was started by his father in the Churchgate area back in 1971 and he\'s carrying it on, providing inexpensive and delicious food to the local commuters. The Pani Puri tasted both sweet and spicy. It was an unusual combination of flavours for me and the first mouthful took me by surprise. I was hit by the spiciness of it and then started tasting all the sweetness. Apparently the sweet flavour comes from ground up dates which is not an ingredient I would have expected to find in Pani Puri but it works well. When I eat anything sweet I just want more and more. The ultimate blast of intense sweetness in India for me, even more than the fruit juice stalls, comes from the Sugar Cane Juice vendors. I always ask these vendors for no ice as I\'m trying to get refreshed, not sick. I would actually love to drink sugar cane juice ice cold but there\'s just no way that someone who is trying to make a profit from selling 15 rupee glasses of sugar cane juice is buying ice that\'s made from pure, filtered water. If water isn\'t pure and filtered in India, just don\'t! Especially if you\'re a foreigner. Usually they will charge 5 rupees extra if you don\'t want ice. I had a lot of comments about this on another video as people didn\'t understand where. It\'s because they need to give you more juice to fill the glass without any ice in it, so you\'re paying for the extra volume of juice. 00:00 Plum Cake at Local Bakery 01:35 Colourful Fruit Juice Shop 04:00 Famous Pani Puri (Golgappa) 15:04 Fresh Sugar Cane Juice 17:23 Another Fresh Sugar Cane Juice

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Tags: India Indian food mumbai backpacking india budget travel India travel indian street food maharashtra mumbai street food mumbai food pani puri Street food tour golgappa cheap eats budget food India Street Food mumbai travel local delicacy mumbai pani puri maharashtra food maharashtra travel Churchgate Mumbai