Hello world!

The global world we live in today has made traveling not only easy, but an important part of our lives. People (or at least me) love to travel. See new places, meet new people and interact with various cities around the world. When visiting any new place, FOOD is something everyone looks forward to. Local cuisine attracts tourism greatly. India has been added to many travel bucket lists in the past few years. New Delhi, India ( or Dilli as many locals like myself refer to it) has been attracting tourists greatly in the recent years. If you ask a true Delhiite (one from New Delhi) places to visit he/she will surely point you towards at least a few different food joints other then just monuments and such. Delhi is known for its food. And local food spots rule the food industry in Delhi. If ever in Delhi, be sure to check out a few spots I recommend.

A local food joint I recommend is 34, Chowringhee Lane Kathi Rolls. Chowringhee Lane (CL) has a few locations with in Delhi. A good location is in Karol Bagh near the Bal Bharati Public School (as shown below).

CL offers a variety of vegetarian and non-vegetarian kathi rolls. Kathi roll is a street-food found all over India, but said to be originated from Kolkata, India. A kathi roll is almost any filling rolled in a prantha, Indian flat bread. CL is a local spot that offers mouth-watering rolls. From all the available choices, I enjoyed the Panner Tikka roll the most (and I have had almost the whole menu).  Panner Tikka can be described a spicy cottage cheese. Sounds mouth-watering yet?

CL makes the prantha fresh. Most CL location have an open grill so you can see your roll being made as you wait. The bread is made very crispy, that’s an aspect that separates CL from many other kathi rolls from other places. Most kathi rolls are made with soft bread, but CL makes the flat bread very crispy. Many consider it to be the North-Indian touch to the roll.

Each roll can be customized in various manners such as additional sauces or if you’d like an egg or two on the prantha. If you do order it with egg be sure to check out how the cook bakes the egg. The cook lays the bread on the grill and breaks the egg directly on to the bread as its being cooked! He then even scrambles the egg directly on the bread and flips its to let it bake right on the bread. In my opinion the egg does add a bit more flavor to the roll.

So what makes CL a great joint? Other then the fact that its one of the few places to make the bread really crispy, what separates CL from others is simply CL’s taste. The filling used by CL is like no other. They’ve mastered the right amount of masala to all their fillings. Also they are not shy to fill the rolls. They stuff the rolls immensely, making it that much more tastier. For many just one roll would suffice. Also the rolls are quite inexpensive, costing less than $2 per roll!!

An insider tip to make your visit even more memorable (if visiting the Karol Bagh location) is to go to the deli next door and grab your self a RimJhim as your drink. RimJhim is an Indian masala drink. I will say it’s not for everyone because it has a very strong taste, but it’s still worth a shot.

For those of us living in New York there are a few locations that offer some good kathi rolls. The Kati Roll Company is very famous and has a few locations, but the most famous one is on MacDougal Street. Another place I would suggest is Thelewala. It is located right across from the Kati Roll Company on MacDougal. A request can be made to make the bread crispy, but I’ve found that it’s still nowhere close to being as crispy CL makes it. If you like the rolls from any of these locations, I can almost guarantee that you would absolutely love 34, Chowringhee Lane Kathi Rolls.

So keep exploring new foods. See you guys next time.

-V. Sharma