Sights & Smells of old Delhi: a heritage & street food walk, 9 Feb 13
This heritage walk in old Delhi includes sampling some of the street food. We started our walking tour at one of the biggest and most popular mosques in Asia, Jama Masjid. It was built in mid-seventeenth century by the Mughal Emperor Shahjahan. It is built on a hillock, high above rest of the ground & gives an excellent view of the surrounding busy market streets. The trail follows the main street of Chawri Bazaar. The first food stop on this walking tour is Jain Coffee House in Raghuganj grain market. This shop sells fruit sandwiches: of pineapple topped with pomegranate seeds; of cheeku with butter, mango with thinly sliced grapes & many more. The sandwiches not only taste great but are a treat for the eyes too. The differently coloured fruits make a tempting sight to look at. And the sandwiches go best with cold coffee or a fruit shake. A personal favourite is the samosa sandwich. Samosa is fried patty filled with boiled potatoes, peas & spices. We negotiated our way out of Raghuganj through a extremely narrow lane, back on to Chawri Bazaar. The next stop was a century old chaat shop- Hira Lal Chaat Bhandar. Delicious aalu chat and mind blowing kulle are the specialty here. Kulle are almost like cup cakes: the base is made of different fruits or vegetables like sweet potato, watermelon, orange, potato, cucumber & even banana, apple & mango. They are then topped with gram, pomegranate & a dash of lemon & spices. From here we visited gem of a monument, which few people would know of. There is hardly any information on Ruknuddaulah mosque. It was built during the time of Akbar Shah, the Mughal Emperor & is one of the prettiest mosques in Delhi. Further on, stands the Hauz Qazi mosque or Haji Qazi mosque. It is in bad shape today, its narrow entrance hidden behind shops in the busy old Delhi market. Hauz is a tank and Qazi is Muslim law giver. It is an active mosque built almost 300 years. Our next food stop was Daulat ki Chaat, a stark contrast to earlier spicy experience. This is a particular delicacy found prominently in this part of Old Delhi. The right proportion of milk, cream and butter with saffron flavoring makes it so soft and fluffy that it melts in mouth. At this point we left Chawri Bazaar to walk into Sita Ram Bazaar and then entered Kucha Pati Ram. Then was the halt at Kuremal Kulfi Wala which surprises its guests with mind boggling variety of fruit kulfis (ice creams). Name a fruit and they are ready to serve its kulfi for you! The final stop on our walking tour was a 19th century haveli which has been recently restored.
(posted by Niti Deoliya & Kavita Singh, team members, Delhi Heritage Walks)