Okay, let’s jump from Seoul to Delhi but let’s keep the casual market vibe going. No, Delhi doesn’t have anything quite like Gwangjang Market but casual food in markets abounds. This report is of some casual food eaten in a market in Gurgaon (technically a separate city in a different state but part of the Delhi NCR or National Capital Region) across my three most recent trips home: in December last year, earlier this year in March and again this July. All of the meals center on chaat and all were eaten at Galleria, a popular outdoor mall in Gurgaon, some by myself and some with my nephews, who love chaat as much as I do.

I should say first of all that while there are many parts of the Delhi metro that can plausibly throw down in a “best chaat” competition, Gurgaon is not one of them. There is no style or genre of chaat that is associated with it and nor would anyone be so deluded as to claim that there is any style or genre of chaat that is done better there than anywhere else in the metro. But that’s not to say that there is not good chaat available in Gurgaon. Certainly, no one coming from the US—where chaat is uniformly bad and sad—should turn their nose up eating at chaat in Gurgaon if that is what is most convenient. And chaat is properly a food of convenience. It’s not something you should be going out of your way to eat—it should ideally be eaten at your neighbourhood market, standing on your own two feet and trying not to spill anything on yourself.

Well, Galleria is not quite my neighbourhood market while in Gurgaon but it’s close. I visit it several times on each trip on account of the excellent branch of Bahrisons (one of Delhi’s premier bookstores) located there and almost always combine it with a quick meal of chaat—sometimes eating some things on the way in and some more on the way out. In the past, my custom was was given to two businesses on the first floor: Chaat Chowk and Chaat Ki Baat. Chaat Ki Baat has since closed. Chaat Chowk is still around and I ate there again in December. It remains popular enough, but in March I stopped in at The Chaat Walk on the ground floor/street level on the other end of Galleria and liked it quite a bit better. Not only have I not been back to Chaat Chowk since but I’ve also converted my nephews—who’d first taken me to Chaat Chowk—to being Chaat Walk fans. As you’ll see in the pics below, the Chaat Chowk experience is not quite as bustling/hectic as that at Chaat Walk. It’s possible they pick up the business of people who don’t want to deal with the crush at Chaat Walk but it also wouldn’t surprise me if Chaat Chowk’s days are numbered. Well, I guess I’ll see if they’re still around in December when I’ll be in Gurgaon/Delhi next.

Chaat Walk is a small counter between a couple of other counter service places. Unlike at Chaat Chowk, there are no small tables in front to sit down if you’re so moved. No, you either eat while milling around in front or you take your food and look for a free bench somewhere in Galleria—it’s not usually hard to find one. Their menu is more chaat-focused than Chaat Chowk’s (who offer other North Indian and Indian dishes as well). Chaat Walk purports to offer a sort of chaat greatest hits from different neighbourhoods in Delhi that are in fact known for their chaat. As to whether their iterations of these dishes (mostly named for different neighbourhoods) comes close to the originals, I leave to those with more stakes in the argument to decide. All I can tell you is that I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve eaten there so far

Almost everything I’ve eaten there looks exactly the same when handed to me, by the way. Palak patta (battered spinach) chaat, paapdi chaat, alu-tikkis: all of it is served in an open hard paper box under a blanket of beaten curd topped with various crispy, crumbly bits and pickled veg and it’s not until you dig under the surface that the contents reveal themselves. The major exception among the things I’ve eaten are the gol gappas. These cannot be carried away and have to be eaten while standing up at the small gol gappa counter at one end of the shop. This is how it should be. Gol gappa eaten sitting down is a crime against god and man (and probably also sea urchin). You do it only when no other choice is available. As everything else at Chaat Walk takes a little bit of time to be prepared (almost everything is made fresh), the smart move is to include gol gappas in your order and skip over to the gol gappa gent to eat them while the rest of your food is being prepared.

Being a very smart person, this is what I did on every visit. You can get gol gappas made of either aata/whole wheat or sooji (semolina flour). Each variety has its adherents. Like most right-thinking people, I prefer sooji gol gappas but usually get a mix anyway just because. At Chaat Walk—as at any proper gol gappa place—you can specify the poori type and whether you want the spiced water in which the gol gappa is dunked to be sweet (more tamarind water), spicy (more mint water) or somewhere in between. Unless you’re religious about these things, the thing to do is to start with a couple of sweets, move on to a couple of mixeds, then to a couple of spicys and end with a final mixed. It’s what I like to do at any rate.

Chaat Chowk meanwhile purports to offer Calcutta-style phuchka as well as Delhi-style gol gappa and when I ate there in December I got some of each. I also ate a pretty good raj kachori and more than acceptable paapdi chaat and shared some of one of my nephews’ bhelpuri. The latter is not something I usually look to eat in Delhi but my nephews always get it and who am I, living in Minnesota as I do, to demur? What else did I eat across my visits to Chaat Walk in March and July? Paapdi-bhalla chaat, alu tikkis, palak patta chaat, paapdi chaat and bhelpuri (for my nephews got it again).

For a look at all of the above, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see what’s coming next on the food front.

Well, I’ll be back at Chaat Walk in December; and who knows, if Chaat Chowk is still around, I might stop in there again as well. I’m also kind of intrigued by the establishment to the left of Chaat Walk: Delhiwale Sardar-ji Veg and Non-Veg. Maybe I’ll give their butter chicken or chole-bhature or both a go. By the way, while I couldn’t discern any differences at Chaat Walk across my two visits, I did notice in July that Sardar-ji sprouted a shakes and smoothies add-on named Big Tong in the intervening period.

Okay, up next on the food front, another Seoul report, maybe two. My next Twin Cities report will go up on Wednesday and will cover a meal in St. Paul that we’d originally planned to eat two weeks ago. Stay tuned to see what it is.