YAVATMAL Street Food Tour, Part 1/2 l Budhicha Chiwda, Besan Vadi, Maltova, Shrikhand Vadi

We started the tour from Alka Uphar Gruha located opposite Saron Talkies in Gandhi Chowk. They offer a limited range of fried snacks which includes samosa, mirchi vada, sambar vada and kachori. Among these the hot selling fare is the mirchi vada which is so much in demand that it is continuously being made all throughout the day. The other items are usually prepared twice or thrice a day. During the heyday of the movie theater, this shop was one of the busiest in the city. We zeroed on samosa and mirchi vada because the former was being served in a special manner while the latter was so sought after. Samosa was served with a topping of kala chana curry, yogurt and chutney and it turned out to be a decent ensemble. The Mirchi vada on the other hand had a soft and fluffy gram flour coating and was quite hearty.
Next we went to Nagpurwala Hotel. It is an old sweet and snacks shop with a spacious eating area. Prior to Covid 19 pandemic, they had arrangements for sitting but after the lockdown, they resorted to self service. Speaking to the owner answered our curiosity regarding the interesting name and its legacy. There were a lot of things to be tried but we picked up the besan vada, which was one of their best sellers and which seemed similar to the sambar vada.
It was a slice of deep fried savoury pastry stuffed with a spiced gram flour mixture. The outer covering was crisp and flaky while the stuffing was spicy and garlicky. It came along with a thin buttermilk that was sweet and a spicy kala chana curry. Tastewise it was great.

From there we reached Jai Mata Di Maltova Point in Gandhi Chowk to try Maltova, a malt based drink that had caught the fancy of the locals. It's a hot beverage whipped up with Maltova, milk, sugar and malai. Just like our talented young co explorer Riddhi, we too loved its creamy, caramel and chocolatey taste.

After this we reached Shravan Budhicha Chivda Center at Azad maidan. As the name suggests it was started by an old lady who started the business of this flattened rice based snack. It is a zesty mixture made of spiced flattened rice that has coconut and peanuts in it, boiled moth beans, spices, chutney and onions. Again this inexpensive zesty snack was both delicious and filling. It brought up the conversation around the strained economy of Vidarbha and our host explained to us how development eludes Yavatmal due to its critical topography.

Next we had some more flattened and puffed rice based snacks called kaccha chivda at Shree Krishna Chivda Center. This nondescript stall attracts hungry customers who are looking for some filling, zesty and pocket friendly snack. During the conversation with the young owner who was busy preparing and vatch of this dish, we got to know that it is named so because most of the ingredients used are in the raw form and no cooking is involved. He mixed up puffed rice, flattened rice, some ground spices and oil to form a spicy mixture which was then topped with onions and sev.

After this we visited Satkar sweet mart to enjoy the sweets that locals mostly loved. We opted for kaju katli and almond cake, two of their specialities and two kinds of balushahi. The kaju katli was optimally sweet and quite good. The baked almond cake resembled a cookie both in taste and texture. Their balushahi was quite different from the North Indian one.

Continuing with our sweet trail, we reached Ranade Brothers shop to try a very interesting sweetmeat called shrikhand vadi. It is marvellous burfi made of exactly all the ingredients that goes into the making of Shrikhand which are hung curd, sugar and cardamom. The sweet and tangy taste was quite unique. We also got some of their famous amarkhand packed for later.

The last stop of this tour was New Shegaon Kachori Center at Poonam Chowk. They specialize in a special kind of spicy lentil kachori that's is found in Shegaon. These are primarily stuffed with a mixture made of gram flour, pigeon pea lentil (either fresh or dried) and spices. This one contained fresh pigeon peas based stuffing.

About the host:
https://anubhavsapra.com/

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Text by Swetaleena Nayak

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