First Time Trying TRADITIONAL Indian Food in Mumbai India!

Hey guys, it's Mike Chen. Well, no doubt about it, the sound of traffic everywhere, smell of spices in the air. I am finally in India. And right now, I am in the city of Mumbai. This is, again, a place I've been wanting to come to for oh so long. Because Indian food, one of my favorite foods in the world. Because if you break it down, all the characteristics of Indian food, I love all of that. I mean, it's spicy, it's savory, there are a ton of variety. It typically goes really good with rice, all the things I love. So Mumbai really special is that it's really a gathering, a melting pot of people from all different backgrounds in India. This is the fourth most populated city in the world. Like I said, people come here from all around the country, bringing their different backgrounds, cultures, and of course, cuisines. So in Mumbai, I'm really gonna be able to get a taste of, well, India. Let's get started. My first stop, just to get things started, is a really traditional Indian dish called pav bhaji. And pav means bread, and bhaji means pounded and grounded vegetables and spice. Everything is bubbling, it looks like it's being kind of cooked on a flying saucer. My first traditional dish here in India. Cannot wait to taste this thing. Thank you, wow. Is that a stick of butter? That was a surprise, I mean, it's not a huge plate, but there's literally like a quarter of a stick or maybe even half a stick of butter that was in this little plate, and that thing is melting. And I'm supposed to mix in this butter. Fresh herbs on top, it looks like some cilantro. This thing smells so incredible, guys. Oh, thank you. The buns is also covered in butter. And they give you a little dish of raw onions, a little tiny wedge of lemon, and some spices on top of everything. And I think I'm supposed to pour this in as well. All of it? Getting some confirmation around me. People are laughing at me, I'm gonna add a little bit. I'm gonna gauge people's reaction and when I... More, a lot, everything? All of it? Not all, okay, okay. All right, thank you. And what everyone is doing is they're taking these little butter soaked buns, let that dive in, and just grab a bunch of that pulverized veggies. That is deeply, butterly satisfying. That was probably the most decadent bite of a snack I've ever had in my life. But guys, this is amazing. This dish, with the potatoes and the chickpeas, the butter, is so incredibly creamy. The flavor of this dish is just beyond words. And this is called Papaji Masala, so there are a ton of spices grounded in it and infused in this dish. So to me, it's really interesting because you got all that spice, then you just got the raw, barbaric, carnal flavors of the butter and the toasted bun. It just tastes so complex, yet simple at the same time, but utterly, 100% delicious. I definitely like mine with more of the onions. I love that crunch. I love the refreshing onion flavors. I mean, I know I'm just getting started on my Indian food tour, but what a fantastic start this is. And this is probably the most I've ever enjoyed a vegetarian dish in my life. This thing is borderline addictive. And I never had anything like this before in the US. Also, this is a snack. I can't wait to see what's coming up. After having a snack, well, let's go have another snack. And this is a really famous place that a lot of you guys recommended. It's called Swati Snack, and we're gonna go for some chaat. And chaat in Indian means, well, it just means snacks. So, snacks part two. There's actually a wait for snacks, so it'll be about 15 minutes. We'll let the butter digest. Oh, oh, check it out, guys. This is called a puchina banki, or mint pancake. It's basically a thin rice pancake cooked in banana leaves. Like, I saw people eating this when I first walked in. Can I just, like, bottle this? We'll create, like, a scented alarm clock so I can wake up every day smelling this. Because it just makes you smile every time you take a sniff. It's just this beautiful, aromatic, roasted fragrance, plus this kind of hit of refreshingness from the mint. You guys ready to see what's under the covers? Let's take a peek. I feel so naughty right now. Look at this! I feel like I'm presenting a scroll, but in this case, a delicious edible rice scroll. That's green. And to eat this, what you do is you take a spoon. I love this part because it requires a certain degree of finesse, which I have none of. But when it comes to food, I'm gonna try it. And you gently peel the rice pancake from the leaf. And then watch this thing just... Oh no, I broke it! Oh, actually, I did it wrong. Supposed to roll this, and this becomes a rice roll. I'm thinking this is a set of mint sauce. I love this so much. You will never know how much. I'm gonna try this without the sauce. The pancake itself, my God, this is so unique. Unlike anything I would expect this to taste like. The pancake itself is not that chewy. You see, look, it breaks apart pretty easily. This is like a really, really gentle, really soft pancake. The sauce, this is extremely minty sauce. And I'm also gonna put on a chili in this bite. However you want to eat this, like on its own with a little mint sauce with the chili, ain't no wrong way to do this. The flavor is so incredibly unique. The balance of the savory and mint flavors, it's so in sync, it's so perfect. This is the shrikand, and what's really interesting about this is that it's got something savory and sweet on display right here, and check it out. It's really crumbly roti. It's stuffed with spices, you can see right here, and ground lentil. You taste the lentil beans right away. Ooh, the spices just hit me. That's a late comer. I like that. Hey, better late than never, right? And you're supposed to take some of your roti, and you add some potatoes to it. Let that deliciousness just wash all over you, and just when things are heating up, you get a little funky in your mouth, and grab some of that yogurt. When the yogurt goes into your mouth, everything in your mouth just cools down. All that dancing, all that craziness, the roti and the potato, it's having all that chemical reaction that's going on in your mouth, that all dissipates as soon as the smooth, delicious yogurt joins the party, and this is definitely smooth and delicious. I'm almost loving the yogurt more than this other two companions right here. That is obscenely good. I gotta try all that again. Savory. Things are heating up. Pudding shows up. Everybody relaxes. This interesting piece of bread here, this is a masala roti. It looks like it's pretty dense. Again, you can see all the spices that's in here. It comes with some basin yogurt curry, and this is some sort of a plant that's fried first, and then it's put in here. I've never had this before. Let me... The texture is kind of like that of a potato. It's really creamy, and the curry itself's got masala spices in here, so it's a lot of spicy flavor. You can tell there's a ton of different spices in here. You're supposed to take your roti, grab some of that curry, and just enjoy. One thing I love about Indian food so much is just the complexity of all the spices, and the ability for them all to work together so incredibly well. This roti is so ridiculously flavorful because of all the spices that's in here. Little crispy on the outside, but you take that, dip it in this curry, the spice level will go up, but at the same time, you get this nice, smooth, starchy texture from the bensin. I'm just wondering, but I wanna add a little mint to it. I like that. Also, what I love about this dish and Indian food in general, foods that have a lot of different spices in there, as you chew, different spices hit your taste buds. It's like your taste buds are getting this really intense massage. And at the end of it, they're all just screaming one thing. Yum. This is another favorite item here. This roti, as you guys can see, it's much darker than the last one, and it's mixed masala and lentil in this roti. I can also see some sesame seeds, definitely a little char on the outside. I like that. Ooh, I really like this. A lot of hidden flavors in here. I mean, looking at this, honestly, it kinda just looks like a really dense, not that flavorful, pretty hard piece of bread. Far from it. Oh my God, coriander. Look at this. Fresh coriander that's cooked into this bread. That mixed with the sesame seeds. Wow. This is something amazing. All right, after a couple of snacks, I'm ready to get going. And a lot of you guys told me this is a must eat. Frankie's over on this street called Khao Gali. It's like a lot of different food vendors here. I don't know what a Frankie is. I mean, I know a Frankie. I just don't know what an edible Frankie looks like. So let's order one. There are like 30 options here. I think I'm gonna go for number 14, paneer cheese Szechuan Frankie. So I'm Mikey, and this is Frankie. Frankie turns out to be a really thin crepe stuffed with all sorts of things. But this one, I got it with paneer cheese and Szechuan sauce. A leaf almost landed on my Frankie. Anyway, it's stuffed with paneer cheese and Szechuan sauce, which is actually the India version of Sichuan sauce, which is, of course, a spicy sauce. Like most food items I had today, this thing is hefty, it's substantial, it's also delicious. The cheese, you can see, nice and creamy. This sauce, this sauce will light your whole mouth on fire. The outside is basically just a really thin, crispy roti. I'm really digging this because flavor is really heavy handed, and I love substantial flavors. And I love how this whole ensemble just works well together. The cheese and the spicy sauce are just kind of fighting each other, fighting for dominance. And at the end, the Szechuan sauce definitely wins out because, man, your mouth feels like it just got stabbed everywhere with pen needles. Oh, oh, I didn't notice this before. Just check this out. There's a big piece of potato in here. That's a surprisingly pleasant discovery because it just makes the whole thing even more creamy. All those things together makes this one of the best things I've had in India so far. Seriously, this is ridiculous. I feel like if I lived around here, I'd eat one of these every single day. You know, just chow down on one of these right before nap time because this will put you to nap. Let's see what else this place has to offer. My mouth is still on fire a little bit, and they're selling milk tea here. Thank you, wow. Ooh, ginger. A little sweet, a little milky. Really gingery. What a nice, satisfying cup of milk tea. Right next to the milk tea place, there's a lassi place. Never had lassi in India before. Let's solve that. So there's sweet lassi and there's salty lassi, so I'm getting the sweet lassi. This is a really popular place, by the way. Man, look at this. I never had lassi like this before. So malai is what you see on the surface here. This tastes like a sweeter, thicker version of a Beijing yogurt. I love Beijing yogurt because it's less tart and it's got more flavor than the typical yogurts you find in a grocery store. And this is even more so. It's creamier, it's more flavorful, it's sweeter, it's less tart than even a Beijing yogurt. This is absolutely fantastic. The malai, that is awesome. It's almost like a milk curd. You can chew it. It's just a clump of the gentlest, creamiest, softest piece of cheese. Oh, that's great. I mean, it's not like what you typically expect when you take a sip of lassi. I feel like it's creamier than that. It's richer and it's better. Gotta give this a try in India. You know, I just realized something. All the food I had so far today have been so delicious. I kind of forgot that none of them really had any meat in there. But all that is gonna change right now because I'm at a restaurant called Badmia and they're making Romani Roti. Look at the oven they're making. It's kind of like the underside of a wok. And that guy is the Roti master right there. Look at this. Yo, this guy has skills. Besides the fresh breads, these guys are making kebab on site. I got some chicken, lamb. This is gonna make up for all the meat that I didn't eat today. Just got all my food. Actually, it took about half an hour because this place is busy. And I got a bunch of items that they recommended. I really can't tell what's what right now, so let's just grab one and open it. This is the Sigdi Chicken Leg, or the Tandoori Chicken Leg. And of course, this is right off the fire. First bite of meat today. A lot of people recommended I come here and I really don't know how good this chicken is in compared to other places. There might be a lot of better places out there in India, I'm sure there are. But for me, that was the greatest bite of Tandoori chicken I've ever had in my life. Hang on a second. It's like a fight between, I don't know, Bruce Lee and a Smurf. There's no comparison. Look how juicy this chicken is. It's got such a beautiful, smoky flavor. Slightly charred on the outside gives it a nice, tiny little crisp. But when you bite into this, it's like biting into a valley of spice. Tastes nothing like the Tandoori chicken I've had in the States. The skin, beautifully, slightly crisp. Insanely juicy. A tad of sweetness. Tons of heat hitting your tongue with every single bite. From the outside all the way to the meat by the bones. The flavor does not decrease as you dig into the surface. It just gets better and better with every single bite. This is mind-blowing. This has completely changed what I thought I knew what Tandoori chicken tastes like. This next thing, mutton keema roll, which is a mutton mint roll. This is the bread that I was seeing this guy make. By the way, this man's a machine. I've been here for like half an hour. Are you tired? No? A new roti every single 10 seconds. He's been doing it consistently for the last 40 minutes. Oh yeah. This is making my day all over the place. The roti itself, that's unbelievable. This thing is tender. It's chewy. The roti is so good. I wish like, instead of that basket, I can just sit there and open my mouth and you'll just throw all the freshly cooked ones directly in here. It's good. I can taste all the different spices in here. If it was just slightly less salt, this will be absolutely perfect. It's just like eating one of the most flavorful burrito you ever had in your life, with just the most awesome, awesome wrapper. I mean, that's awesome, dude. I was actually about to head out of here and I ran into my friend Xiao. He watches the show and he knows a lot about this place that I don't know. First of all, we're still at Bade Miao and you told me I shouldn't leave here without trying a few things. Absolutely not. This is called Gurda Masala. It's goat kidney, it's mutton kidney. And you're saying the organs is what this place is known for here. Pretty much, yeah. Oh, that's hardcore. I love organs. Actually, I love this. Ooh, that liver hits you. Slowly. The liver hits you, then the spice hits you. You should give it a bite with the roti. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's grab a roti. I love organ meat because there's some chewiness to it. Yeah, always, yeah. Yeah, and then a little snap. Like, what's in here? It's the kidney. It's just mutton kidney, yeah, that's all. That's awesome. I think this is better than the mutton I had tonight. This is amazing. This place does their organs the best. It's really good. I just feel like I want to keep going because it is so addictive, that flavor, that texture. What else did we get? You should try some of the brain. Did you just say brain? Just brain, yeah. Okay. Let's be blunt. I've always been known to fare well with brains. I mean, maybe because I don't have a big one, but, and also, I'm not a zombie, so brain typically is not my favorite. That's just a big piece of brain right there. Very buttery, the brain by itself, and the masala's on point. All right, I'm gonna, you want that big piece of brain? It's yours. All right, cheers, my friend. All right, if I can just bypass the psychological hurdle that I'm eating a piece of brain, it's not bad, it's creamy, and it doesn't have a bad aftertaste. Like, I remember my first time eating brain in Taiwan. There was just a horrific aftertaste, but this, the aftertaste is kind of like what we had with the organs. Nice, the spices kick up, so it's pretty good. It's all about that spice. Yeah, probably the least worst brain I've had, and that's pretty good. I think that's the best I can do. And something else you said was good here that we didn't get was the tikki masala. The chicken tikka masala, yeah. Tikki masala, I actually asked you, I thought that was just like an Americanized version of that dish. I've had the Americanized version of that dish, so I can't wait to taste the authentic version here, so we're gonna get that somewhere else. Yeah, we'll go get some, yeah, for sure. Okay, all right, let's keep going, let's keep going. The food tour continues because this guy showed up, and he knows some other places we should try. Before we go eat our next meal, this is what? This leaf, it's called a beetle leaf, and they have a lot of sweet mouth fresheners which are stuffed inside the leaf. That is gulkand. It's rose petals which are cooked down in sugar. Rose petals? Yeah, yeah. Okay, well that's awesome. And there's different types of fire? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're gonna eat the really cool? Fire pond. Fire pond! Yo, I saw this on Facebook! They put the fire in your mouth, and it's supposed to be okay. If I cannot make another video after this, you'll know what happened. You'll know something went wrong with this experiment here. Okay, well, now it's on fire. It's really refreshing. Really minty, really refreshing. I didn't feel burned, that's like, that's all good for me. All right, this restaurant we're at is called, what is this place? It's called Delhi Darbar. And this is good? Yeah, it's good, it's good, it's legit. All right, so our food has come. What is all this stuff? Chicken tikka masala, and these are reshmi tikkas. They're chicken tikkas, a marination of a lot of coriander, mint, and a lot of other green vegetables. Okay. These are butter garlic naan. Butter garlic naan. I just wanna take a look at this. I just wanna see if it looks different than the tikka masala in the US. As you can see from the piercing hole here, this is a skewer. Yeah, it is from a tandoori. Wow. Yeah? Wow. It's a moment, isn't it? You know what's gonna happen to me now, is that when I was in Vietnam, I could no longer eat, after I got back to the US, I could no longer eat phat. Now I can no longer eat tandoori chicken. I can no longer eat chicken tikka masala. And I don't know whatever, I don't know, after I eat this naan, I might not be able to eat naan back in the States either. Because. Let's hope you don't. Yeah. I mean, I feel like the biggest difference is, this has way more depth of flavor than what we had in the US. So the tikkas are made first. They make the tikkas first, and then they add it to the sauce. So you taste this nice roasted flavor of the chicken. And what I noticed right away is that it's creamy. It's very. It's really creamy. Like you don't have that creamy flavor in the tikka masala back in the States. Like, and then the heat. The heat really just, you know? Like it punches you around the mouth. I gotta try this again, yeah. You start with some of the naan, for sure. Juicy, seasoned flavor perfectly till the last morsel. Oh man, gotta get some of this. Oh, look at this. If you're finding it salty, add some lime. Just a little bit. Balance it out. Can I give you one of these? Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I forgot about that. Oh man. You taste that mustard oil. Yeah, yep, yep. I love how they crunched it. The outside's a little tiny bit charred. But it's very juicy. It was the inside, it was, yeah. Bite into it. It's juicy. You taste the mint, and you're like, okay, that might be it. Chicken and mint. But then, oh, a little more. But then, you know, a couple bites more, the smokiness flavor. Like it just continuously hits you. The mustard is the real game. The mustard oil that they use is the real game. That mustard is great. I gotta try this naan before it gets cold. Try some of the chutney. Oh. This mint flavor is insane. And no wonder you're saying this is like one of the best restaurants in the city, right? Wait till you try the biryani. So this is the best biryani in all of Mumbai. Isn't it traditional biryani? Yeah, I'll tell you guys why it's not a traditional biryani. All the biryanis here are sold out. Except for this one. Yeah, yeah. The good stuff's at the bottom. Okay, okay. Do you mix it with the rice? No, it's, you make the sauce first. So you stew it for a while. And then you put the rice on top. And then you cook it for a while. You cover it from the top. It's called dum cooking. So the rice cooks within the flavor of the chicken underneath. So it's different, how? The traditional biryani has a specific biryani masala. Or specific spices, it's like. Very specific spices. Wow, oh my. The meat is the real game. Because the steam, yeah, have your. It's kind of like tasting a fragrance. It's not even like chewing rice. It's like chewing a fragrance. Fragrance, yeah. That meat is to die for, really. That chicken. Please tell the chef, like, he just won the world. I mean, I can't give him the world, but if I could, he'd get it. If you never had Indian food in India, and you love Indian food, you need to come here. Like, tomorrow. Hang on. I'm gonna try to describe what just happened here, so I'm not just kind of crazy, all right? The chicken, first of all, it's just freaking insanely tender. And whatever that concoction of spices, it's unlike anything I've ever had before. Every tikka will give you something different entirely. Just every single cell of that chicken is just exuding flavor. Exuding. Absolutely. But with the rice, like, even just a couple grains of rice in my mouth, like, just chewing on that, just releases the fragrance everywhere. You guys see how easy that cut through? It's almost like a snap when it cuts through the chicken. It's creamy, isn't it? It's just something I've never had. You wanna try some pickle? Yeah, yeah, I'll try anything. It doesn't really go with any of the food here, but since it's here, I definitely wanted to try it out. Yeah. Oh, he's a prank me, man. That is sour. That is, like, really, really sour. It's got some crazy spices in there, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So after that, it's like I'm eating the rice new again. Yeah, absolutely. It's called a Taste Buds Born Again sauce. All right, we're gonna let everyone else get a chance to eat, because they've been staring at us, like, with hatred in their eyes. Let's not. I mean, I don't, at this point, I'm so selfish right now, I don't even wanna share the chicken, but you gotta share, you gotta share food. So we'll be back. So thank you so much, Xiao, for showing me this place. And by the way, guys, also, meet Mehak. This is Xiao's girlfriend. Thank you both so much. It was so great meeting you guys and being able to just dine with you and just have a good time. Showing me this gem of a place, which you guys should definitely go to. Again, guys, everything I had today is listed in the description box below. And once again, you guys are such a pleasure. And I think we're gonna eat again in a couple days, hopefully, because they just introduced me to this big, monstrous dish that I might need some help with, and they're gonna come help me. But it's such a pleasure meeting you guys and eating with you guys. And thank you guys so much for watching. That's how we eat again. Namaste.