During my time to India, I learned that Indian street food is about as diverse as cuisines come, making the country a culinary paradise. I’ve eaten nearly 200 Indian dishes there, but I wanted to share only the very best with you today. These are the 19 Indian street food dishes you have to try in 2019!
This fatty, non-traditional version consists of a crispy, roasted chicken that is swimming in melted butter and spices, but don’t let that keep you away from this phenomenal dish!
2. Buffalo Biryani (Mohd Tofiq – Delhi)
The buffalo meat in this layered rice dish was incredibly tender and juicy. The sauce, mixed in with the various spices in the rice, had me in Indian food heaven!
3. Bedai (GMB – Agra)
Bedai consists of a puffy flatbread called a puri and a potato curry with cottage cheese. The herbs and spices in the puri made for a sensational combination with the curry’s slight heat. It took it to a whole new level!
4. Kabab (Tunday Kababi – Lucknow)
These flavorful, spice-filled meatballs were soft and contrasted beautifully with the paratha and onions I had them with. Easily one of my favorite meatballs of all time!
5. Chura Matar (Deena Chat – Varanasi)
This light and fresh dish is made of rice, vegetables, chilies, and spices. The flavors and textures were outstanding and I highly recommend it!
6. Gatte Ki Sabzi (Jaipur)
This mouthwatering curry is made of chickpea flour dumplings in a spicy gravy. I tried it alongside Daal, Aloo Pyaz Sabji, and Bejad Ki Roti. The spiciness and different textures made this a standout!
7. Rajasthani Thali (Torba – Jaipur)
This thali consisted of crumbled bread mixed with curries and yogurts. It wasn’t too spicy, but was packed with an unreal amount of flavor I couldn’t get enough of!
8. Mutton Burger (Samode Palace – Samode)
This was a very fresh sheep meat burger that was topped with cheese, tomatoes, onion, and lettuce. It was almost like a delicious chicken burger!
9. Chicken Lollipop (Mohammad Ali Road – Mumbai)
This is a fried chicken drumstick that is bathed in a delicious, bright red curry. It was very flavorful, especially with the ginger sauce it came with!
10. Pani Puri (Elco – Mumbai)
This puri, or hollow bread ball, is filled with a light curry that can include potatoes, vegetables, and spices. This one had a minty flavor I couldn’t get enough of!
11. Paneer Chilli (Juhu Beach – Mumbai)
This dish is made up of a cottage cheese called paneer that is served with a sauce and lots vegetables. Like many other dishes I tried, it wasn’t super spicy, but was exploding with delicious flavor.
12. Bahubali Thali (House of Paratha – Pune)
This thali, which consists of an enormous, stuffed paratha and over a dozen side dishes, is remarkably flavorful and varied in its textures. It’s big, but it’s also outstanding!
13. Pizza Dosa/Szechwan Cream Dosa (Ram Ki Bandi – Hyderabad)
The Italian-inspired pizza dosa is spicy and cheesy with a cooling coconut chutney and the Chinese-inspired Szechwan Cream Dosa is sweeter with a nice amount of heat. I highly recommend both!
14. Veg Biryani (Paradise Restaurant – Hyderabad)
The spices in the rice, coupled with the yellow curry, paneer, and vegetables, made this one of my favorite biryanis ever!
15. Paneer Bhurji (Tara Chand – Amritsar)
This buttery, creamy cottage cheese dish with vegetables and masala is like cheesy scrambled eggs, without the eggs!
16. Floating Pani Puri (VV Puram Food Street – Bengaluru)
This spicy, bright, and fresh variation of pani puri is served in a large amount of jaljeera water. It was phenomenal!
17. Fried Squid with Curries (Chennai Beach – Chennai)
This spicy, briny, and flavorful seafood dish is packed with herbs and spices and had my taste buds going wild!
18. Kathi Rolls (Nizams – Kolkata)
These fatty, grilled kebabs wrapped around a chewy paratha are out of this world! The meat is moist and flavorful and I can’t rave about it enough!
19. Gujarati Thali (Agashiya – Ahmedabad)
The rice, lentil, veggie, and eggplant dishes in this thali were full of contrasting flavors and textures that had my taste buds going wild!
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Hi everyone, this is David Hoffman from David's Been Here.
If you've been subscribed to me for a while, you know that I love Indian street food.
I visited India twice this year, back in February of 2018 and now in November.
And so far I've done 13 cities and probably, I don't know, maybe 100, 180 dishes.
I mean, I really have gone deep into the cuisine of India.
I went to so many cities from Mumbai to Chennai, Calcutta, Amritsar, Pune, I mean, I've done
14 incredible cities and the food has blown my mind.
I've sampled veg, non-veg, sweet, savory, spicy, crispy, crunchy, creamy and spongy.
I have had dishes that were every bit as incredible as I thought they would be and ones that shocked
me with complexity and their textures and dynamic flavor profiles.
And I want to share all these dishes with you guys.
If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to my channel and hit the notification bell
to get updated when all the new videos drop.
Now you guys ready for the top 19 Indian street food dishes you have to try in 2019?
Let's dive into it.
Up first is butter chicken from Aslam Chicken Corner in the capital city of Delhi.
This chicken is made solely with chicken, butter and spices, which makes it a little
different from other types of butter chicken, which usually include tomatoes.
But this dish is still phenomenal.
The chicken is roasted over hot coals and served piping hot and swimming in a puddle
of rich, flavorful butter.
The chicken itself is very crispy, almost like chicharon or pork rinds, and the butter
is so smooth.
It's super fatty, but trust me, this chicken is worth breaking any diet.
Next up is the sensational buffalo biryani I had at Molde Tuffik in the back streets
of Delhi.
Biryani is a layered rice dish that can contain tomatoes, green chilies, garlic, saffron,
cardamom, coriander and more, and can be served veg or with your choice of protein, like chicken,
goat or lamb.
With this biryani, the buffalo meat and the rice were cooked separately in a giant pot,
with a layer of meat on the bottom and rice on top.
The buffalo was tender and juicy, and its sauce, mixed with spices in the rice, had
me in Indian heaven.
I had never had buffalo biryani before, and now that I had it, I didn't want to stop
eating it.
Before I visited the world famous Taj Mahal in the city of Agra, I had a quick breakfast
with my guide Shanu, and we tried a dish called Bedai, which blew me away.
It's served with a puffy flatbread called Bedai Puri, that's served with a potato curry
and contains cottage cheese.
It's eaten by tearing pieces of puri, dipping it into the curry, and popping it into your
mouth.
The puri itself had lentils and spices baked right into it, and it was outstanding.
Combining it with the potato curry, which had a tiny bit of spice to it, took it to
a whole new level.
When I visited Lucknow, also known as the city of Nawabs, I was feeling really under
the weather, but that didn't stop me and my friend Aishu from enjoying one of the best
meat dishes I've ever had in India, kebabs at Tunde Kebabi.
These spice filled pan fried meatballs are soft and a little mushy, and exploding with
flavor.
They were served with raw onions, a wedge of lime, and an Indian flatbread called a
paratha.
The spices in the meat and the different flavors and textures with the paratha and the onion
were perfectly balanced.
These kebabs were easily some of the best meatballs I've ever had in my life.
During my time in the holy city of Varanasi, my friend Himanshu took me on an epic food
tour on my last day in the city.
The very last food I tried on the tour is a dish called churamatar, which was one of
the menu items I tried at Dina Chat, a roadside stall.
Churamata can be made a few different ways, and can contain ingredients like rice, green
beans, green peas, cumin, green chilies, cashews, ginger, coriander, garam masala,
and dried fruits.
This fantastic dish, which is mixed up and cooked on a sizzle, is very light and fresh,
and was one of my favorite things I tried in the holy city of Varanasi.
The next dish on my list is a sensational Rajasthani dish called gate ki sabzi, which
I tried as I explored the city of Jaipur with my friend and guide, Atrey.
This mouth-watering curry is made with chickpea flour, which is formed into dumplings that
are then served in a spicy, flavorful curd gravy.
I had this dish alongside dal, aloo paas sabzi, and bajat ki roti.
There were so many layers of flavors and beautiful contrasting textures once all these dishes
were combined.
And the hint of spice that creeps up on you was a nice surprise in an already fantastic
dish.
Up next is the traditional Rajasthani thali I had at Torba Restaurant in the city of Jaipur
with my friend Karan.
Thali is a name for a large platter of various Indian foods that are eaten together and contain
various breads, rice, and different dishes depending on which part of the country you're
in.
For this outstanding vegetarian thali, my waiter crumbled a large ball of bread on my
plate and then began mixing in various curries and yogurts.
I was grateful that it wasn't very spicy, as my stomach was still recovering from a
long week of illness, but it was packed with a ridiculous amount of flavor and was very
different from the northern Indian food I had earlier that trip.
If you're ever in Jaipur, then you have to try this thali, it's incredible.
The next Indian dish you have to try is the Mutton Burger from Samode Palace in the city
of Samode.
While it may not exactly count as a street food, it was too good to leave off this list.
This was a monster of a burger, with a large, juicy mutton or sheep meat patty topped with
lettuce, onions, tomato, and cheese.
The mutton was fresh and tender, and if I hadn't known what it was, I would have thought
it was an incredible chicken burger.
You have to try this burger, it was fantastic.
The next Indian street food dish you have to try in 2019 is the Chicken Lollipop, a
dish I first tried on Muhammad Ali Road in Mumbai with my friend Yash.
This unbelievable chicken dish gets its name because when you hold the drumstick upright
by the bone, it resembles a lollipop.
The fried drumstick is covered in a red curry that is so rich and colorful, it actually
turns the chicken bright red.
The chicken lollipops I tried weren't too spicy, but were incredibly flavorful.
They were even better when I dipped them into the tangy ginger sauce they were served with.
If you love chicken, you'll love this dish.
Next we have a very popular dish called Pani Puri, which I have now tried many variations
throughout my two trips in India.
But one of my favorites was still the first one I tried at the Elko restaurant in the
Banjar neighborhood of Mumbai.
Pani Puri consists of a round hollow ball of crisp fried bread called a puri, which
the cook punctures and fills with a light soup or curry that can contain potatoes, tamarind,
chutney, chilies, chickpeas, chaat masala, onion, and more.
This particular one was dipped into two different chutneys with a minty flavor.
The chutney was so amazing that even after the puris were gone, I made sure to drink
every last drop on the tray.
It was that good.
The next street food you have to try is the Paneer Chilli I had on Yuhu Beach in Mumbai
with my friends Tanmay and Priyanka from The Tripping Travelers.
This is a popular Indo-Chinese dish that is made of cubes of deep fried cottage cheese
called Paneer, as well as lots of Chinese sauces and vegetables including bell pepper
and spring onions.
I was told it would be extremely hot because one of the ingredients is chili paste.
But I didn't really find it extremely spicy, a little hot.
Then again, maybe I fried all my taste buds with the incredibly spicy foods I tried during
my first trip in India.
This fresh and insanely flavorful dish is one of my all-time favorite Indian dishes
and is an absolute must-try if you're ever on Yuhu Beach.
If you're ever in Pune and you want an extremely culinary experience and you have to go to
the House of Paratha restaurant and try the Pahubali Thali.
This is no ordinary thali.
Billed as the biggest thali in the entire city, this massive dish contains a 22-inch
paratha that is stuffed with cheese, nuts, and vegetables, as well as seven vegetable
curries and a variety of breads, two desserts, and several sides.
There are so many incredible flavors that range from earthy to tropical to spicy and
contrasting textures of breads, paratha, and curries was like heaven in my mouth.
Not only is this one of Pune's biggest foods, it's also one of the city's best.
Next up are two dishes that are so ridiculously amazing that I honestly couldn't choose
one of them.
The pizza dosa and the szechuan cream dosa I tried at Ram Ki Bandi in Hyderabad with
my buddies Sam and Silish.
The Italian-inspired pizza dosa tastes a lot like a pizza with a crispy dosa acting almost
like a crust and lots of tomatoes and melted cheese.
It also had a spicy kick to it, which was balanced by the cooling and refreshing coconut
chutney it was served with.
The szechuan cream dosa infused the dosa with traditional Chinese flavors.
This phenomenal dosa contained lots of onions and cilantro and was sweeter than the pizza
dosa but also had a nice kick to it.
It was phenomenal.
I couldn't stop raving about how great it was and once you try it, I know you won't
be able to either.
The next Indian food on our list is also in the city of Hyderabad at the famous Paradise
Restaurant.
There, my buddy Sam and I tried four different briyanis including mutton, chicken, and egg.
So you might be surprised to learn that my favorite was actually the veg briyani, which
contained beans, peas, and non-melting Indian cottage cheese called the paneer.
The mix of paneer with the yellow curry, vegetables, and spices was next level and makes this one
of my favorite briyanis of all time.
The beautiful and spiritual city of Amritsar will always be a special place to me, not
only because of the stunning attractions and warm, friendly people, but also because of
the street food dishes like the next one on my list, the paneer bhurji at Tara Chand,
which is made up of cottage cheese, butter, and vegetables.
My friend Deepak explained that it also includes a secret masala recipe that the cooks won't
share with anyone.
Paneer bhurji is very heavy and creamy and filled with herbs and spices.
It was like cheesy, buttery, scrambled eggs, except there are no eggs.
The mint chutney it was paired with took it from exceptional to astronomical in terms
of flavor.
If you're a cheese lover like me, this dish is a must.
The next Indian street food dish you absolutely have to try is floating paneer bhurji, which
can be found on one of the most famous roads in Bengaluru, VV Puram food street.
I went there with my friend Sam and Apshishek and I was blown away by this glorious variation
of a dish I already loved so much.
This time, the filled bhurjis are served in a plate with Jaljeera water.
It was a little spicy and was packed with bright, fresh flavors and had me salivating.
This was definitely one of my best paneer bhurjis I've ever had in my life.
For our next dish, you have to head over to Marina Beach in the city of Chennai for some
fried calamari or squid with curry.
After the raw squid is cleaned and sliced into rings, it is also added to a pan along
with herbs, spices like garlic, ginger, turmeric, garam masala, chili powder, salt, black pepper,
curry leaves, and lemon juice before all those ingredients are mixed together and sauteed.
The end result is a spicy and insanely flavorful seafood dish that made my mouth go wild.
The briny flavor of the squid coupled with all the spices had me in Tamil heaven.
As you guys know, I'm a total foodie, so I couldn't go to Konkata without visiting Nizam's,
the birthplace of the next street food on our list, the Kathi Roll.
Kathi Rolls consist of fatty, grilled kebabs that are wrapped in chewy, delicious, and
layered parathas.
This dish was invented when the cooks of Nizam's restaurant decided they had to find a way
for people to take their kebabs on the go, which wasn't very practical for commuters
at the time.
The care that went into developing this dish is evident in the sensational flavors in the
moist, spice-filled meat and the tender, eggy paratha.
It was out of this world.
The final dish on this list comes from the city of Ahmedabad, which is famous for its
vegetarian cuisine.
This is the Gujarati Thali, which I tried with my buddy Sam at Agashiya.
Many of the items served in the Gujarati Thali have a slightly sweet flavor to them, and
includes basmati rice, an incredible lentil dish called Kathi Mithi Dal, a vegetable and
spinach paste called Undiyu, a fantastic eggplant dish called Ringana Methli Noo Shak, and lots
and lots of chutneys, among others.
Like every thali I've ever had, this dish has so many wonderful, complementary and contrasting
flavors and textures that took my taste buds on a wild rollercoaster ride that I didn't
want to get off.
This was truly Gujarati food heaven.
And those were the 19 Indian street food dishes you have to try in 2019.
If you find yourself traveling throughout India this year, definitely go to these cities
and try these dishes.
They are so incredibly delicious.
I gotta say, all the thalis blew my mind.
Man, all the non-veg dishes and the veg dishes, I mean, the pani puris are my favorites of
all time.
You can call me the puri god now.
And if you guys love this video, please give me a thumbs up, leave me a comment below,
and subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content.
I'll see you on the next travel food adventure around the world.
Where have you been?
Peace.
