Making a meal of Mint Street

Think food in Chennai and it will conjure up visions of idli and dosa. But there are pockets in the city one can reach into for cuisines as diverse as Burmese, Marwari and Gujarati, although availability varies. One way of discovering this diversity is a food walk, a pastime gaining popularity in Chennai over the last few years.

Mint Street in Sowcarpet is a vibrant — and chaotic — slice of Northern India. It gets its name from the East India Company’s coin-making unit, which once stood there. Cloth was one of the commodities the company, which went on to colonise India, traded in. It needed financing, as did Indian merchants. Gujaratis and Marwaris, for whom textiles and finance were traditional businesses, made their way here in the 18th century.

On Mint Street you’ll find famed destinations for food that is both native to these communities and otherwise. My second food walk of this area began at Kakada Ramprasad, as did the first, four years ago. The store is over 50 years old and is famous for its chaat and sweets. This time, though, I know better than to begin the tour with its filling and delicious badam milk. Our group of seven starts with the hot jalebis and aloo tikki chaat. These are fried outside the shop, right near the entrance. The tikkis are carried to a counter where the chaat is put together. You can eat on the first floor, but people usually huddle in small groups it’s a common sight to see people eat in small groups at the entrance, adding to the melee on the street choking with residents, shops, rickshaws, bullock carts, cows, pilgrims (there are Jain and Hindu temples) and vendors who sell things ranging from jewellery to vegetables.

Our group proceeds to S Surya Sandwich Centre where the speciality is the murukku sandwich — an assemblage of sharp green chutney, grated cheese, tomato slices and slivers of cucumber stacked between two tiny murukkus . It is an explosion of textures and tastes and a must-try for first-timers. If a sev sandwich is bewildering, this will boggle you twice over. It’s also a lesson in coordination — it’s difficult to take a bite of the regular-sized murukkus without some element or the other spilling or hanging out. I’ve seen this snack only in Purasaiwalkam and Kelly’s, which are home to many Marwaris and Gujaratis.

Next on our list is Mehta Bros Mithaiwala’s vada pav counter. As we wend our way there, I pass a roadside stall selling what I can only describe as small yellow gourds. Exotic Rajasthani vegetable? The crotchety old woman in charge scowls and asks me to get lost when I ask her what. The vada pav, which is stuffed into my hands the moment I reach the store, takes my mind off her unpleasant behaviour. The vada is excellent and I happily abandon the pav, wondering whoever came up with the idea of hiding a gloriously spicy and hot creation in bland bread.

At Novelty Tea House, which is crammed to the rafters with snacks and ready mixes, the group orders pav bhaji and pudina dosa. I don’t fancy either. This shop claims the credit for bringing pav bhaji to Chennai in 1978. Not too hungry after the first three stops, we prepare to leave but the owner surprises by serving us a mango and an orange. A closer look and we find ice-cream inside the fruits. The proud owner says that he has made ice cream with the fruit pulp and stuffed it back into the skin. He insists that we sample the paan ice cream.

The next stop is for a South Indian snack at a place which quaintly declares “Google Site: Seenabhaitiffincentre”. Rather like a performer pulling trick after trick from his bag, the culinary artist there ladles batter out of a big container onto a table-sized, glistening black tawa. He pours it out into a row of uttapams, makes three columns, and separates them with his spatula. Unusually for uttapams, they are square, not round. Next, he takes a handful of minced onion and coriander heaped in a plate on the side, and sprinkles it across the batter. Then it’s the turn of molaga podi , a powdered spice mixture of chillies and dals, to grace the snack. Ladles of ghee are poured around the uttapams, crisping them but also quelling the heat of the spices. I chicken out from serving myself the chutneys served in buckets. I eat only the crunchy bits that make up the edges of this spongy ‘tiffin item’, but they are enough to make up for the lull in taste I’ve been experiencing for the last hour or so.

I skip the paan from the store across the road. We make our way back to Kakada, and now it’s time for the badam milk. Three of us share a glass and it’s as delicious as it was four years ago.

(BLink was invited to the The Chennai Cuisine Trail by Sterling Holidays, which conducted the walk in association with Blaffer. ₹999 for members of Sterling Holidays and ₹1,299 for guests;. bookings.sterlingholidays.com/offer.aspx)

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