Shady Chinese

Shady Chinese is a term that some of us use disparagingly to refer to Indian corruptions of Chinese food. Pretend Chinese and Chindian are also terms used to refer to the genre. Spices and oils which the self-respecting Chinese cook (from South, North, Central, wherever) would never use, find their way into our plates and palates.

In Bangalore, the gobi manchurian is highly popular and you find it in all the darsinis that are otherwise restricted to pure South Indian specialties of the idli-vada-dosa-sambar variety. In Delhi too, in most nooks and just about every cranny, there is a man (usually) selling Singaporean noodles and hawking Hakka noodles. I have devoured these oily delights by the kilo, and are excellent with your evening poison.





Little Dragon is a small red-coloured stall/vehicle in Defence Colony. A range of soups that take their taste positions between the two extremes of sweet corn chicken and hot and sour chicken, and a similar array of oily noodles and rice. It is very cheap for a Defence Colony gaddi and offers you the options of half-plates and half-soups. They have a regular lunch crowd that congregates around it by one from offices located around Defence Colony.



Do you know of any Shady Chinese delights? Feel free to share your experiences.

Caramel and choco-chip

Maybe it is the lighting at Angels in my Kitchen, but some of the stuff that I photograph there turns out really, really good. An addition has been made to an earlier post.

More pictures from Angels in my Kitchen

Edit: Caramel cookies on the foreground and chocolate-chip ones behind. All cookies are priced lower than Rs. 20 each, and so it is something anyone can walk in and consume without thinking about it too much. When hot, they are all spectacular.

Moets Sizzler

Conti food does not excite me a lot, and it was no surprise when Moets Sizzler in Defence Colony left me unsatisified. I had their Special Sizzler.


The fish-and-chips (above) were no more than adequate for me, but my friend Chow seemed to enjoy it immensely.

Non-Sagar sambar-vada in Defence Colony

One of the things I miss most from Bangalore are cheap opportunities to eat several vadas.

An old lady waits with her cafe on wheels, as soon as you turn into Defence Colony from near the Andrews Ganj flyover. She is comfortable speaking Tamil or Hindi, and even understood me when I spoke to her in Malayalam. Last time I ate there, random policemen were fleecing her, and from what I saw, it could not have been a one-off experience.

The sambar had too few vegetables and too much asafoteida, and on my return to office I was feeling like a bit of a gas cylinder. It was quite tasty, but maybe I was too hungry. It did not matter. Two parippu vadas and two uzhunnu vadas for twenty five rupees is as cheap as you get at any Bangalore darshini.

In Malayalam you call them parippu vada (darker ones on the left) and uzhunnu vada. But as far as I know, parippu (kind of dal/lentils) is ground with water to make uzhunnu.















Here she is.

Chilli Chicken

Apart from being a decent place to drink, 4S, in Defence Colony is also a good place for reasonably priced (think Delhi) Chinese and Thai food.

The Chilli chicken goes well with some Old Monk and coke.

The 4S style mixed fried rice is also quite good.

Muffins

Angels in my Kitchen, Defence Colony, New Delhi