It was about 9:30 in the evening when all of a sudden me and my friends decided lets eat out. We were in the car and couldn’t decide where to go and then I spring up with this idea of going to paranthe wali gali in Chandani Chowk in Old Delhi. Me and both my friends are big big foodies and can eat any amount of food. And on top of everything else, all of us are typical north Indians with a special sweet tooth towards paranthe and lassi and aachar … mmm (mouth-watering starting already ..:0)
So we were off to Old Delhi, met atleast 4 ramlilas (there could be more smaller but there were 4 major ones), one circus, millions of people jostling about in the city, 3 unmanned police barricades (at Preet Vihar, ITO and Lal Quila), 12 green traffic lights, 2 red traffic lights (we jumped those) on the way. When we finally reached there we for our lives could not locate paranthe wali gali. Everyone kept telling us that it is between Gurudwara Seesganj Sahib and Nai Sarak but we must have circled that road atleast 5 times and we still could not find it. Oh yeah in all this hoopla we could easily locate a McDonalds, a Haldirams and a Sony showroom in the oldest part of Delhi. We are truly globalized … !
Anyways we asked lot of people and finally reached there to find out that the gali is not a gali … There are three shops in all and that is all there is to paranthe wali gali. Before I actually went there, I thought it would be a long road with eateries on both sides of the road with chairs and tables scattered along the road. Probably you wouldn’t be allowed to take your car in on that road and you could only walk. But as they reality is different from dreams, it was a small alley with only three parantha shops.
Coming to the real issue – the paranthes … They were GODlike. You could have aalo, paneer, gobhi, cheeni, matar, rabri, plain, zera. lachha, any parantha you want. The choices in paranthas were maddening. Sadly they did not have a pyaz parantha – my personal favorite. And before I forget, three of us ate 16 paranthes and 2 glass (if you can a 2 feet long cylindrical thing a glass) full of lassis. And all for mere 250 odd bucks.
And by the way they stop taking orders after 11 PM… If anyone is plannig to go there, reach there well in time.