Delhiwale: Eating cold

As the cold season nears, here is a selection of few of the many tasty bits in Gurugram’s old town, ordinary and extraordinary, whose offerings taste more intense in winter

As the cold season nears, here is a selection of few of the many tasty bits in Gurugram’s old town, ordinary and extraordinary, whose offerings taste more intense in winter.

Doda barfi is easy to find in the old town, especially in the mithai shops of Sadar Bazar and Jacobpura. Made from sprouted wheat cooked in desi ghee, the sweet is cut into thick brown pieces. (HT Photo)

Doda barfi is easy to find in the old town, especially in the mithai shops of Sadar Bazar and Jacobpura. Made from sprouted wheat cooked in desi ghee, the sweet is cut into thick brown pieces. In a small foil bowl, the pieces glisten beneath slivers of almond and cashew, with grains visible on the cut sides.

Slightly sticky, Doda is less sweet than many mithais. It is also known as a favourite of wrestlers, who ate it for energy. Om Sweets, Sham Sweets and Harish Bakery are among the shops that sell it. Best to buy a slice or two to take away and eat in the streets of Sadar Bazar, where the chaos and the jostling of fellow bazar-goers add to the pleasure.

Gajak (see right photo) appears across Gurugram and the rest of the Delhi region in winter, but at Sonu Namkeen Bhandar in Sadar Bazar one can watch the cooks at work. They come from Madhya Pradesh’s Morena janpad, a place whose name often comes up at gajak stalls across the capital region. Some shops in Sadar offer a variety of flavours, including til patti, gur khasta, mungphali patti, kaju gajak and choora wale laddu. To get the full pleasure of the dish, watch the cooks beat the gajak base with a wooden hammer (see left photo), as a dhobi beats laundry by a riverside ghat making rhythmic thak-thak sound. Most of these gajak shops are temporary and will start showing up in October. These photos are from an earlier season.

At New Colony Mor, French Omelette specialises in… guess! Among the 28 kinds of omelette on offer, French omelette certainly sounds fancy, but the Hariyali omelette too is worth a try. Its ingredients include not only green hara-bhara herbs, but also tofu. Then there is an omelette called Fat Free. One evening, the cook threw slabs of butter onto a frying pan. Actually, five pans. He was making five omelettes at once.

For chai, turn into Sadar Bazar’s Apna Bazar complex. The stall here is one of the longest-surviving establishments in the market building. Manbir’s stall stands on the building’s first floor and looks out over the market. His chai is infused with adrak, and his small talk is like extra flavour. One of the best parts is drinking the chai while glancing towards the market corridor and the people passing through it, then up through the open ceiling at the mouthful of sky. Sometimes clouds drift across it. Sometimes birds do.