Blogging Marathon #75th Edition Celebration – Day 3

Though we had gone to bed very late at the previous night, we woke up early to get ready for the food walk through the streets of Old Delhi.Way before the meet, Vaishali had asked us to be prepared to walk long distances.One of the advise was to practice walking everyday .The other was to come ready with the proper footwear so that we could enjoy the walk.

Even with very little sleep,I did not feel all that tired.With a cup of coffee I ventured into the dining area. The sight totally stole away my heart. Isn’t it nice to have a table ready and waiting to be seated, especially if we didn’t have to set it!!

Once all of us were ready, we took a cab to the metro station and from there went to Chawari Bazaar.Lil dude was so excited since this was his first trip on the metro!

I had my doubts if Sid would be able to walk with us and if he might get bored and cranky. He was sportive enough to walk all the way through and happily tasted the tit bits of food / chaat that was offered to him through out the walk.

The food walk begins!

We kick started the walk from the parathawala. Even at that early hour, there were quite a few people having their breakfast. After clicking the pics, we got a couple of aloo parathas to taste. They tasted delicious when we had it with the pickles and chutney.

As we walked down the lane, we spotted this guy who was making fried stuffed bread pakoras. Immediately, the mobiles and cameras were busy clicking! We asked him about the side and he gave us this aloo gravy which was dutifully placed around the first batch of bread pakoras and clicked.We also tasted his dish.

Then we went in search of another famous shop that Vaishali wanted us to taste dishes from.At Shyam Sweets Stall, we tasted Matar Kachori, authentic version of Bedmi Poori Aloo Subzi, Nagori Halwa and the famous moong dal halwa.

Just outside this shop was a guy selling Daulat ki chaat. Having had so many food related discussions in the group all of us were eager to try it out. Some of them even recorded how it was assembled and served. Daulat ki chaat is peaked cream that is served with khoya and misri. I liked it but some in the group were not quite impressed i guess!

All through the walk we kept clicking anything and everything related to food!

On the way we caught sight of some vegetable vendors. There were some veggies that are not available in our home town.So once again the clicking continued!

The most awaited item on the menu was the Kulfi from a shop called Kuremal MohanLal Kulfiwale. But to our utter disappointment the shop was closed! Not sure if it was Vaishali or Preeti who called called up the owner .But the result was that within a few minutes he arrived and opened the shop.

We were like kids in a candy store. That day ,we tasted more than a dozen varieties of milk and water based kulfis! We even set about counting the flavors we had tasted and it came to a total of 14!!

Each flavor excelled the other. My favorite was the pan , anar [pomegranate], Chandan [sandal] flavored kulfi.The stuffed kulfis were totally out of the world!

Gayathri and me got busy clicking with Vaishali holding the cup of kulfi before it was passed on to the gang to be tasted.

Just as we walked out of the kulfi shop, Vaishali called out to come and click some pics. We spotted the Cycle Wale Chhole Kulcha. Vaishlai’s cousin whom we met on the way to Agra had mentioned about this and immediately our interests were piqued.

Vaishali had even arranged the dish so that it was ready for us to shoot. And after the food pic, we started interviewing the cycle wala and recorded the recipe from him!

Here are some of the non food pics of the area we walked through.

Then we visited the Sis Gang Gurudwara and took part in the prayers and had the prasad too. It was the very first time I prayed inside the gurudwara.And such an awesome experience it was. Pic courtesy – Srivalli.

Just across the gurudwara, was a lane, again filled with all the famous Delhi food! Aloo Chaat, Ram ladoo, Kanji Bada. Yum!!!

Then there was this place where we tasted Kalmi vada chaat. The taste was so good that it actually left me craving for more. The colors were so inviting and the taste was awesome!

Then we clicked some fruit and vegetable vendors who would have surely wondered what we were doing clicking pictures of mundane things! We also tasted the cheela sandwich.

The famous Parathen wala gali is not to be missed. So we went there too.But by the time we reached there we felt stuffed with all the little bites and pieces we had tasted and so no one was in a mood to eat anything.

We just clicked some pics at the shops at the entrance and decided to call it a day. Vaishali still had plans to take us to other places but most of us were dead tired by then.

We stopped a little in between to get some gifts for the people back home.We boared the metro and returned to the villa.

Here is the gang in Red, which was the color code for Day #3. The topmost left is just outside the villa, the right ,outside the metro station,bottom left has a story that I will share with you in just a minute. And the bottom right is the evening session where we discussed about WordPress as many of us are new to it .All the experts in our group shared the ways in which we can make the blog better and popular.

Ok, now to the story from the above click. the moment I reached the villa, I realised I was hungry. Sid too said he wanted something nice to eat. So we heated up the Jeera Pulao and Dal and started serving the kids and soon each one of us started taking a bite. Then it went on to snacking the tit bits all of us got for the trip.

Though we had tasted so many varities of food that day, the stomach still needed a proper meal i guess!!

The day ended with Gayathri making preps for the next days baking and cake decoration workshop. Sid was starting to get cranky and I did not feel like leaving him downstairs [the baking was done on the second floor], so called it a day and dozed off.

The next day I learnt that most of them were awake till 3am and finished the preps. I was feeling so bad that I had conked off!

This is how Day 3 was in our blogging marathon #75th edition meet in Delhi. Tomorrow I will share our experience about the workshop and the fun we had on the last day of the trip…