A tour of Delhi's freshest and most authentic street foods with expert and blogger Pamela TimmsDelhi is in the middle of one of its hottest months on record. When I email street food blogger Pamela Timms to set up a meeting, she quips: "I hope your expenses budget includes salt tablets."We meet in the sprawling mass of Old Delhi ? its hidden mosques, giant gates and crumbling mansions pushed against utilitarian modern buildings. Timms quickly scans a handful of eating places a local has suggested and immediately knocks one off the list. "That place is a grease factory."I'm in good hands.A journalist by trade and Scottish by birth, Timms has lived in Delhi for four years and chronicles Delhi's street food scene on her blog Eat and Dust, which was named one of India's top five food sites by Good Housekeeping. The accolade helped her land a book deal and requests to write food columns for Indian newspapers."They're fascinated that an expat ? and a lady ? is tramping around Old Delhi looking for food," she says, making reference to the unofficial boys' club of street food, "but they [the men] are more weirded-out than I am."We meet at Chawri Bazaar, where a modern metro entrance pushes out of the ground into the chaos above, and she immediately steers me to Ashok Chat Corner (3488, Hauz Qazi Chowk) 10 steps away."All you have to do is stagger out of the metro and you're here," she says, ordering papri chaat, a tiny bowl with crisp pastry discs (the papri), potato and fried chickpeas under a mix of sauces that include a yogurt-y curd, tamarind and spicy coriander. It's soothing and calm, a perfect counterpoint to the hot, busy day.From here, we look for one of her favourites, Jain Coffee House, a spot on a square with an alley-like entrance that's so easy to walk past that we do two U-turns on Chawri Bazaar before we find it. (From Chawri Bazaar metro walk along Chawri Bazaar until almost at the left turn into Nai Sarak. On your left is a small gully, Raghu Ganj: walk in and turn left.)Timms points to a grain merchant in the corner and asks, "Want a mango shake?"Silly question. The "coffee house" is a side project for the grain merchants and along with shakes and chai, they make tiny sandwiches with seasonal fruit (one of her favourites is made with pomegranate seeds), fresh cheese and what Timms calls "a lashing of marmalade"."They're not traditional, but they've been here for about 50 years," she says, grinning at the slight contradiction while a white-haired man sifts wheat next to her.There's no reason to stop for dessert at this point, but we happen to be walking past Old Famous Jalebi Wala (at the corner of Dariba Kalan and Chandni Chowk), where all they make are samosas and jalebi ? sweet rounds of fried batter, often with an orange tint. Old Famous is one of Timms's favourites and clearly not an opportunity to miss."These are the ultimate sugar hit," she says biting into a jalebi after we've had a small plateful weighed out for us. They are deeply sweet, but they're not sickly ? which is perhaps one of the main reasons Old Famous has been around since 1884."Only the owner is allowed to make the jalebi mix," says the man at the cash register, and as we turn to pay, he smiles with a bit of a star-struck look, pivots his laptop and clicks a bookmarked page, bringing up Timms' website. This rock star moment makes her blush momentarily.Dessert inside us, we climb on a rickshaw and wend through the crush toward Hotel Adarsh Niwas (483 Haider Quli Corner at Chandni Chowk). It's technically a sit-down joint, where you buy a brass token at the till and exchange it for their signature thali, all under the watchful eye of owner Satnarayan Sharma."It's cool and clean and all the breads are very good. Simple, tasty and fresh in a good atmosphere," she says, as if summarising an upcoming blog entry. Or street food itself.? The White Klove hotel (1563 Laxmi Naraya Street,+91 11 4100 0358, thewhiteklove.com; doubles �30) is near the market and has smart contemporary roomsDelhiFood and drinkStreet foodIndiaCity breaksFood & drinkguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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