Street food of Amritsar - the food capital of Punjab!

Punjabi food has been the flavour of India for a while, so much so that when someone talks about North Indian food, they actually very often refer to Punjabi food. Amritsar as the food capital of Punjab is the unarguably the apex of all this fantastic food.

I was fortunate to be a part of an exclusive food trail led by none other than the most famous chef from the city, Vikas Khanna, who is now runs a Michelin star restaurant in New York!

Amritsar by Vikas Khanna

Established in the year 1574 by the Sikh Guru Ram Das, the city has evolved into the cultural centre of the state, with food as the central to it all. Whether it's breakfast, lunch, evening snacks or dinner, the food here casts its magic over it all. The city has lots to offer for both vegetarians as well as non-vegetarians, apart from the fantastic Indian sweets.

Food in Amritsar can broadly be divided into four categories:

Langar Food: The food served here is made by the volunteers who give seva to the temples. The food is extremely simple and often consists to rotis and daal, and served free of cost to all visitors. The kitchen is called Langar and the largest such langar is at the Golden Temple. While we were there, everyday the temple made food for 50,000 people visiting the temple and 70,000 more meals for the people in Jammu and Kashmir.

Galli Food: Anyone who has grown up in the old part of the city would know that the food in the tiny shops in the lanes is often the best and also the most affordable. Often the food made here is made in the most traditional way and also backed by generations of experience and expertise.

Dhaba Food: Dhabas are the most popular small restaurants, often on the highways which provide food to travellers. Of course, they also make some of the best food in the cities as well.  The dhabas serve food all through the day, including parathas for breakfast and tandoori chicken for dinner.

Restaurant Food: Restaurants here often serve lunches and dinners. The seating spaces often also have air conditioning, and are popular with both family and group of friends. Curiously we also saw people walking in with whisky bottles as its not served there :)

The Food Trail

Just for ease of reading and maybe following on your next visit to the city, I have decided to break the food walk into three different time-zones - morning, afternoon and evening. We did all the three zones in one day, though I would recommend that you take things lightly and pick the one that interests you the most and do full justice to it :)

I was in the city for its first ever Food Trail which was led by none other than Vikas Khanna, the local wonder boy who is now a world renowned Chef based in New York. He led us through the lanes of old town to explore the hidden food jewels of the city. He not only took us to places, but also led us through the history of food and also the way one should eat some of these things.

Read more to explore yourself :)

Morning Food Trail:

This leg of the walk starts at around 4 am and can go on till 11 am. I must warn you that this is also the most demanding part of the food trail, not just on the stomach but also on your legs :)

The Kitchen at the Langar

The Food trail starts before dawn at the Golden Temple where you can offer prayers first and then head to the langar for your first meal of the day. Langars work 24 hours a day so anytime is a good time to eat there. If you want to do more than eat, you can also volunteer for cooking or cleaning. No permission is required if you want to join in for cleaning. The kitchens here are the most amazing places, where most production is mechanised which also ensures clean and hygienic food. However, to me the best part of eating at Golden Temple is eating the Khada Prasad which is basically a with whole wheat granules' halwa prepared with desi ghee. All Gurudwaras serve Khada Prasad but the one here is heavenly! I took multiple helpings and was still not satisfied :)

Our pooris in the making :)

As the sun comes up and you digest the food by walking around in the temple as well as in the lanes outside, its time to gorge on the famous Amritsari breakfast at Kanha Sweets - Pooris and Chole, with the potato Launji, lassi and sooji halwa. I had no clue there would be lots more food coming up next, so ended up eating just too much breakfast :) My favourite things to eat here were Launji and Lassi. In fact before coming here I had no clue there was anything like Launji so was rather surprised with the first bite into what I thought was aalo-subzi. The place is rather simple, but extremely full of people early in the morning.

Here is the address:

Kanha Sweets

Lawrence Road, 

Shop No.1 | Opposite Bijli Pehalwan Mandir, 

Dayanand Nagar, Amritsar 143001

Ah! Gulabjamuns!

The sun was already up, but there was no relenting on food and we walked close by to Sharma Sweets Shop (property of Hukam Chand) for flat Gulabjamuns, something which is not just formally different from the spherical gulabjamuns, but also has a soft and slightly uncooked (intentionally) inner core. I loved these as well, and ate two rounds here. Vikas also very sweetly presented a copy of the book to the shop owner who had never had an experience like this before so was rather amused by it all :)

Here is the address:

Sharma Sweets Shop

Arya Samaj School Building Shop

New Road, Opposite DAV College

Lawrance Road, Amritsar

And Jalebis...this was too much sweet for one morning!

If you thought, this was enough sweets for the day then you better change your concepts of food for a day! A little drive and short walk away lies the Jalebiwala Chowk famed for its jalebis. Located in the bustling centre of the city, the shop has lovely lanes all around and is a paradise for street photographers.

Here is the address:

Gurdas Ram Jalebian Wale

Jalebiwala Chok

Karta Ahluwalia

Amritsar

Afternoon food Trail:

This leg of the walk starts at around noon and can go on till 3 pm.

Chai time!

After all this breakfast, sweets and walk in the sun, the next thing you need as a true Indian is a hot cup of chai :) Do not look elsewhere but on the streets where you can find a chaiwala almost at every corner (like any other Indian city). The tea is great and also rejuvenating, you can even request for sugarless tea though it might take a while to make that for you.

At this point we took a break from food and concentrated on walking more so that some of the food could be digested and we could be ready again for a multi course lunch soon! We had the formal lunch at the restaurant at Hotel Ritz, but before that we tried out the Kulchas from a small street shop close by.

Here is the address:

Hotel Ritz

45, The Mall

Amritsar

Our chef :)

Vikas ensured we all learnt how to eau Kulchas the right way :)

We were all dead tired due to the walk in the intense sun and were least interested in Kulchas but headed out again only on Vikas's insistence. But one bite and I knew that this would be best thing that I would eat in the entire day. The Kulchas were perfectly crispy from outside and soft from inside and were unlike any other kulcha I had ever had in life so far!

I also learnt a technique on identifying a good kulcha - basically as you break the kulcha with your hand or teeth, it must make an easily audible crunchy sound, and it must have a soft and delicious core. If you meet these two criteria, your Kulcha is great :)

You can also buy half cooked Kulchas that you can bake at home. They won't come out as nicely as the ones made here, but they would be better than anything you can find in your city :)

Here is the address:

Famous Kulchawale

Maqbool Road

Amritsar

Evening food Trail:

Our tikkis in the making...

We took a break for a while from walking and restarted our food train early evening again. The first on our list was Brijwasi Chaat, the most famous chaat shop of Amritsar established in 1958. I am usually not a huge chaat fan, but sampled it anyway, and actually quite enjoyed the crispy tikki. Paani poori was already over so we missed out on that. The best time to visit the shop is around 6pm when the supplies are full and you can have everything possible!

Here is the address:

Brijwasi Chaat

Cooper Road

Near Ucha Pul

Amritsar

The bustling chai shop...

Trying chai compositions! :)

However, I was more keen on chai and some of us headed to Giani Tea Stall just across the street. I requested for adrak chai (ginger tea), but they offered special chai instead which was cardamom tea. I am not a huge fan of cardamom, but really need tea so gulped it down. Interestingly, the tiny place actually had quite a few foreigners as well.

Here is the address:

Giani Tea Stall 

Cooper Road

Near Ucha Pul

Amritsar

The legendary Amritsari macchi (fish)

And the best macchi shop in town :)

It was soon dinner time and the first on our list was Beera Chicken House, famous, of course, for chicken :) I do not eat chicken, but love fish so had some of the famous Amritsari fish - battered and fried fresh water fish. It was good, but I certainly wished for less salt! Next in line was Makhan Fish, which I was told is the most famous fish place in town. I was too full to eat anything else, so just looked on as my fellow travellers managed to gulp down some more food! The verdict seemed to be divided between chicken and fish and so I would recommend all non-vegetarians to try them both to decide. As for the veggies, there is always something with paneer which is quite good.

Here are the addresses (they are a few shops apart):

Beera Chicken Hose & Makhan Fish

Near Madan Hospital

Majitha Road

Amritsar

The truck at Sarhad...

If you are out of Amritsar, another interesting place for evening snack and dinner is called Sarhad. The restaurant is located very close to the Wagah border post and is a collaborative effort between Indian and Pakistani craftsmen. There is a very interesting Pakistani shop also where women can buy their favourite Pakistani dresses and other art souvenirs. Food is decent, but the ambiance is nice. 

Fruit cream...without bananas :)

And the kids were having fun as well :)

I had kept some spare space for dessert and was not at all disappointed when we headed out to have some Special Fruit Cream with dry fruits. This was the prefect end of the day, though I soon realised that the day was not yet over and there was more food coming my way :)

Interestingly all the shops sell fruit-cream without bananas, which was very strange to me.The reason was very practical - banana blackens with time and so is best avoided for such things!

Inside the beautiful Svaasa...

It was around 10.30 in the night when we entered the beautiful heritage Hotel Svaasa where I had coffee and finally ended the day! I was certainly in no mood to have anything else after so much food, but as soon as we entered the lovely hotel, I was completely up for long night chats with the hosts to learn more about the place and have my favorite coffee.

Here is the address:

Ranjit's Svaasa

47-A, The Mall

Amritsar

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To learn more about the food trail read the recently launched book 'Amritsar' by Vikas Khanna, it will give you a perspective to the city as well as its gastronomic traditions and culture.

Here are a few articles on the Food Trail:

A food safari in chef's Vikas Khanna's Amritsar

Kanha Puri

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I was in Amritsar on an invitation of Punjab Tourism and Microsoft devices - explore Punjab using Lumia devices. This is first in the series of posts. Most pictures I clicked were using the Lumia 1020, while the rest were from my Nikon 3200 with 18-200 Sigma lens.