The mythical Samosas of Chhattisgarh

Samosas!

I have never really quite liked Samosas. I remember as a kid the only samosas I ate were the ones that were made at home by amma. This was ages ago when I was growing up in the villages of Northern Bihar and the Eastern and Central Uttar Pradesh. We never ate out because, of course, there were no restaurants. It was only much later when we started visiting relatives in Lucknow that I was exposed to samosa as street food to be consumed in its spicy avatar, and really didn’t taste anything like the ones I ate at home. Coming to the point, the fact is that I never liked the samosas sold on the streets as they never matched up to the samosas that I grew up eating at home.

So it was rather odd that I was leading a brigade of travellers in Raipur on an early winter morning, trying to locate a sweets shop which possibly made the best samosas in town. I also suspect that most of were actually not samosa fans, we were simply curious travellers to a new city and were keen on trying out something which we were told was the best in the whole of Chhattisgarh - the humble, triangular Samosa!

Enjoying the morning sun

Getting the wheel working while Madam waits...

I think the first samosa conversation happened at the Sirpur Music and Dance Festival when a couple who had been doing a road-trip across the state mentioned this to us. I would like to believe that we were all very hungry at that point of time and the memory of our saliva filled mouths convinced us the next morning that the best thing that can happen to us in the day was eating samosas.

Elaborate meeting plans were made in the night before using high technology available - whatsapp, and promises were made (some were broken later) of meeting at the hotel reception for a short walk at the break of dawn. Google search didn’t help in identifying the best samosa place in town so I asked the hotel staff and almost everyone unanimously agreed that the best morning samosa was to be found at Khodiyar Sweets.

Gaurav and Ruchkia in deep conversation

When everyone found a model :)

From the discussion about the place it seems pretty close by and so we carried on! The morning was beautiful and I was very easily distracted by the gorgeous images that only morning light allows you to make and was soon engulfed by a desire to indulge in street photography! Alas, that didn’t happen and after about twenty minutes of walking we were right outside Khodiyar Sweets. We were finally at the best samosa place and soon our mouths were going to be filled with the freshly fried (mind you, deep) delicacy…this was getting just too exciting for us! We had been waiting for it for so long that we already knew that the climax would be nothing but phenomenal.

Finally at the Khodiyar Sweets!

My subject for a chat :)

It actually came as little bit of a surprise when the shopkeeper said that there samosa was not yet ready and we could eat jalebi and bhajiya instead. I love jalebi any day, but today was meant to be my samosa day.  While I lamented about the unfairness of food Gods (I am not sure who that is), the smell of sizzling hot jalebis was filling up the space and I soon forgot all my misgivings about the place and jumped right into it. Food soon turned into conversations and I even managed to collect a story for my Tell Me Your Dream project. 

Epilogue:

We did get to eat samosa later, but not in Raipur. Sirpur is a tiny town located about 85 kilometres from Raipur and we spent about three days there. Since we were all so in love with the mythical samosas already, we ate it at all possible times. I must confess that didn’t actually find them too different from the other samosas in life, but the story around it made it rather amazing.

Amrita with Samosas. Finally! :)

Do give it a try if you are in the state and tell me if you found them great as well :)