Food hills

Most people know the magnificent mountains because of the awesome natural splendour. But there's another side to the awesomeness - Food.

From the west to the east, the food varies as greatly as the landscape. Every local place has a speciality and that makes you want to visit the place more. Over the years I have noticed, other than the natural splendour, food is the only other factor that marks your memory permanently related to the place. So I am going to discuss some of the most interesting places and the local cuisine associated with them.

The west - Himachal, Katra, Vashno Devi, Haridwar and the likes:

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of them is " Rajma Chawal". This is nothing but black kidney beans cooked in local spices served with rice. When you taste it, the spice cocktail literally plays around in your mouth creating a fireworks of spices. It's on a bit spicy side. The beans are cooked as such that they literally melt like butter in your mouth. It goes really goes well with yogurt or dahi as its called locally.

Another interesting and awesome delicacy I had was in the foothills of Himachal while going from Pathankot to Dalhousie.  Tandoori Paranthe or stuffed bread baked inside a clay oven served with local chutneys and pickles. Once you Start digging into them, you literally get obscured from what is happening in the external world around you. Most of the Dhaabas on the route serve this delicacy. You will find various kinds of stuffed paranthas - radish, cauliflower, potato etc.

Haridwar is one of the most sacred places to visit for the Hindus. Not surprisingly, all the food you will find will be vegetarian. But that doesn't mean that it's not interesting. There are a few local restaurant s like the chotiwala which serves such astounding vegetarian food, you will never forget. You go for the special thalis, which includes everything from starters to desserts. The curries served are so unique that it's impossible to find similar taste anywhere else.

If you want to go low key, try the local restaurants on the bylanes. One of them is named "dada boudir hotel" which literally means your brother's and his wife's hotel!

The shop looks shabby at the first glance, but you go inside and sit on an obnoxious chair. Then the fun starts. The first course is plain white rice served with pure and fresh Desi Ghee (clarified butter). That is accompanied with fresh cut veggies fried in oil. You have to actually have that combination to understand that such simple vegetarian food can taste so good! Then comes "sukto",  a special curry unique to Bengal made with vegetables such as drumsticks, plantains etc. The spices used are from another dimension and you can actually have your rice just with that alone if you get a hang of it, but the best part is that it's very mild. After that the "culinary" celebration continues...

Let me also cover the desserts. One disclaimer I would like to give is that I visited the place a while ago, and I am not sure if the same quality is still maintained ( let's hope so for all our "tastebud's" sake :)). There's a bylane in Haridwar famous for its "Rabri" shops. This is made with pure full fat milk ( which is abundant there). You won't get such quality and taste in any other part of the world, so don't forget to visit some of the shops and top off your dinner. You can ask your local hotel concierge/receptionist to recommend you one.

The Eastern Himalayas - Darjeeling, Gangtok and the like.

The cuisine for this part that I am going to discuss is completely different. Let's talk about some Chinese food now. These parts are most famous for Tibetan dumplings or "momos" as they are deliciously called locally.

I remember sitting in a local restaurant in mirik having momos and a musician playing guitar and singing Bryan Adams!
Those were chicken momos served with chicken broth along with a scrumptious hot sauce. The taste lies with the way they cook. Unfortunately the cook refused to disclose the ingredients. There a variety of momos you will get including pork and vegetarian.

Chowmein or noodles is another delicacy. There are shops near the chhangu lake serving up the local version there. These are of the spicy variety and generally near the lake you get only vegetarian ones, but you can get the ones with meat in a lot of other shops. But the ones we had were special. We literally gorged down 2 plates per person. It was feeling heavenly sitting on a chair outside in the cold and munching on hot chowmein.

There are really good local restaurants in Kaluk & Rinchenpong that serve up the "meat" variety of chowmein and they are also awesome.

Well a blog really doesn't justify the variety of food you get there. You have to go out there and experience yourself. Tell us about any unique culinary experience you had while visiting the "food hills". Till then have a good "stomach rumbling" day!