My Nagpur trip...long food trail

It is not unusual for an airline staff n its family to go hanky-panky on their anytrip as their every journey by flight is immensely unpredictable.Staff tickets are subject to load which makes sense in the words that if flight has seats to occupy you guys then you can dream of your destination only once you are aboard!! something like this happened when we all planned our Nagpur trip.i and vivek are habitual to the unpredicatbility of our each journey by plane but this time my mom-in law n kids were also accompanying us.but Gods Grace airline had enough seats to occupy its staff n his family members.andso started our nagpur journey.

For the first time I was going to nagpur.it was a distant relative's wedding.These days i travel anywhere mainly for food,to taste their local delicacies,city's signature dish,city's restaurants etc.Ours was a short trip of two days.We didnt take any food in flight as it was to be bought n paid and as we all know it was not of good quality.i mean who will pay 200/300/- bucks for a single sandwich which cant even fill your stoamch half.!!

Nagpur has wide roads,dry climate,not-so-tall buildings n pretty high traffic n pollution.you can almost feel this city's development right from birth to its adolscence while walking on the roads.Wedding reception on saturday evening in rani kothi...one of the most famous ,upscale ,oppulent hall in nagpur.There were few stalls of chaat,barbeque,pizza n dinner.in all of them,i liked pizza n felt it a bit edible.it was thin crust n a person was serving hot directly from oven to plates...(which was also taking time).i tasted chaat.they had pani puri,dahi vada,kachori chaat.all the chaat items were mediocre.I decided to skip my main course n feed myself only with starters n deserts.(which proved to be a wise decision later !)i tasted starters like spring roll n paneer tikka.spring rolls were very oily but less spicy n had perfectly chinese flavour.Paneer tikkas were good  and had perefctly smoky flavour of barbeque.the dinner had paneer ,mixed vegetable,paratha n dal-rice.The deserts were  chumchum and rasmalai.All two deserts were extremely yummy.

then came the next day's meeting.i went there with somehow lost heart !!as i was already disappointed with previous day's menu.but to my surprise,sunday moring menu was good enough.there were no starters.but the luch was served on time and the selection of menus was highly commendable.they had phulka(flat wheat bread) which they were making partly on tava n then once phulka is half roasted,it used to go on flames which was installed beside tava.and this way everybody was being served with hot n soft phulkas.

hot phulkas...reday to serve!

Thereafter they had sambharwadi.it is a fritter made with all types of flours stuffed with dry masalas.There was also masala vaangi(spicy brinjal vegitable made in vidarbha style) with lots of oil n masala.brinjals were almost floating in oil n thick gravy.it was worth tasting.then there was delicious,ghee laden puran poli(sweet bread made with jaggery,bengal gram n wheat flour).

masala vaangi(spicy brinjals)...vidarbha style

delicious mouth watering puran poli

To soothe yourself from this hot n spicy menu,there was chaas or taak or butter milk.I couldnt taste two famous signature dishes of nagpur.i.e. savaji chicken and vada bhaat.first dish was deliberately avoided by me as i wont be able to digest such gastronomically spicy dish n second dish has been kept reserved for my next trip to nagpur..!

All about "Malavani Jatra" (Malavani Food festival)

The essence of maharashtrian culture greatly goes with the essence of malavani culture.rather at some point of time people outside maharashtra widely get confused between Malavani n Maharashtrian culture n food.Though,Malavan is a predominant geographical part of Maharashtra ,its food also has great signifiance all over the places.This Malavani jatra is cast by authentic Malavani mahila Bachat Gat,Vikas gat etc.This fair is generally 10-11 days and keeps rotating its places.

I happened to attend this today at Mahavir Nagar,kandivali west ...in one of the suburbs of mumbai.there were many spectacular ,notable things about this fair.First is the grand historical entrance.the entrance had been built in the form of fort n later welcomed by a statue of shivaji maharaj riding his horse.

then ,there were many enumerable food stalls from street food to authentic Konkani food.Since i was travelling with my kids,I first preferred to taste Ice Ball (Barfacha gola) in kala Khatta flavour.

It was something i was long waiting for.Then I moved on. We took some Manchurian with schezwan sauce on it.Obviously,my little boys aould not have it as sause was too spicy for them.I tasted it.and could rate preety nice by roadside food ratings and mediocre by authentic Chinese food ratings.I moved a stall further and quite surprised to see Ukadiche modak.(Now its really hard to demystify this konkani sweet dish into hardcore English dish).but it was awesome...perfectly cooked,perfectly sweet.each modak was costing 15/-..but i should say it is worth it.

To-die-for desert "ukadiche modak"

various food stalls @jatra

Then the most famout n to-die-for stall was waiting for us.Suka mutton(dry mutton),Mutton rassa(gravy mutton),chicken rassa(gravy chicken) and bhakri(jowar flour bread)was laid on the table.All the dishes were temting n delicious and ofcourse spicy for a Brahmin girl like me...who is not used to so much of hot and spicy food in general.The flavours in all the above dishes have dominant flavours of dry coconut (suka khobra),onion and secret ingredient malavani masala!!...Some stalls had laid tables n chairs for their people who want to relax and enjoy their every bite of food.i liked this concept because then people can sit,chat n have thier at food at peace.Next ,the stalls were for sea food lovers..(not sooo much for me ).even though,i tasted surmai fry,bangda n pomfret fry.Needless to say,all the fishes were evenly fried ,their masala  also had soaked into the fish ..the fish were fresh n juicy n every bite was giving justice to our pocket for what we spent for...!Since it was Sunday and the second last day of Fair,people were rushing in groups to eat,play,stroll n enjoy.they also had kept wood toys made in sawantwadi,then malavani masalas,kuleeth peeth,thalipith bhajni,amboli peeth,chicken dry masala powder,mutton dry masala powder n god only knows how many.

All I should say is one should attend this fair atleast once in his life for food entirely.