It was one of those days when I was in town at the crack of dawn – well, almost – and had nothing much to do. So I parked my car at a Metro station and chugged off to old Delhi. I got down at Chandni Chowk, and wasn’t sure where I was going till I found myself meandering towards Maliwara. And suddenly an old image of a big bedmi stall popped up in my mind.
Many years ago, I had been escorted there by my old friend and food guru, Santosh. He wanted me to try out the bedmi that he recommended highly. It was, I recalled as I went down the lane, a big shop with crowds milling around for its famous bedmi.
I entered Paratheywali Galli from the Chandni Chowk mouth and turned right from the T-junction into Maliwara. But I couldn’t find any big bedmi shop anywhere. I asked a few shopkeepers on the lane. They knew what I was talking about. The big shop was there, they said, but it was big no more. A part of the shop had been sold off and it was now a small outlet from where the bedmis were sold. But, they assured me, the stuff was as good as ever.
Elsewhere in Chandni Chowk, small shops over the years have expanded. Many of the well-known bedmi and sweet corners were once tiny eateries, but having done brisk business over the years, the younger generations have extended their businesses and expanded their menus. Not so the bedmi-wallah and the 60-year-old shop I was in search of. But those who know their bedmis know this place – for its crisp bedmis are still among the best you can get.
You can very easily miss Rewari Mishtaan Bhandaar – better known as Rewariwaley – for there is no signboard announcing the bedmiwallah. There is just a piece of paper with the name written on it inside the shop. It is run by a Rastogi family (Address: 1218 Maliwara; Phone numbers: 23262798 and 9810069737). They have two items on the menu – gulab jamuns and bedmi-aloo. Both are for ₹40 for two.
So I asked for some of both, and carried them back with me in the Metro. They were people around me who were sniffing away appreciatively, but I kept a stern eye on my package and carried it back for an early lunch.
Of course, it goes without saying that a bedmi has to be eaten then and there, just when it starts bobbing up in a kadhai of hot oil, and is taken out with a slotted spoon. But I like to eat with friends, so I had it packed. And even though it was eaten much after it was fried, I enjoyed it immensely. It was small and crispy-yet-soft, and went well with the potato curry it came with.
Blending flavours
The aloo sabzi with bedmi is usually a mashed potato curry. Here, the curry consisted of chunks of potatoes topped with a whole green chilli. The curry was a little spicy, but once you added their methi chutney to it, the flavours blended deliciously. The chutney was not very sour, as methi chutney can be, nor very hot. And I thought it did wonders to the potato sabzi.
We ate that, and then rounded off the meal with some superb gulab jamuns – melt-in-the-mouth soft in light syrup, which gave it just the right amount of sweetness. This was one of those oblong, thin-skinned gulab jamuns that I love, and I thought they were among the best I had eaten in a long time.
The shopkeepers had it right – Riwariwalley may not be as imposing as it used to be, but their bedmis and gulab jamuns are still something to write home about. I thought of Guru Santosh when I popped the last piece of the gulab jamun into my mouth. He would have been happy.
