The guy who sits at the desk opposite mine is Indian and invited me on a lunchtime trip to a sweet shop on Brick Lane (Brick Lane is London’s infamous stretch of Indian restaurants on the east side - reprezent).
I’m not big on sweets, but I do enjoy the odd gulab jamun every once in a while. And I like the idea of going to Brick Lane with an actual Indian person, someone who might be able to sort the few gems from what a street full of disappointingly average Indian restaurants.
We hit up Alauddin Sweetmeat (72 Brick Lane E1 6RL) where my friend picked up a tub of gulabs for his wife. We were both disappointed that the shop was out of what we came for: Rasgulla, a dessert made of unripened cheese, formed into balls, then boiled in a light sugar syrup.
So we hit up two more shops in search of the cheese: Ambala Sweet Centre (55 Brick Lane E1 6PU) and its next-door neighbor (wish I could remember the name). No Rasgulla, but we did find some savory fried-up goodies: samosas, onion-potato bhajis, and kachori. The latter two were new foods to me.
I loved the kachori - a dhal and pea-based mush enclosed in a dry hard shell. Delicious. Better than a samosa, if you can believe that. The bhajis were very much like pakoras, flavored with a spice I couldn’t identify but found quite pleasing.
All that was missing was tamarind chutney. C’est la vie.
We found a couple of sweets at Amballa, one of which was entirely too sweet for me to eat more than a bite of. The other was a cheese-like blob covered in coconut. Very good.
I will end by stating the obvious: The indians are really good at frying things.
The end.
Green pea kachori recipe, with pictures and all!
How to make a damn fine onion bhaji
Rasgula recipe
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