Chowpatti is the Ohri’s version of treating Hyderabad with fusioned chat dishes. While Hyderabad has their own customised flavour of chat, with the increase in North Indian crowd in Hyderabad and people opting to taste more authentic stuff, it is good to see such new places like Chowpatti offering newer versions of chat items from various parts of India.
Chowpatti – located in the Road#12 Banjara Hills outlet, has a colorful ambiance with sprinklers around to keep the crowd cool. I visited Chowpatti as a part of foodie meetup to provide feedback to the restaurant on their chat items.
We kickedoff the hot summer evening with some coolers – Thandai, Badam Milk and Rose Milk. Thandai and Badam Milks tasted ok, Rose milk was a bit dilute. In addition to these, Makhaniya Lassi – Thicked lassi and Mango Mastani (thick mango lassi) were offered. The taste of these were good.
First among the chat items to taste was the Gol Gappas – that were served along with boiled alu mixed with chat masala and Khatta & Meeta paani.
Followed by palak chat, the dahi chat has slices of fried palak sprinkled on the chat added a nice flavor. On similar lines, we were served Dahi Bhalla which again turned out to be more sweeter than it should have been. Dahi puri was pleasant to taste.
Mexican masala Pav with paneer makhni fondue tasted good – it had tasted chunks of bread served along with panner burji curry. Paneer curry was hot and mild on the spices; it went well with the hot toasted pavs and was delightful.
Spicy papdi chat tasted more like a sweet dish due to the overwhelming taste of the Imli(tamarind) sauce. It was followed by Dosa Taco with Thai sauce. Dosa taco was basically small sized dosas folded just like a taco and stuffed with small chunks of alo along with chat masala and sweet sauce. Although the dish had a mention of Thai sauce, I could not feel the flavor of Thai sauce in the dosa stuffing.
With different variants of dosa on the menu, we tasted spicy karam dosa. The crisp dosa was stuffed with overdose of gunpowder and chilli that did not go well with my palate. Chole Batura is another tummy filler that tasted good when the chole curry had an extra dash of lime and little more spice.
Ending the meal with a fresh hot jalebi was the best thing of the evening.
Summarizing the evening – while there is a scope for improvement in the chat items like dahi bhalla, palak chat and papdi chat, the taste of Mexican Pav, Dosas, Thandai, Lassi and Jalebi were good and decently priced at Rs100 approximately per dish.
My rating – Ambiance 3.5/5, Taste 3/5, VFM 4/5, Service 4/5
Mystical Foodie 