Looks like the newest 2 Bros Pizza location (on 6th ave btw. 37+38th.) is in a lunch special price war with the neighboring Indian/deli/pizza place that also serves dollar slices. 6th Avenue Pizza is advertising two slices plus a soda for $2.50 and you’ll notice that 2 Bros hastily changed their sign to remain competitive. For those at home keeping score, Two-N-A-Can, the kittty-corner pizza spot formerly known as In-N-Out (on 6th Ave. and 39th) is still selling their lunch special for $2.75.

A lot of restaurants seem to choose the dead time around Christmas and New Year’s to make changes, so reports like this one are no surprise… Big Bowl Noodles (on 6th Ave. btw. 37+38th), a Readers’ Poll nominee for best sit down Chinese food, is now Main Noodle House.  But before Big Bowl Noodle fans get too upset… the menu, owners, and food are exactly the same- with a 25-30 cent price hike on the lunch specials (of course.)

Main Noodle House, 1011 6th Ave. (btw. 37+38th),  212-869-0888

It may not actually be on the street, but don’t be fooled- Taj Delhi Chat, in the newsttand that’s been converted into a Midtown Lunch’ers paradise, is the best Indian street food in Midtown.  I’ll admit, before Indus Express (on 48th btw. 5+6th) and Taj Delhi Chat opened, I didn’t really even know what chat (or chaat) was.  I was quickly schooled by more knowledgeable Midtown Lunch’ers, who graciously donated their food porn to the cause.  

For those who are still in the dark, chaat is actually just a generic term for a savory Indian snack, usually sold on the street, and consisting of cumin, amchur (mango powder), red chilies often mixed with some fried snack in combination with any of the following – potatoes, onions, tomatoes, yogurt, tamarind chutney, cilantro, cilantro chutney, and mint chutney. The “fried snacks” that get mixed in can be samosas or pakoras (both well known here in the states) or more commonly, papri (flat, round cracker looking things), bhel (puffed rice crispy looking things) or sev (the little crunchy noodle looking things.)

There is some tasty looking chaat at Indus Express, but reviews have been mixed.  For the best in Midtown (and possibly all of New York City), you’ll want to hit up Taj Delhi Chat.  When I went, I brought along my friend Chandrika to translate the menu for me (and conversely all of you).  What we got, plus a full translated menu, after the jump… 

As I watched this former newsstand on 6th Ave btw. 37+38th morph into a full fledged Flushing style food court, I thought there was nothing that could drag me away from the original Gujarati food served there.  It’s easily the best Indian food in Midtown (despite being vegetarian only), and although I like the Latin food in the back, the Khodiar Lunch services offerings were just too damn good to order anything else.  That is, until I tried Taj Delhi Chat.  Now, everytime I go- a choice will have to be made.  This particular visit, however, was a chat trip.  We ordered three different plates:

#1. Rupa’s Special Bhelpuri ($5). It’s number one on the menu, and has the owner’s name in it. How could we not right? The plate is mostly bhel (those little rice crispy things) mixed with onions, potatoes, tomatoes, cilantro and spices all topped with a special spiced water. Don’t be confused by the few pieces of papri (those cracker looking things) lining the outside.

#5. Papri Chat ($5). Those round crackers (papri) are the main ingredient in this one, and much of the same is mixed in with them (tomatoes, onions, cilantro, chickpeas, and potato.) But the thing that makes this taste most different from the #1 is the yogurt and tamarind sauce, which gave it a creamy and sweet/tangy flavor. This was my favorite one of the day. Spicy but refreshing, and the perfect lunch on a super hot day.

#4. Samosa Chat ($5). We rounded off the lunch with a samosa chat. Most people know what samosas are (those large crispy turnovers filled with potato), and samosa chat is two of those topped with the same thing mixed into the papri chat (tomatos, chickpeas, cilantro, yogurt and tamarind.) No potatoes, because they’re in the samosas.

With 31 items on the Taj Delhi Chat menu, it can be kind of intimidating (even for the most adventurous Midtown Lunchers.) So my friend Chandrika graciously agreed to translate the menu for us. Keep in mind, we only tried the dishes above, so the translations may not be entirely accurate. As with any ethnic cuisine, there are variations from region to region, so don’t get on her case if #22 doesn’t turn out to be exactly what is described below. She’s doing a huge service for us, and deserves only praise. With that being said, if you have tried any of these dishes at Taj Delhi Chat, and know exactly what is in them, please feel free to comment below…

Without further ado, I’m proud to present:

THE MIDTOWN LUNCH GUIDE TO NAVIGATING THE TAJ DELHI CHAT MENU

1. Rupa’s Special Bhelpuri – Puffed rice (bhel) with potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cilantro and spice. (Seen above.)
2. Aloo Chole Chat – Aloo is potato, Chole is garbanzo beans. Chat means it is probably mixed with the same things seen in the #5 above. Tomatoes, onions, yogurt and tamarind.
3. Vegetable Cutlets – We saw somebody else eating these vegetable filled patties. One of them was made with beets (and beet juice) giving it a reddish purple inside. Looked amazing! Not sure what they serve it over
4. Samosa chat – Crispy fried dough turnover filled with potatoes and peas. (Seen above)
5. Papri chat – Papri is the crispy fried dough in small flat round pieces (looks like crackers.) Comes mixed with potatoes, tomatoes, cilantro, chickpeas, yogurt, tamarind and a number of spices. (Seen Above)
6. Pani puri – Puri are these puffed up fried pastry looking things, that get stuffed with numberous ingredients and served in a special spiced water. It’s so popular it has it’s own article on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panipuri
7. Sev Puri – Sev are these little crunchy gram flour based deep fried small noodle looking things. I’m guessing this is the same spices as #1, but made with sev instead of bhel.
8. Dahi puri – Dahi means yogurt, so this is probably the same puri as above, filled with potatoes and other spices and covered in yogurt.
9. Garlic pani puri – Don’t know? Maybe the water they use on the pani puri is garlicky?
10. Mithi Pani puri – Pani puri made with sweet water (mithi)
11. Dahi Batata Puri – Batata is a kind of potato, and batata vada is a potato based doughnut type thing containing potatoes, lentils and spices all deep fried together. This puri gets topped with yogurt (dahi).
12. Dry fruit batata vada – Self explanatory? (see #11)
13. Green spicy batata vada – Self explanatory? (see #11)
14. Jera Batata Vada – Jera is cumin, (for the rest see #11)

Pakoda are vegetables covered in gram flour batter and then deep fried, known more commonly in the states as “pakora”

15. Trirangi paneer pakoda – Trirangi means three colors, and paneer is a soft cheese.
16. Cashew Paneer Pakoda – Cashews and cheese
17. Bread Sandwich Pakoda – Self Explanatory? (I think this might be pakoras served in between slices of white bread.)
18. Panch rangi pakoda – Five color pakoda (no idea what’s in it)
19. Bombay Bhaji Pau – Pau means bread, and bhaji refers to a vegetable/potato curry dish. It usually comes garnished with onions
20. Chatpati Fooska – No idea (although they probably meat chapati, the flat bread that gets served with the Gujarati food at the Khodiar stand right/)
21. Ragda Patties – Fried potato patties served with a yellow pea soup? Don’t know if you just get the patties or the soup with patties?
22. Sev Ragda – See #21. Maybe this is the soup with sev instead of the fried patty?
23. Patra – Vegetarian dish made from the leaf of the taro plant
24. Sev Khaman Chat – Khaman is a yellow square salty steamed cake made from chickpea flour, popular in Gujarati cuisine. Sev and chat you should know from above.
25. Baigan Bharta (puri) – Mashed eggplant puri
26. Methi pakoda – Pakoras made form fenugreek
27. Methi vada – Vada is a doughnut shaped fritter made from lentils and deep fried. These are flavored with fenugreek (see #26)
29. Dahi vada – Vada soaked in yogurt
30. Aloo tiki chat – Chat made with potato patties
31. Samosa – You should know by now

Since Taj Delhi Chat opened up, they have added Israeli Falafel and Indian food with meat to the growing list of options being offered out of this former newsstand. But looking at the list above, I think it’s going to be awhile before I get to try anything any of those new places.

Taj Delhi Chat, 1013 6th Ave. (btw. 37+38th), 212-840-4810

But the real big changes have been happening at Khodiar Express, the vegetarian food inside the former Newsstand on 6th Ave. btw. 37+38th.  See if you can follow this… the Gujarati Indian food, which used to be in the back left hand corner, has moved to the front, right next to Taj Delhi Chat  which opened along the right hand wall two months ago.  The latin food, which moved from the now closed Blimpie next door, to the back right hand corner of the “newsstand”, has also moved to the right hand wall.  And finally, between the two, a Middle Eastern steam table has opened up, serving Israeli style falafel.

Got that all?  If not, there are semi-helpful photos after the jump… 

From right to left: Indian, Indian, Israeli, Latin

The newly opened Israeli falafel steam table.

Considering how good Olympic Pita is (on 38th btw. 5+6th) I think it’s going to be awhile before I try the Israeli food… but I do have a date with some chaat in the near future.

More changes are in the works at the (former) newsstand on 6th Ave. btw. 37+38th.  Just to give you a quick recap…  Full blown walk-in Midtown newsstand decides to start selling Gujarati Indian food out of a steam table in the back of the store.  Food gets so popular, they decide to get rid of the magazines.  The Blimpie next door, which also served spanish food, closes; spanish food joins vegetarian Indian food inside the newsstand with no newspapers (along with a generic deli sandwich counter that had been there all along).

Which brings us to the  newest round of changes.  The sandwich counter is now gone, leaving a big gap between the vegetarian Gujarati food on the left, and the decidedly not vegetarian latin food on the right. Add to that the new ”Taj Delhi Chat”, which opened just to the right of the store’s front door, and you’ve got full fledged craziness!  Run by the sister of the guy who runs the Gujarati table in the back (which I consider to be some of the best Indian food in Midtown), the menu features over 30 different kinds of chaat (or small plates of Indian snacks), including various types of puri (fried, fluffy Indian bread) and pakodas (pakoras?).  $4.99 from Noon to 4pm, $6.99 after 4pm.

Check out the menu, plus a few other bits of news, after the jump…

Click on the menu to see a larger image

The menu is pretty intimidating to anybody not entirely familiar with chaat, but there are a few things that jumped out at me, like “Bread Sandwich Pakoda” (???) and carrot halwa, an amazing dessert I had for the first time at Spice Fusion, and loved.  And as if that wasn’t enough… in an effort to put more distance between meat and veg, there is also word that next week the Gujarati steam table in the back will join “Taj Delhi Chat” in the front of the store. 

The new chaat counter isn’t totally up and running yet with the full menu, but they are slowly getting there, and if it’s half as good as the food in the back, they should be alright.  Early adopters, let us know what you think in the comments, and then I’ll post a follow up once they’re 100% up and running…

Related:
The Best Indian Food in Midtown May be Sold Out of the Back of a Newsstand
Shuttered Latin Food in the Back of Blimpie Resurfaces in an even Stranger Location
Snapshots: For Those About to Chaat

Zach, if you had walked one storefront down from there, you would have found an even odder lunch option—the “newsstand” next door has a sign in the window: “Indian Vegetarian Food.” For $6 you get basmati rice, dal, two scoops of whatever vegetable dishes they have that day, bread (paratha? roti?), some pakoras, and a tin-foil ball filled with onions, lettuce, and tomatoes…though the selection has varied the two times I’ve tried.

Like many who may have seen that comment, I envisioned one of those green square sidewalk newsstands, somehow serving up vegetarian Indian food (behind all the gum and candy bars, I guessed?), although I had no idea how. Alright, I don’t know what the hell I was picturing… but I knew it sounded awesome. When I finally made it down there, I discovered it was actually a convenience store that was mostly a newsstand- and sure enough, in the back left hand corner, there it was… Gujarati Indian food, a vegetarian cuisine from the Gujarat region in Northern India, being served out of a mini steam table.

It’s almost six months later, the magazines are all gone, and the Latin food that used to be sold out of the Blimpie, is now occupying the back, right hand corner of the store. I think it’s finally time for a proper +/- (and some hardcore Gujarati food porn)

$6.99 gets you a pretty massive amount of food. There’s rice, plus your choice of two vegetarian dishes, a salad (which consists of lettuce, tomato and onion wrapped in tin foil), soup (which he referred to as “dal” but I didn’t see any lentils in it), a thimble full of a pickled chutney kind of thing, and one piece of gulab jamun, the fried balls soaked in syrup. For bread, you get a pretty astounding 4 pieces of roti, which is made fresh in “the back”, although from the outside it’s hard to imagine there’s any room for cooking in the closet looking space the food appears from. (It’s probably just a stairway to some secret Gujarati lair.)

There is a lot of great Indian food in Midtown, and most of it (with the exception of Sukhadia) has got meat- so you might think that I’d be anti. But this place has a lot going for it, making you miss the meat a lot less. First and foremost, everything tastes different. It may sound stupid, but one of my biggest issues with most Indian places tailored for the American palatte is everything tastes the same! They just take one or two sauces, cover various meats with it, and call it different dishes. Of the three things I tried (mixed vegetables, the green okra like veggie in the bottom right and the “soup”) each had it’s own incredibly distinct flavor, and was clearly made without any regard to the typical Midtown office worker’s tastes.

In other words, this food tastes like it’s being made for the people who are looking for Gujarati Indian food in Midtown. In fact, we ended up sitting next to an Indian gentleman who was more than happy to inform us that this was the only good Gujarati Indian food in all of Manhattan. When I asked about Sukhadia, he let me know that even though it pained him to say it (the guy who owns the place is apparently a good friend of his), Sukhadia is just not that good, owing to the fact that they don’t cook any of the food there. All of it is cooked in Jersey and then driven into the restaurant. Surprising, but not shocking- he did go on to say that it is great for sweets (they have a huge selection behind the glass in the front).

To alleviate the pain of this shocking discovery, the man offered us one of his methi pakora, an Indian fritter made from chickpea flour, or as the owner liked to call it- “Indian falafel”. All the pakoras are made fresh in the newsstand, and these looked pretty outstanding. They have various kinds, including ones made from potato (aloo) and hot chilis (mirchi), but the latter may not be advisable if you are not into the spicy. All are $4.00 for a nice size order, and they also serve up a mixed pakora, which seems like the way to go.

If you don’t speak Guajarati it is admittedly difficult to understand alot of what the owner says, and the menu may be unfamiliar to you if you’re more used to the Anglicized style of Indian food served in the U.S. (Chicken Tikka Masala anyone?), but the easiest way to avoid that is just go with the thali ($6.99 mixed plate) and choose your dishes from the steam table. If you want to get a little more adventurous, there are all sorts of exciting things on the “snack” menu, including puri (Indian fried dough), pau (bread usually served with some sort of vegetable or curry), and khaman (which I believe is a steamed tea snack made of chickpea flour). I can’t imagine you could wrong with any of it. They also have lassis, and and extensive menu of “milkshakes” which I’ve also heard are great.

I love meat, but I’d take carefully prepared vegetarian food, over watery Indian food relying too much on the presence of lamb or chicken, any day… which means that in alot of ways this newsstand Indian may be one of my new favorite places for lunch, and has all the elements we’ve come to hope for in the perfect Midtown Lunch: cheap, a lot of food, weird location, authentic, unique and most of all, delicious.

THE + (What somebody who likes this place would say)

• I’m a vegetarian
• Unlike many Indian places in Midtown, all of the dishes taste different
• Everything is cooked fresh, and it is authentic Gujarati food (and better than Sukhadia, as well)
• I don’t mind not knowing exactly what I’m eating (at least I know there’s no weird meat in it!)
• You get sooo much food! A full meal (two dishes & rice) plus soup, salad, chutney, dessert and 4 pieces of roti! It’s craziness…
• The latin food from the Blimpie is now in this place, so if you have a co-worker who doesn’t like Indian, this is a great solution!
• More spicy then most Midtown Indian places, and if you like it “extra spicy” they will be happy to accomodate you

THE – (What somebody who doesn’t like this place would say)

• Yo goober, where’s the meat?
• Dishes on the steam table change every day, and some can be hit or miss depending on what you order
• There’s only one guy behind the counter, so if there’s a line it can sometime take awhile
• I don’t like spicy Indian food, with flavors I’m not used to
• Where’s the tandoori chicken?

Khodiar Lunch Services (aka Gujarati Food Inside a Newsstand), 1013 6th Ave. (btw. 37+38th), 212-840-3767

Got this posted in the comments by “Vishal” on Monday:

I have some great news- the Latin Food that used to be at this Blimpie has now moved next door to the Convenience store that serves Vegetarian Indian Food!

That is indeed great news.  I guess that is the benefit of being a latin food place inside the back of a Blimpie.  When the crappy sub place closes, just move your business one door down, hermit crab style.  I’m a big fan of latin food in strange places, and luckily their new shell is almost as weird as the Blimpie, protecting their all important hipness cache; the Midtown newsstandwith the Gujarati Indian steamtable on 6th Ave. btw. 37+38th. 

A photo of the vegetarian Indian food place, living side by side with the pork-a-licious latin food, after the jump…

Vegetarian Indian on the left, latin food on the right, with a proper deli buffet in the middle.  This could be the 2nd coolest Midtown Lunch location ever (after El Sabroso of course!).  Full +/- coming soon…

Related: Me Gusta Este Blimpie!