Skip to main content

Eating troubles


If you have eating troubles, I can assure you that have landed on the wrong page. All I have done is literally translated - Eating Locho - into plain speak english, ie Eating troubles.

Being brought up in Bombay, I am fairly familiar with the Bombay street lingo, which has a fair sprinkling and huge influence from the native Marathi and Gujarati colloquial. Locha traces its etymology to Gujarati and means trouble and hence Locho, the plural of Locha means troubles.



While locha was made popular by Raju Hirani when he had Munnabhai mouth an unusual combination of words - "Chemical locha". And in yet another another Raju Hirani caper, he has Kareena describe Gujarati food - Dhokla Faafda Handva Thepla Khakra - as missiles. But our Surti's take the cake. They have redefined the traditional missile' khaman into a hugely popular variant called Locho. 

 I was in Surat last week and savoured this awesome variant of Surti food at the Gopal Locho Khaman House.

Served piping hot with crisp sev, pickled onions, diced chillies and mint and coriander sauce - this dish is a huge winner

Local legend is that while making a normal khaman , a messed up consistency led to its invention. This unguided missile , has surprisingly found innumerable takers and hence the dish is fondly called locho. 
Available in other cuisines too.....Italian locho and Chinese locho.


There are a few other dishes, that not only take the cake but the entire bakery.....Italian Vada Pav.



And figure this one out yourself. Is the chef inspired by Tamil siren Nylon Nalini?


Happy New Year!




Labels:
Location: Surat, Gujarat, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lahore - the border crossover

For as long as I have had the travel bug in me, I have wanted to visit Pakistan and specifically go to Lahore. I remember making a life list a couple of years ago and Pakistan figured top on the list of places I wanted to visit.  I am asked by many - 'Why Pakistan?' - considering the strained relationship between our countries. I have the answer in two parts for them. a) My maternal grandparents hail from Lahore. As a kid, I remember spending almost every summer and winter break in Kanpur, where my maternal family shifted after the partition, and being nurtured with stories of Lahore, it's splendour and their life and times there. I was brain tattooed with Lahore and its stories. b) We are culturally akin. [I am a Punjabi] We speak the same language, have similar tastes in dress and food. We share a common bond of folk, sufi poetry and music - composed and sung in the same ragas across both the borders. And we share the same history. Punjab for the uninitiated is ...
3 comments
Read more

Building Bridges

It’s been rather warm and sultry, rather very dull and uninspiring weather this past month and I stare at the sky for inspiration. It sure is mildly cloudy, few gravid with rain but they seem to have no intent of showering their blessings on us. I also receive a message from my friend, an avid sailor, halfway around the globe from Austin, Texas that there has been no rain for some time and the lake levels are depleting. Global warming sure is a reality and a tough one that needs to be addressed and understood soon by all of us. It is predicted that by the year 2030, the most precious commodity on planet earth would be clean water – not diamonds, nor gold, nor oil. My imagination goes haywire when I hear this. Many of us read and are led to believe that certain power hungry countries wage wars for oil, imagine waging war for drinking water. I shudder at the sheer thought and reach for my glass of water Back home, there is a lot of jubilation in the air on a new landmark bridge a...
1 comment
Read more

Solo in Goa - the planning

I never realized that my maiden solo sojourn would spark off a spate of justifications I would have to make to both my family and friends. Having had spoken to my wife, I thought I had rested any emanating objections. But this was not to be so. After dinner, two days before my trip, I dropped into my parent’s room to post them on my solo holiday. Happy noticing an unusual from the routine gesture of me dropping by for a chat, Karisma Kapoor nee Kapur and her Karishma were banished to a muted existence for the while. Like an actor waiting backstage for a cue for his entry on stage, I waited for a commercial to interrupt Karisma Kapoors small screen prowess. Preempting one, I quickly cleared my throat and announced, " I am going for a couple of days to Goa". Realising that this sounded like one of my regular information to them of my usual business tours – I then added for attracting the right attention. "Alone. I am going alone for a holiday without Sarika". In ...
2 comments
Read more