Old Delhi: Guided Street Food Tour w/ Shopping By Car

Old Delhi with a car waiting

Chandni Chowk is best experienced on foot and worst reached on foot. This tour solves that — a private car takes you in and waits, so the walking you do is the walking that matters, in the lanes rather than on the approach roads.

Chandni Chowk

Shah Jahan's daughter Jahanara laid it out in the 1650s as a boulevard with a canal running down its centre, reflecting moonlight — that is where the name comes from. The canal is long gone and the street now carries a density of commerce that has to be seen to be believed.

It is still organised the old way, trade by trade: Dariba Kalan for silver, Kinari Bazaar for wedding trim and zari, Khari Baoli for spices — the largest spice market in Asia, and the sacks of dried red chilli will make you cough.

Your guide will point out the Red Fort and Jama Masjid as you pass; this tour is about the streets rather than the monuments.

The food

Paranthe Wali Gali, a lane of shops frying stuffed flatbreads in ghee since the 1870s, some of them run by the sixth generation of the same family.

Chaat and golgappe — the one to be a little careful with and the one everyone remembers.

Jalebi with rabri, hot orange spirals in thickened milk, at a shop that has been doing exactly that since before Partition.

Your guide explains what each thing is and where it comes from, which matters more than it sounds when half of it is unfamiliar.

Two options

Car, driver and guide, with food paid as you go. Or the same with the street-food tastings included.

Practical

Tell us in advance if you are vegetarian — most of this food already is — and if your stomach is new to India, say so and your guide will steer you to the fried and the freshly cooked. Wear shoes you do not mind getting dusty.