The Dhabas of India

My experience with Dhabas is very very very limited.  But whatever I had experienced was good enough for me to be a fan.

The popularity of Dhabas in India soared only in the last few decades.  No, people knew about this earlier, but they were only accessible when you were on the road - and therefore it is only post-liberalization with the growth of personal vehicles and with a lot more people on the road that Dhabas became the in-thing.

Earlier Dhabas were primarily the domain of the Lorry/truck drivers - those who traversed through most of India transporting goods and moving across highways.  Dhabas were basically pit stops that offered freshly prepared food and a place to take a break.  In fact in most of the Dhabas there were no tables and chairs, but instead a rustic bed that was made of a rope-net that you could rest on after having your meal.  they would also usually have on the side some water supplies that drivers could refresh themselves or if more water available then wash their trucks too.

Dhabas were the secret of the truckers and the drivers and it was their world, and now the common man seems to have infringed into them and how!

Like I have mentioned in several of my posts, my parents loved to travel and we have been across most of India using every mode of transport.   We usually never stopped midway at highways and usually ate at a south Indian restaurant (usually recommended by someone as it had decent toilets).  But as a kid one of our drivers stopped us at a Dhaba in the South and it was my first time and when I asked for a second helping I was informed that the curries would be prepared only once and we had to order again.

But once my dad moved to the north - Dhabas became more regular.  By this time Dhabas had moved into the cities too.  Usually the drivers were in the know and would make sure we would make a stop even if we had a meal elsewhere just so he could have his favorite food.   One such instance I can remember is returning to Bhopal from a long distance journey where we had dinner at Indore and were driving back.  We were tired and feeling nauseous, as those days there were no Air conditioned cars. We instead had to keep the windows open and were exposed to diesel fumes as well as the exhaust fumes from our accompanying vehicles mostly lorries and trucks.

Around midnight the driver stops at a Dhaba which is brightly lit and feels more like a modern retail store and is fully crowded.  We tell him we dont want to stop and go straight to Bhopal and he urges us to try this out as its supposed to be the best Dhaba near Bhopal. We then tell them its too crowded (at midnight imagine) and he tells us not to worry there’s a lot of places.  He leads us to the centre where there are some empty beds and we sit there.  One of the boys comes to collect our orders and the driver urges us to eat as much as we can.  We have ordered more than we have eaten at Dinner a few hours earlier.  

When the food arrives it feels like a little grand and someone who is a pretender to fine food, as it is creamy and also has dry fruits.  but its only when we start eaten that we really realize that it has earned its sobriquet of being the best Dhaba through its food. Calling it lipsmacking delicious is an under-statement. It has the nurturing quality of reviving us and removing all the toxins and leaving us completely refreshed to hit the road for a long journey ahead. We thank the driver.

Dhabas can be completely rustic experience. there’s no cutlery or utensils  - we eat the food with our fingers and the dishes are shared and of course there’s no advanced kitchen facilities, and one needs to be open to that.  Most dhabas never had a name, and were primarily known by their location.

Another occasion that cements the association and capacity  of Dhabas to revive and refresh us was near Bhopal again, when my parents and I were traveling during summer.  It was one of the hottest summers and we had run out of water.  Bottled Mineral water was only being popular and we thought we will stop somewhere to grab one, but the ones we purchased on the shops would be warm and not exactly help us in quenching our thirst. 

Finally our driver stopped at a Dhaba which seemed relatively quiet. It was just before noon, and there were no visitors or trucks/ buses stopping there.  Noticing my mom, the chief of the Dhaba asked us to move inside where there were some beds sprawled at the rear of the shop in a more quieter setting.  As we moved inside we noticed the Dhaba had a cooler (a refrigerated stand that stored beverages and displayed them like in convenience stores).  And we noticed it had a full set of Coca-cola bottles.  This was just when Coke had been re-launched in India after being unavailable for over two decades.

We immediately asked for Coke, and discovered pleasantly they were chilled perfectly and for the first time in my life I was not only able to complete a full bottle by myself (could never stand carbonated soft drinks and could only have a couple of gulps and never finish a bottle). Not just me, even my parents then asked for another serving.  We felt completely refreshed like we had been brought to life from our withered depleted selves, and the meal we had after that was one of the best ones - so good that it kept us going into the even warmer afternoon that we had to spend on the road reaching our destination in the evening.

But my best memories of a Dhaba are near the sitapur highway in Lucknow where I studied.  It wasn't one of the best Dhabas to be honest as its fare was pretty simple but it helped all the students survive the educational course we had to complete.  Our mess/ canteen was dire and terrible.  One of the students quipped that if we actually ate at the Dhaba everyday it would not only be healthier and tastier, but also much cheaper. 

What I remember about this Dhaba mainly is that it had fresh produce and I still remember that the vegetables he had would have this unique fresh from the farm sensory experience right from the aroma to crispiness and texture - and his salads were a best seller. I haven't experienced this in many restaurants.

The other thing was that he was one of the first Dhabas where egg was served.  Most Dhabas are very clear in terms of the food served, and while I am no expert I think it is safe to say that a substantial proportion of them serve mostly vegetarian food.

The way Dhaba kitchens usually work is their popular dishes are normally prepared early in the morning in a large quantity and these curries are then ‘refreshed’ with some seasoning thrown in (called Baghar or Tadka) in a hot pan/ wok and served along with freshly prepared bread / rice. As and when dishes run out of their curries they replenish them as there will be definitely more customers come in.

But the Sitapur Dhaba made an exception and would serve eggs and those days I used to eat eggs and would love eating the Egg Bhurji (scrambled eggs with Indian curry seasoning) and later discovered they made an exceptional egg parantha which was prepared by first creating a simple phulka (flat whole wheat bread) which was prepared in a different skillet and then moved to a shallow frying pan where the bread would be gently opened and filled with an omelet mix and this would be shallow fried.  This is hard to describe but this hands down beat any of the pies, quiches or pastries I have had which had an egg based filling.  It was popular because we discovered that like most paranthas its texture and flavors survived the day and could be easily be eaten and enjoyed much later.  Thus this would be one of the most popular take-away items and any student stopping here would bring in a few for the rest of the boys at the hostel to help other students survive the long nights of studying.

With regular patronage we became familiar with the dhaba staff and managers, and even otherwise we were much younger than their regular patrons and we felt that they would go out of their way to help us and indulge our requests.

On one occasion we decided to go out to a late movie, as  one of our fellow students whose girlfriend had come visiting  and all of us had gone out as a group.  As it was late this was the last bus and we couldn’t stop at the Dhaba, so we had purchased some packs of instant noodles and a tray of eggs to cook once we returned back to the hostel. We definitely didnt want to spend money eating at a restaurant.  Surprisingly the bus driver decided to stop at the Dhaba and we didnt know what to do as we weren’t wanting to spend again - the dhaba manager asked us, and we told him we had some noodles and eggs and he then offered to cook it for us.  he made this scrambled eggs noodles  - and believe you, me I havent eaten anything like this in any of the oriental restaurants across the globe. He made our evening real special.

(We realized he was open to requests - on one occasion a large sardar family came and occupied a couple of beds next to where a few of us students had occupied and one of the elderly folks walk to the cooks and tell them that while preparing food for them they had to use genuine butter and then hands over a large slab of packed AMUL butter and asks him to use this to both cook as well as top the foods with butter before serving them. Needless all of them looked fairly healthy and we were wondering if those beds could survive the combined weight of this Sardar family.

Oh BTW did I mention Dhabas run 24 hours? There’s no closing them down, as you never know when there might be a truck driver stopping for relief in the night.  And in one of our chats with the manager of the sitapur dhaba we asked him what they did during festivals and he told us that the Dhaba would never shut down - one reason being the tandoor and all the flames had to be kept on as stopping the fires meant the clay stoves would crack and new ones needed to be built (did I say that all kitchen facilities were rudimentary).

And then he added, the only time I give them an off is during the festival of Holi. This came as a surprise as the biggest festival in India is that of Diwali and while Holi is popular it is slightly different more to do with playing with colors across the first half of the day.

So we ask him why and he adds that this was one day when everyone has the popular ‘thandaai’ that is served during Holi and this Thandaai usually contains ‘bhaang’ which has the hemp (cannabis/ gaanja) that also serves as a recreational drug.

He then tells us ‘I cant guarantee what might happen in the kitchen if I let them loose after they have consumed this bhaang’ so thats the only day we cease operations for one day’…