Gastown’s Indian street food destination has updated their menu and we were stopping by to see what new is worth trying.
Located in the underground basement, they may be hard to spot outside of their sandwich board.
You order at the counter and the staff bring the completed dishes out to you.
We started with a couple of Chais, they have a few options including ginger and cardamon. I found it not sweet enough and ended up adding three packets of white sugar to combat that.
Aloo Tikki Chaat is a famous type of Indian Street Food. It is a crispy Indian potato patty seasoned with spices and topped with yogurt and chutney. These had a hashbrown quality about them, which made sense why packets of ketchup were brought out with them. The tang of the ketchup helped to add freshness to this salty and spicy dish.
The Mix Pakora Platter had not only the more familiar deep fried vegetable patties, but a doughy paneer filled pakora as well. Here, the sauce is what flavours it and you are given a choice between a refreshing zesty cilantro chutney or the sweet and tangy tamarind chutney.
The Noodle Spring Rolls are exactly as they read. Soy sauce flavoured noodles in a spring roll wrapper. A mix of chewy and crispy, served with an acidic chilli dipping sauce. A little too much, and too carb heavy for my taste, but definitely an easy to eat snack.
An order of Vada Pav comes with two pieces and is essentially a samosa in between a soft bun. Like the dish above, this too felt very heavy as one carb stuffed into another. Yet here is was a biy more comforting with less deep frying. The starchiness of soft potato standing out against the buttery bun that melts.
The Bread Pakora is basically the potato and spice filling that goes into a samosa, but instead of a regular wrapper, it gets pressed between deep fried sandwich slices. It was crunchy and salty with the breading. And like all those before it, needed some chutney to brighten things up and add some acidity to the mix.
Our favourite was the Pav Bhaii. A small serving of mixed vegetables in curry, served with a butter bun for dipping into. The curry was chunky and squashed based, a nice hearty mix.
I also liked the Chicken Masala Roll. Spicy meaty chicken masala rolled into a naan wrap. This was an easy hand held snack. For my taste, I would have liked some yogurt dipping sauce to add interest between bites and to not have it so dense.
And one of their most popular items are the steamed or fried Chicken Momos. We got the former which was spicy, yet bland. I wanted more salt and seasoning. This was just hot and spicy.
In short, a solid option for some Indian street food in Gastown. I would recommend not ordering all of the above at once, but to balance a lot of the carb heavy dishes with some of their rice bowls and curries for a better balanced meal.
Dilli Heights Bistro
436 Richards St, Vancouver, BC V6B 2Z3, Canada
+1 604-484-1385
dilliheights.ca
