Hey guys, Nabs here! Recently, Sammi and I took a bus (well 3 buses) down to West London to spend a day in Southall. In total the journey took us around 2 hours but we didn't mind. I love bus journeys and definitely prefer the bus to the tube/train.
(Warning: This may turn out to be a long post as we ate a lot that day, I mean a LOT...)
(Warning: This may turn out to be a long post as we ate a lot that day, I mean a LOT...)
This was the first time visiting Southall for the both of us and honestly, as soon we got off the bus I felt at home. There were food stalls left right and centre. Being the foodies that we are we literally went into the first food shop that we saw. Inside was an array of sweets and savoury snacks. As we had seen a jalebi stand right outside the shop and were planning to buy from there afterwards we decided to go straight for the savoury snacks. The selection to choose from was so big we spend a good few minutes there just trying to decide what to buy. They had the usual samosas and pakoras (deep fried snack, usually with potatoes inside) but with additional snacks that I hadn't really seen in any of the shops near home. They had bread pakoras (which I still need to try!), paneer pakoras, as well as deep fried chillies. We finally decided on a samosa each as well as a paneer pakora for me. [The samosa was 60p each and the paneer pakora was £1]
As I mentioned, outside was a jalebi stand selling fresh hot jalebi. (I love these stands as there is definitely a difference between fresh jalebi made there and then compared to jalebi that was made a couple of hours back. It's so crispy and hot). It was Sammi's first time trying jalebi and I honestly couldn't wait for her to try one as Jalebi are delicious and definitely one of my favourite indian sweets. I'll let Sammi tell you what she thought of them :) [We bought £1 worth of Jalebi]
Sammi: I absolutely loved the jalebi! I totally wasn't expecting the taste nor the texture of what I ate! I was expecting more of a hard candy with the sweetness of the type in a flavoured sweet, but when I bit into the jalebi... oh boy!!! I went to heaven! It was very crispy and hollow inside and the sugar coating was sticky and syrup like! I loved it! I was secretly so pleased when Nabs said I could take the whole lot home with me :P Nabs also told me that it's a great accompliment with tea.. So guess what I did when I got back home with them?? HAD THEM WITH TEA :D
We couldn't wait to try the snacks and despite the rain we stood on the corner of one of the roads to devour them. The samosas were so fresh, but the paneer pakora was definitely my favourite! I absolutely love paneer and when it is deep fried, even better! The pakora had a slice of paneer in the middle of the batter and the taste reminded me of a filet-o-fish burger.
The high street was full of stalls selling samosas, pakoras, chaats! I don't think more than 5 minutes had passed after eating our snacks when we noticed one of these stalls and decided to try something else.
We decided to try another vegetable samosa each (you can never eat too many samosas!). We also bought a Aloo Tikki (Potato Fritter) [Samosa was 50p each and Aloo Tiki was 50p each]
Sammii taking over here! We definately ate
our way down Southall! I was loving it. There was a shopping centre on the main
street that had different stalls inside it so we went inside to have a look.
They had clothes and accessories stalls mostly, at very decent prices! They had
earrings going for £1 which Nabs bought 2 pairs, I was very tempted to get a
pair myself! There were small cafe's in the shopping centre too.
When we finished browsing the shopping
centre we ventured down the rest of the road and saw fruit stalls (which were
much cheaper than what you get in Tesco!) If I didn't have to lug the fruit
back home to central London, I would have definately got myself a basket full
of fruit! We walked passed more Indian sweet shops and smaller restaurants.
There is so much in Southall that we already talking about when our next trip
would be!
Ok what did we do next?
More food of course! :)
We were browsing online and found a
restaurant which we wanted to try out, it wasn't in central Southall so we took
a 20 minute bus ride out to it. The restaurant is called Raunka Punjab Diyan. Even
though we had been eating the whole day we couldn't wait to try out this
place!
Inside was beautifully decorated, the
walls were painted with out door rural scenery.
It had a large choice of items on the
menu. One of the reasons why we choose this restaurant was because it sold Gol
Gappa so of course that was one of the dishes we choose.
Sev Puri £3.75
(Pooris, potatoes, chickpeas, tamarind
chutney & masala water)
These were sooooo delicious, I really
enjoyed the fillings and the toppings! This was my favourite from what we
ordered- it was nice and crispy with a burst of different complimenting flavours.
Samosa Chaat
£3.75
Samosa with yoghurt, mint, tamarind sauce,
diced onions and chickpeas.
This was equally delicious, I loved that
the samosa was warm under all that yoghurt!
Garlic Naan £2.25
This was made fresh and it very light,
thin and slightly crispy- different to the usual fat naans that you normally
get.
There were a selection of curries that you
could choose from that were priced at £6.9.
I looooved this dessert! Something about hot and cold desserts I can't resist! The gulab jaun was like a syrupy soaked cake. It was the perfect end to the meal. And that's not even it, when we asked for the bill, the waitress bought over a little basket of sweets, there tasted like little pieces of sugar, I loved the way they were presented- very cute.
