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Shree Krishna Vada Pav, Hounslow – A review

May 6, 2014 by manjirichitnis 14 Comments

Anybody who is good friends with me knows for a fact that I can be bribed with food especially if it involves chaat. Now I have a perpetual crib that the ONE thing I really miss about my life in Mumbai is good chaat. Well, if there ever was a moment when I felt I the way navigator and explorer Vasco da Gama did after he found India then it was when I bit into the Vada Pav at Shree Krishna Vada Pav at  Hounslow. This was some time in 2011 when hubster and I were out hunting for Indian eateries and discovered this gem.

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Image Credit :Shree Krishna Vada Pav

Its on the high street on Hounslow east and a very busy high street at that.Advance Warning its extremely crowded on weekends and don’t expect great decor just a basic ,clean space with comfy chairs and tables. But then the food is so good that the decor and other mundane stuff takes a backseat.Actually that is true of the Harrow branch as you can see in the image below the Hounslow one is pretty cool!

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Image Credit :Shree Krishna Vada Pav

Being a Maharashtrian myself its good to see they stock products that I crave like Chitale Bandhu export quality bakarwadi,Laxmi Narayan Chiwda, some dry chutneys and snacks that I would hoard on and buy easily from any corner shop in Pune and Mumbai and yes they also stock fresh soft hand made puran polis!

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Image Credit :Shree Krishna Vada Pav

Need more coaxing to make a visit well they now have another branch in Harrow which also I happened to visit last month while I stayed over at my best buddy from school’s place -S her OH and kids were hyper excited to be eating there and we greedily ate almost 1/4th of the options on the menu. The paneer bomb literally exploded in my mouth and left me gasping for more , now if only all scary bombs turned into paneer it would put an end to bomb scares and hunger too humm – please ignore that I think I need another cuppa;)

Must try items on the menu – Misal Pav a mixture of peas curry spiced up sprinkled with crunchy chivda or farsan and served with a soft pav – this dish originates from Kolkapur in Maharashtra ,India and is served with a small bowl of red coloured chilli powder in dangerous volume to make a dipping sauce from hell- only the VERY brave survive – I avoid it like a rash lest it gives me hiccups first , a possible coronary and immediate urge to visit the loo **begins to sweat at the brow at the mere mention**

Also must try the star attraction and the dish which is part of their name – VADA PAV – This notoriously famous street food is famous amongst Mumbaikars of all ages – I was inoculated against any possible food poisoning attacks for the rest of my lief by repetitively consuming suspicious looking vada pav near Kurla stage at that point in my life when even after finishing a rather expensive college degree I had to ask Baba for travel expenses – don’t laugh I passed out in the year when 9/11 happened and markets crashed,jobs were scarce and I worked my butt off. And now I can proudly look back and say I worked for 12 long years before taking a break and choosing to walk the path less trodden – and that is why here I am – blogging away.

After that short detour into my dark past lets get back to the menu at Shree Krishna Vada Pav a much more interesting subject of discussion.NO self respecting foodie should walk out of this place without eating several plates of potato,onion and mixed bhajiya plates with several cups of hai for company and loudly discuss Indian politics with your Indian friends πŸ˜‰

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Image Credit :Shree Krishna Vada Pav

Another street food close to my heart is Dabeli, I remember wandering the streets of Ghatkopar in Mumbai ,with my mother and getting her to buy me this deliciously tasty snack off street vendors carts as a thank you for carrying her heavy grocery bags. Please avoid doing such things do – no no, I don’t mean eating Dabeli – just carrying  heavy grocery bags – am sure it has largely contributed to messing with my poor hands and therefore the carpal tunnel operation on both hands πŸ™

{Please do not take that literally, always seek professional medical advice for any health issues however big 0r small , I was recently operated for carpal tunnel decompression on my left hand and have to undergo the same on my right hand soon booohoooo!}

When the craving for a proper Indian snack strikes a plate of samosa can never be far away and if your really lucky than a proper grilled sandwich. To fully appreciate this phenomenon of veg grilled sandwich I must tell you how its made on the streets of Mumbai.Generally there is a small little space enough to hold a rather fragile human being and his small ”stall” which is a large tripod holding a gas stove and a plank of wood on which he magically balances loads of bread generally Wibs πŸ™‚ , chopped onions, different types of chutneys in steel dabbas, lots of Amul butter packs, mashed potato,sev packets and a stash of cucumber,tomatoes,cheese and green capscium alongwith small little boxes with salt and spices. With a knife super sharp and knife skills that would put a trained chef to shame he expertly chops the veggies at lightening speed and slams them on slices of bread slathered with butter and chutney ,then depending on how shameless the customer is ( in my case shame of any sort especially when asking for extra cheese is totally absent.) he grates a tiny mountain of cheese into the already bulging sandwich.then without so much so aas dropping a single slice of wiggly tomato he slams this inside a hand held contraption and claps it shut! Then it goes onto the hot hot stove where it is tossed and turned till your grilled sandwich is done. Do yourself a favour eat this when you go to Mumbai and the mantra is to keep repeating ”germs don’t exist, to hell with hygiene” only then will you will truly relish this superb Mumbai street food!

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Image Credit click here

Mumbai sandwichwallah

Image Credit : The Guardian

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Image Credits for the 2 images above: Wise Monkeys

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This is the delicious samosa plate at Shree Krishna Vada Pav with the superb dry garlic chutney and a fried green chilly to go , just eat the outer green layer of the chilli and leave the seeds behind its a fab combo with the samosa.

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https://travelsfortaste.com/2013/04/29/kairee-panhe-raw-mango-summer-cooler/Last but not the least don’t miss out on the Mango Panha now as mangoes are in season – at least in India, they are – Hapoos Mania grips the country around this time of the year with rates skyrocketing to obscenity and second only to the rate of gold! This tangy drink is a homemade treat at ours with large jars filled with green mango pull and spices mixed and then served diluted with chilled water. But aai is now too old to make that …so I plonk myself uninvited to my maushi’s house in Pune – tehehe there’s always a way out for a foodie!

Did you know that Shree Krishna Vada Pav were one of the sponsors for last years food blogger conference called Bloggers Buzz? I can still remember the fabulous hot food in our lunch plates courtesy them ummm!

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These are photos of the superb Alphonso mango trees in my grandmothers garden at her house in Pune. These are ideal for making Kairee Panhe .Sighhhh….

Disclaimer: This review is thanks to my multiple visits to Shree Krishna vada Pav and their consistent great food. I have always paid for my own food and have written this review of my own accord. I was not required to write a positive review and was not compensated monetarily for this post.Like all my previous posts about events and reviews, ALL opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Shree Krishna Vada Pav Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Restaurant Reviews Tagged With: batata bhaji, bhajiya, Bombay sandwich, food and travel blogger, food writer, foodie in London, harrow, Hounslow - A review, kairee panhe recipe, kanda bhaji, maharahstrian recipes, Manjiri Chitnis, Manjiri Kulkarni, missal pav, Mumbai grilled sandwich, Mumbai sandwichwalla, Pune, samosa pav, Shree Krishna Vada Pav, slice of my life, street food, travel writer, travelsfortaste

Borough Market – a slice of London’s History, Heritage and FOOD!

September 28, 2012 by manjirichitnis 6 Comments

If ever there was a memory I revisit connected to food, browsing, new experiences, and feeling that I LIVED and loved life to the fullest it is this Friday in July when I visited Borough for the first time ever…

Coming from India and have spent most of my life in Bombay I am no stranger to massive open food bazaars, haggling to get one free lemon or a bunch of coriander and feeling triumphant that I could get HAPOOS AAMBE – the king of fruits Alphonso Mangoes at a few rupees lower than the previous customer ….old memories of accompanying my mother as a child to the market every other day and helping her carry home-made cloth and nylon bags full of fresh vegetables and fruits. With these vivid memories in mind I set off with my pal N to visit the market.

Getting there by tube was fun and the first glimpse of the market sort of gave me that feeling of a newcomer to a large city, no not of feeling LOST but simply overwhelmed by the sheer variety of goods available,Of course the most beautiful part is the way all the sights and smells make their way into your mind, literally it was my nose leading me to the food !Set in Southwark, one is found staring at the SHARD as soon you exit from the Tube station, towering over the place it is an imposing glass structure.

The market is massive,has a really amazing old world charm thanks to its origin roughly dating back to the 1800’s when it started off as a wholesale market and continues to be,to this date.

Of course, we took a lot of pictures and ate many free samples along the way but the places where I feel silent with admiration were the Fresh Fish counter – for its sheer variety and activity surrounding the stall, the Mushrooms on display-I guess I had never seen so many colourfull, delicate and edible mushrooms in one place before! The Gamston Wood Farm with its exotic meats, yes as exotic as ostrich meat – left me totally speechless but owing to my many food allergies I didn’t experiment, but someday soon I do hope too! I purchased some ripe nectarines, ripe juicy tomatoes, and some crunchy salad leaf bunches.

The Market itself is divided into a few large chunks, we started by walking around the fresh fruit,vegetable and sea food shops, moving onto the inner food court where one find everything from superior Assam tea(which I did buy and got home in a cute brown paper bag and treat myself to some mornings with a generous chunk of ginger and plenty of milk, proper boiled sweet Indian CHAI!) to different varieties of cheese,exotic breads,organic foods,herbs,spices,nuts,dates,desserts sighhhh, then one is led to the many fresh food stalls where one can eat exotic burgers, hot dogs, rolls, pizza or sandwiches,soups,salads almost any imaginable snack packed with fresh meat,cheese and all things divine,I certainly envy all the office goers who can visit this place during lunch hour!Not to be missed are the bakery,patisserie and confectionary stalls, creative, hand-made and exotic all rolled into one, giving into those sweet craving is very easy indeed.Each trader no matter how small the stall exuded passion for their craft.Lot of international foods are available here in this massive expanse of a market each with its own spot under the sun so to speak.

There are many pubs and restaurants in the vicinity which sort of take over when the market itself shuts down for the day.

Simply walking past the fresh oysters and taking in all the gorgeous food aromas wafting around does good for any appetite.Aptly then Borough Market has won ”London Food Market of the Year” 2010 at the London Lifestyle awards.The sea food selection is the best in the city and it is also a great place to buy some amazing wines and spirits, from far-flung places across the globe.

”N” and I got ourselves ” The Spitfire”  and  a ”BBQ Banger” respectively from a friendly fella who happily smiled for my camera! Big Bonus points to him, am definitely going back for more yummy food!The rail-bridge crossing over this part of this market causes a bit of a rattle-shake-shudder when trains pass by overhead.

We took our hot meals wrapped in tissues and sat down in the compound of the Southwark Cathedral with many other and though it was windy we hardly noticed, eating our lunch like hungry school kids with sauce dripping off our face!

We then ate ice cream made from goat’s milk,thick,creamy and delicious are base emotions, it transported me to a green farm far away into the English countryside, I left I was on a patch of land watching women dressed up like village belle of times gone by carrying pails of creamy thick milk and barns full of healthy cows and other animals…. N had to shake me out of my dream world so we could continue browsing;)

Ice cream in hand and after much posing for pictures we strolled to the area with big shops which have been around for many years so much so that they have are food institutions on their own, one of them is Ginger Pig.When one enters the Ginger Pig shop,it’s almost like walking into a museum of oink oink πŸ˜‰ EVERY possible cut,chop,slice,dip,garnish associated with cooking pork all under one roof – sigh ….

After strolling around some more and drinking in the sites, we decided it was time to leave but not before we spent some time browsing the flower stalls outside and purchased some magic potions from Neal’s Yard and some more relaxing tea for me, which I sampled at their store, it made me all drowsy and calm just what I recommend for a good nights sleep, count more deep sleep zzz’s after drinking this one folk…

Chocolate – the food fit for The God’s especially the one made by Hotel Chocolat‘….. the wooden interiors with the dim lighting and walls filled with chocolates so divine and varied that we just had to go in and have some liquid chocolate, mine was mixed with CHILLI! yes, awesome right? we also got to sample many of the new innovations and sat down on one of the massive wooden benches and sipped our hot chocolate and dreamt of ……well more CHOCOLATE!

Though the weather decided to play spoil sport,nothing could take away the feeling of a day spent pampering my senses….all I wanted to do was go home with my spoils wrapped in crinkly brown paper and sink my teeth into the nectarines and turn the tomatoes into a thick creamy soup.

If I could I would have written a poetry to describe my feelings when I left the market, I wish I could come up with some quotable quote to put all that happens in one’s mind in the market in a nutshell, but really , it wouldn’t suffice, no written word or picture can do justice to the beauty of this vibrant part of London’s heritage and history, treat yourself to a day out Visit Borough Market ….

Visit the official website for updates on opening times, events and news

Hover over each image to view the title.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, London and rest of U.K, Miscellaneous, Travel Tagged With: adventure, alphonso mangoes, artisan breads, assam tea, bacon, Borough Market, British Food, cakes, cheese sandwiches, chilli chocolate, cup cakes, deli, delicatessen, delicious, English Countryside, farmers market, flame grilled, food blog, food blogger, food market, food stall, fresh flowers, fresh food, fresh market, fresh oysters, fresh sea food, fruits, gloriuos food, goats milk, haggling, history of london, hot dogs, Hotel Chocolat, hummus, ice cream, India, italian food, juice, juice bars, jute bags, london, meat, muffins, Mumbai, mushrooms, Nepenthus, oink oink, organic foods, ostrich meat, oysters, peth area, Pune, Southwark, Southwark Cathedral, street food, student leraning london, sweetmeats, The Gamston Wood Farm, The Ginger Pig, tourist attraction london, travel, vegetables, wholesale market, world cheese, yummy

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