Berkely in Buckley

Last weekend Praji and Parjai invited us to their home for chat dinner. Our families had great time together. My son and their son enjoyed playing Star Wars game with toy Light Sabers. Later they played Mario Galaxy and Bowling on Wii. I played Tennis on Wii with Praji.

However, the real treats were the mouth watering chats, Parjai had prepared. I have heard of many famous chat places in Berkeley, but why go to Berkeley when Parjai's preparations are as good and you get them here at Buckley St. in Santa Clara? We had many rounds of gup chup, variously known as pani poori, pani ke batashe, gol gappa or puchka. The spicy water served with gup chups was a treat for the taste buds. It reminded me of chat places in New Delhi (Haldiram anyone?). My son and my wife who love gup chups savored plenty of them.

She followed this up with a special chat, a kind of aloo tikki. Her ingenuity was to use hash browns to make the tikkis. The hash browns were lightly heated on a pan with some cooking oil. Each plate had hash browns as the first layer. This was covered with another layer of yellow matar chole. Garnished with sprouted moong, green grams, spices, yogurt and a special chatni. Everyone relished the aloo tikkis. And there was no stopping overindulgence. The pait pooja ( पेट पूजा), as I love to call this, was incredible.

Thank you Parjai. Looking forward to the Dal Bati you have promised next...