Date: 01 June 2018
Venue: Chaayos, Vasant Kunj

Someone pinch me I must be dreaming – monsoon is finally here in Delhi NCR. Gray skies, cool breeze pitter patter rain and a cup of chai. The well known chai chain – Chaayos keeps changing its menu according to the season and we had sampled their winter menu at the fancy Connaught Place outlet. They now have a New Monsoon menu going and we needed a shelter from the showers last Friday. We rushed into Chaayos and saw that we weren’t alone. Almost all tables were occupied by wet folks.

We did find some space and took up the Monsoon menu. It has a lot of chaats – some of them novel. Although we weren’t planning on food, we were tempted. We ordered a couple of chaats and all of these were good. For example the Egg Chaat is egg whites seasoned with chutney and spices. Quite like what we get at the neighbourhood andawala cart. Yet not quite. The chutney made it tangy and the spices upped the heat. They moderated the spices on request and it was still very tasty. The Chicken Keema Chaat was a novelty. There was little papri crackers and it was mostly keema chicken. This was a cool snacky way of having chicken. Our vegetarian craving was satiated with Samosa Chaat. They have broken the samosa and have topped it with chhole, slices of tomato, onion and some condiment. It is an interesting combination and huge serving. This was almost a meal.

We stuck to our all time favourite Cutting Chai and ordered slices of date and fig cake and banana walnut alongside. The banana walnut was moist, had great flavours and went very well as a tea cake. These were of course from their regular menu. But so much for consistency we thought.

Delhi is one place where food is very sensitive to the season. We marvel as to how Chaayos got this pulse so well and adopted this in their business. We loved the chaat – chai time here. The New Monsoon menu at Chaayos could give you apt company if you are waiting out the rains this glorious but short part of the year.