we're in Chennai, India and we're taking
you on a massive street food hunt today
we're gonna show you some of the best
food Chennai has to offer
Chennai in the
south of India is a food paradise the
food is varied and most of all delicious
this video is part of our massive India
series and we're taking you on an
incredible street food tour to hunt down
Chennai's best food we're going to be
eating four mouth-watering snacks
and an epic South Indian banana leaf
meal so make sure you watch right to the
end of this video so you don't miss out
on any of this incredible food
I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate
we hope you're hungry, let's eat
we're in the area known as Sowcarpet and
this place is really popular for
street food hunting there are lots of
stalls that specialise in North Indian
chaat or snacks so let's go and grab something to eat
our first snack is an onion kachodi a type of deep-fried pastry and it is bubbling away
in this hot wok behind me and the
cook has just told us to hold off on
ordering and just wait for these ones so
they're piping hot and fresh
so this is the onion kachodi 
so it's a deep-fried pastry and they
have topped it with a variety of
chutneys, there's a green chutney, a red
chutney and then a brown tamarind chutney
and as I said before they are cooking
these things right out on the street and you can
all watch them from start to finish
so the kachodi starts as a big round,
white ball of dough and the guys smush them
down into a pancake between their palms
and then they slip it, slip them into the
hot oil and then they just bubble away
and cook and the final product boy does
it look good so what they've done you
can see here is that they've punched a hole in the
middle of the Kachodi and filled it with those chutneys so there's
a green mint and coriander chutney, there's a 
really vibrant looking chilli and garlic
chutney and then a brown, quite thin, tamarind chutney
this kachodi is piping hot so what
I'm going to do is rip a piece off whoa
it's so flaky and you can see it's actually stuffed with something so I'm gonna try and push that
chutney aside, there's a few spices in
there I can see some cumin seeds and
some mustard seeds, all right I'm gonna dip that piece in that chutney and let's give it a go
mmmmmmmm, wow, that is so crispy and those chutneys are full of flavour
that garlic one, the red one, has such a hit of chilli it's
very spicy I just want to get a closer
look inside and see if there's stuff in the
kachodi, oh yea there is so you can see in there
there's some slow cooked onions so some
pieces of onion in there and then all
those spices and then because they punch
that hole in the middle of the Kachodi
all that tamarind chutney has just seeped down and it's all wet in there
oh my gosh so good, I'm gonna get another huge piece, all right
mmmmm, mmm!
this thing is so addictive, it looks like it's going to be really stodgy especially because it
was swimming in that hot, hot oil but it's really light and really flaky it's so delicious
hiding at the other end of
this kachodi was some boiled potato and
I've got to tell you this snack has got it
all, there's so much texture, so much
flavor, there's sweetness from those
onions, then also that tamarind
chutney, it's very spicy because of that
garlic chilli chutney, it's buttery
because of that kachodi itself, the
pastry is insane and then you've got
that vibrant freshness from that green
chutney this is going down a real treat
we're on our way by foot to our next
stop and this area of Chennai is crazy
there is something to dodge at every
footstep pretty much but our next stop
is right here for a lassi
I've got my lassi and this thing is
ginormous
and it's the most beautiful colour look
at that yellow so this is a yogurt based
drink and they take water to thin down
the yogurt so you can see it's quite
runny a little bit foamy on top because
of the way he poured it to stretch it
out and get some air into it and it is
bright yellow because it is saffron
flavored ohhh it looks unreal
Ohhhhh, oh that is good
lassis can often be really really sweet
this actually isn't too bad it's definitely sweet
I'm not saying it's not sweet but it's
not crazy sweet it's a little bit sour
it's not too saffron-y it's got 
quite a mild taste of the saffron and
you can see that this one is quite runny
so they've really watered this down and
it gives it a beautiful texture I'm just
gonna whack more, so good
oh, ohhhhh
it's so refreshing for a dairy based
drink it's quite light, refreshing
it's super cool as well and it's really
hot here and really full on with all this
tooting and people around so you
just want something refreshing this
ticks all the boxes really tasty
we downed that lassi and our next stop is literally right next door we're grabbing an aloo tikki
check out this aloo tikki it is a
work of art so it's made up of a ton of
different components so it starts with
a base of potato
so this plate was just covered with potato
then he piled on dollops of chutney so a
green chutney and then a brown chutney
and then heaps and heaps of curd so he just covered the whole potato mixture in dollops of curd
more chutney so more green chutney more
brown chutney and then came a pile of
slaw so there's grated cabbage and also
carrot and beetroot, then a pile of sev these chickpea
noodles I've got here then some spice so masala mix and then a little cube of paneer cheese
the potato is like a hash brown so it's got crunchy outsides
and smooth creamy insides, look at this huge bite
mmm, mmmm, mmmmm
whoa whoa whoa that is a flavor sensation
the hash brown is really crispy, you crunch through it and then you've got that smooth boiled potato
and all that curd is so creamy
really sweet from that tamarind chutney, that crispy sev on top and then that green
chutney is very vibrant, I also love that slaw on top it adds this really
vibrant freshness
this aloo tikki is so
good I've got to go for some more I
might try and get some of that paneer
this time in a mouthful all right
the paneer is really creamy but it's still got a bit of bounce
and those cubes of potato whoa, so much texture and so much flavour
it's sweet, it's salty, it's savoury, it's crunchy it's so good
we're down
to our last bites of the aloo tikki and
we've spotted some peanuts and also some
raisins this thing is a treasure trove of
ingredients
the street food hunt
continues we've gone a little way down
the road and now we're gonna have a south
Indian snack I gotta get over there
first
I've got a south Indian snack here
called uttapam so it's a little, a rice
flour pancake really, a fermented rice
flour pancake and watching this being
made was unreal they were just powering these off that hotplate
so the very thin rice batter got dumped all over the hot plate once that
started to cook a little bit
they put big handfuls of red onion and
coriander all over the top then flipped
those over a little bit on the hotplate
and then came the ghee, so much ghee
which is a clarified butter so oil
basically they just loaded them up with
ghee until that started bubbling away
really, really hot once they were really
bubbling away they got a thing of spice
mixture which is called podi or
gunpowder actually because it's meant to
be pretty spicy and put a lot of that on
top of these a lot of that so if it is
meant to be spicy
these are definitely gonna be chilli
hot
it gets served on the banana leaf and
we've got some chutney so some green
chutney that's probably coriander and
mint and that looks like a really fiery
chilli maybe chilli and garlic but you can
definitely see big bits of red chilli in
there and if I flip this over you can see all
that coriander and the big chunks of red
onion that have cooked down and look
like they're gonna be nice and sweet
ohhh and that powder that's all over there
feels quite sugary and look how golden
it is on that other side oh man this is
really hot, the oil is burning or the
ghee, all right let's dunk in that green chutney
wow, wow
oh that batter is fermented so 
it's really tangy it's a little bit
squishy cause it is quite thick oh the
flavor in the onions so good really sweet but
still crunchy I'm gonna rip another bit
off
it's actually not that spicy at all it's
definitely, whoa
that is hot, okay let's go for this red chutney
that is unreal, it's very light, it's all aerated so it's been
filled with bubbles while it's been cooking
on that hotplate which means it's actually really light
and it has the most fine delicate crust on the outside on that
crispy side which is just a tiny little bit of
crunch and sort of pops in your mouth
until you get to that squishy inside
the more I eat of this I'm noticing this
grittiness you can actually, can you see on my
fingers there's almost grittiness on it
and I think that's from the the powder
that spice mixture that went on and
it's very gritty and it hasn't dissolved
so it must be some sort of, it's like chickpea or something like ground down and
that's what's giving it that real crunch,
that little crust, it's so good, I love this whole
environment, this street is mad
as you can tell from all the beeping, it's full on [loud honk]
hahhaha standing here with your banana leaf plate, this as a snack [loud honk]
wow, this is India wrapped up, incredible food, the sounds, I love it, love everything about it
our Chennai food hunt continues and we
are at our next stop and we're here to
eat Chettinad food so Chettinad cuisine
is the food of the Chettiar community
and they're from Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu
is the state that Chennai is in so let's go and
eat
this is a traditional South Indian meal
so it's served on a banana leaf and
Chettinad food is known as being very
vibrant, bold and quite spicy and I can
totally believe it from the looks of
these dishes which are on our table, let me
talk you through what we've got,
this one here is like the house
specialty chicken it is chicken cooked on
the bone and I can see a ton of
spices in that gravy, this here is
mutton varuval so a mutton dry curry
a ton of um curry leaves in there and this one here is just a special chicken curry
sauce, this spectacular looking dish here
is crab masala
check out those claws and then we've got lots
of different pots of goodies so here we
have curd, rasam which is a type of
soup that aids digestion, I've got a
range of curry sauces which we can pour
onto our rice so we've got a fish curry,
a mutton curry and a chicken curry and
then we've got two vegetable dishes some
cabbage and also a dark green vegetable
they're cooked with dried chillies, time to
get into this feast so I'm gonna grab
this fish curry here so pour that gravy
onto my rice, give that
a really good mix up and I'm just gonna
try this by itself first
ohhh that is so good, it's very spicy, very
tangy there's a bunch of tomatoes cooked
in there but it's super super light
that is sensational and this crab masala
how good does it look?
So it's got a really thick paste on top
of it and then heaps and heaps of these
curry leaves so let's just go for this
humongous claw I've just gotta rip into
it I think that the best thing to do
might be just to put it, oh no look it's 
already been cracked a bit so I can just
rip that open look at that, all right
mmm whoa that crab is so sweet it just
melts in your mouth
almost and then that masala on top this
spice paste hmm it's very peppery it's got
a great flavor I just want to get a bit
more of that because I didn't have too
much on that piece so let's just put
that right into that crabmeat there I'm
just going to try and poke some of that
meat out, oh yeah look at that, heaps of
spiced paste and also that crab
hmm ohh that spice paste is really salty,
peppery, it's thick got so much flavour it
works beautifully with that delicate
crab which is really sweet oh this is going
down a treat
there's so many good-looking dishes on
our table that it's been really hard to
choose what to have next but I've gone with
the chicken curry the special chicken
curry, so I've poured some of that chicken
curry gravy you can see here on the rice
and then I've got a huge piece of that
Amma's special chicken and I'm gonna rip
into it, the gravy that the curry is in
is just packed with ingredients there's
tomato, garlic, curry leaves, mustard seeds
oh it's gonna be a flavor sensation I
can just tell all right
okay mix it up with the rice
mmm, mmm, mmmm, mmmmm, I think I've got it all over my chin
oh man that is amazing
the chicken, it's really tender and then
that gravy
is really flavorsome so it's packed with
all of those ingredients that are very
vibrant, so the garlic, the tomato, the
curry leaves, the mustard seeds but then
it's also really well balanced it's quite
subtle it's not a real punch in the face
I've loaded up my rice with the mutton
gravy and spoonfuls of this mutton dish
which just looks like absolute food
heaven it looks super tender filled with
all those curry leaves and then I've
also got a huge chunk of garlic or a
whole clove of garlic on top oh I can
already feel that that mutton is really
really soft
oh the meat's like butter oh my god oh, oh
that's incredible
it's got a really good spice from chilli, a great, great kick, I'm gonna go
again, unreal, 
I think there's a bunch of yes
tomato to add a little bit of sort of 
acidity to it, that's coming from the
tomato
oh man it's got a cinnamon sort of taste
in it, the, the sauce that it's in is
really, really thick I cannot get over
that meat it is so tender that's obviously
been cooked for a very long time and
it's got little layers of fat on some
of the pieces still which are just super
soft and super juicy I want to try
actually this, this special chicken um
curry so this is just like the gravy but it's
very thick as well, just gonna spoon a bit 
onto my rice just try that as is
ohhh that's really sweet and it has a smoky sort of
burnt taste to it but in a good way I
can see why Sheena was going crazy
about, about what she was eating on
camera because these are my first mouthfuls, unreal I'll grab the little
container of chicken curry, so we'll pour
some of that on, the joy of these meals
is the rice you can get as much as you
like so if you want more just ask for it and all
of these little side dishes, they can
refill them as much as you like so you
can go crazy you don't have to hold back
oh my gosh look how huge this piece of crab
is, it is filled with meat I barely
have to dig and I can just pull out huge chunks
I'm so happy right now we've got to put
down the camera and get elbows deep into
all this food
we've demolished the crab, the mutton and the chicken and now I've
got a bit more white rice I say a bit
but there's a huge pile here to finish
off my rasam and the curd so the
rasam is a soup and it's traditionally
made using tamarind and also spices and
maybe tomato and I'm gonna split my rice up like
this and pour the rasam in the rasam is supposed to aid digestion so
this is gonna help me digest all of that
delicious food that we've just eaten
mmm, mmm! It's really sour from that tamarind and you
can really taste that vegetable base
which they've used I think there's also
lentils in here as well so the rice
soaks up all of rasam and it's just really tangy and then finally
I've got my pot of curd and I'm gonna
pour it onto this portion of white rice
to make some curd rice so this is
supposed to once again aid digestion and
it's gonna be really cooling on the
palate
okay I've got a nice big sloppy mouthful
mmm, oh yea, it takes away the burn
that was left behind by all the chilli and
the spice and it's really sour
mixed with that rice it's a beautiful ending
 to this incredible Chettinad
spread
what a great day of food hunting
in Chennai there is so much good food
here and remember we always put the
details of where we're eating down below
in the description box thank you so much
for watching, remember to hit that
subscribe button
we've got tons more food videos from
India to come,
lots of Chennai content as well as
Hyderabad next, remember to hit that
thumbs up if you enjoyed the video and
if you want to support more Chasing
a Plate content check out our Patreon page
thank you so much for watching we'll see
you next time
poitu varun, poitu varun
