00:00Come on, what's not to love about this?
00:04I am Karan Gokhani, and today I'm going to take you to some of my favorite Indian restaurants
00:09across London, and this is where the chefs eat.
00:15That samosa is actually really good.
00:18I think London is the place in the world for food right now.
00:22You've got all the cultures, every little street offers so much.
00:27At every price point, you've got Paro Market, you've got obviously the pasta in Mayfair,
00:32you've got the little neighborhoods, you've got so much happening in the East.
00:34I think London keeps it real.
00:36Yes, you can get your crazy expensive, you know, bougie meals in some restaurants, but
00:41at the same time, you can get some really fun, authentic food.
00:45That's the kind of food I love eating.
00:54When I come to New Calabar, I always get the chaat.
00:57So chaat is a category of food that you find in most metros across India.
01:01It literally means lick, because you eat that food with your fingers, you're sort of licking
01:05your fingers afterwards, and it's so tasty.
01:08These guys do something that I grew up eating in the streets of Bombay, a Bombay bhel puri.
01:13So it's got rice puff, it's got little crisps, it's got potatoes, onions, and the most important
01:19thing are the different chutneys that they use to make it.
01:22You've got spice from the green chutney, and then you've got tang from the tamarind, you've
01:26got this lovely garlicky background from the red chutney.
01:29It's just delicious.
01:31You get this in newspaper cones on the street, and typically you won't get a spoon, but you
01:35get one of these, so you kind of dig it in, use it as a spoon.
01:39Final, the last bite, you load your last little bit of bhel on top and eat the whole thing.
01:45So it's, you know, it's just fun.
01:47Now that, what I love about this is, both of them are puris, and puris are these crisps
01:53made from wheat or semolina, which you just fry up and puff.
01:56And there are two versions here.
01:57These are pani puris, really simple, there's black chickpeas, there's potatoes, sometimes
02:01you can put things like moong beans in there, you can put spices in there.
02:05And then there's a simple sort of minted tamarind water.
02:09So you pour that in, and the idea is to have it in one shot, a bit like a balloon exploding
02:13with textures and flavours in your mouth.
02:16And the fun thing is, with the same puris, you can fill them up with yoghurt, a little
02:20bit more tamarind chutney and the same crisps, pomegranate just for, again, a little bit
02:24of sweetness and fruitiness to it.
02:26It's the same dish, but just tastes so different because of the yoghurt in one and the pani
02:30puri pani in the other one.
02:32Now obviously, this is a bit of a starter.
02:34But when we were kids, we'd sit and eat pani puri, my brother and me would just eat piles
02:39of pani puri as a main course, which I can't think of doing today.
02:44New Calabar is my choice for chaat, for North Indian food and for that homely Indian food
02:50that you'd find at restaurants back in the 90s, if you were growing up in Bombay.
02:54Right, so that was a great start, got my belly full of chaat, I'm going to take you to the
02:59next spot.
03:08So I am in Soho, possibly my favourite part of London.
03:13This is something really unique, we're at Govinda's restaurant, which is part of the
03:16Hariram Hare Krishna temple.
03:19So you've got a temple on the first floor, you'll see the big Hariram Hare Krishna procession
03:22that goes all around Soho, people singing and dancing.
03:26And I think it's a bit of an establishment, so it's not just about food for me when I
03:30come here.
03:31You can get great food across London, but for me it's about this little moment where
03:35you're rubbing shoulders with people from all walks of life, all sorts of beliefs and
03:40faiths.
03:41It's the ethos and the thinking behind the food, so it's all for a good cause, it's such
03:45good value.
03:48So when you come to Govinda's, and I hope you do, obviously visit the temple upstairs,
03:52but then when it comes to eating, I go for the thali.
03:55And you've got various thalis, you've got a vegan thali, you've got a slightly bigger
03:59one, I've obviously gone all in with the giant Govinda thali.
04:03Thali, it actually refers to the plate, and you've got a whole selection of dishes.
04:08So we'd have that, you know, at a normal lunch at home, at Diwali, my grandma would have
04:12a massive thali for us.
04:16I'll start with, what's on my hand, that's a papad, you have different versions of papad,
04:20this is a fried papad.
04:21Then they do a spring roll, I prefer samosa, so I've taken an extra samosa.
04:25Something I love with a lot of my food is the roti, so they've got a simple chapati,
04:29which is our easiest, lightest option when you're eating something like this.
04:33A dal, which is like a light lentil curry, you've then got a kidney bean curry, it's
04:38a couple of dried stir fried dishes, I think that looks like cabbage and corn to me.
04:42Rice, which is essential, I normally eat rice after the roti.
04:45And then my favourite thing, and I'm glad it's there on the menu today, there's a mango
04:49shrikhand, which is like a hung yoghurt with mango puree, a little bit of saffron, a little
04:53bit of cardamom whipped through.
04:55Even my youngest son, he just loves shrikhand, I made the mistake of giving it to him once
04:59with his meal.
05:00So I think it's in my blood, but I love that stuff.
05:07Anything in Govinda's cooked, Hargisana temple, love and devotion, we cook with the love and devotion.
05:13But you can feel that.
05:14Exactly.
05:15When you get the food from the people, and this is, you know, another special thing about
05:18this place.
05:19Then when they're cooking, they have to listen to bhajan.
05:23When you cook with that mode, then you cook, actually, literally, you create some dishes,
05:29which is nourishing for your health and soul.
05:35So I've just dined at Govinda's here in Soho, and it's been so special because it wasn't
05:40just a meal, I got to go to the temple, it's reinforced everything I've believed about
05:44how clean and homely their food is.
05:46It was a fantastic meal, but now I'm going to take you to arguably my favourite spot
05:50in London.
05:51Come follow me.
05:54I know I'm biased, but I think London is the place to get the best Indian food outside
06:00India.
06:01Wembley for one, Tooting, but if you're more central, there's Brick Lane, where you get
06:05the curry mile.
06:06So there is incredible regional Indian food.
06:09Generally, when you're in a neighbourhood and you walk around, you get a very good feel
06:12for where people are going, what has the queues, and what looks fresh.
06:17Here we are at our last and final stop of the day.
06:21This is something that's very special to my heart.
06:23Come join me at Hopper's.
06:28So we're in Hopper's Soho, tiny little space, as you can see, 40 seats, almost a bit like
06:33a film set, where it's immersive, it's hidden, it's just exciting.
06:38The crowd we see over the last nine years of having this restaurant, I've noticed that
06:42you know, people have gone from what is South India to, oh, we know a dosa.
06:48You kind of understand the finer nuances, maybe not to the extent that we know them,
06:52but that's what we're here for.
06:53So we've got probably the dish we've sold most of at Hopper's ever since we opened nine
07:00years ago.
07:01Our bone marrow varuval, we've got beef bones, simmer them in this lovely curry made from
07:07coriander seeds, coconut, chillies, loads of curry leaves, and then we serve it with
07:13a homemade malabar paratha.
07:15Beautiful flaky paratha, it's almost like a croissant, like an Indian croissant.
07:19All those layers, all that lamination, then squashed together, and then fluffed back out.
07:24So break a little piece of this, load this on top, and enjoy.
07:29I don't know how many of these dishes have been sold over the years, but it is still
07:34the first thing I feed anyone or come in and eat when I'm at Hopper's.
07:39Eat more than the restaurant, it was about creating a space where you just come in and
07:45feel like you're transported, like you're taken away somewhere, because a lot of dining
07:49is about that whole experience of, you know, the sounds, whether he's making a dosa in
07:53the kitchen like that, or the people you end up sitting next to and chatting to, the friendships
07:58you make.
07:59I've had guests who've come in, sat next to each other, one has paid the other person's
08:04bill by the end of a 45-minute meal, because they became such good friends.
08:08I think it's stories like that that really define dining in Soho, dining in London.
08:14Oh, look at that bite.
08:20I'll tell you what, I've been on all kinds of diets over the last nine years, but the
08:25one thing I just cannot avoid, is if I walk past the dosa gurdi, and the guy's making
08:32a fresh dosa, I can't resist ordering one for myself.
08:35And it's this one particularly, look at that.
08:39The chilli cheese dosa.
08:41This is just magic.
08:43We make the dosa, we get a layer of podi on top, which is this lovely sort of lentil spice
08:49and chilli powder.
08:50We get a mix of mozzarella and cheddar, and then we get fresh green chillies.
08:55It's nuts.
08:56And all you need to really eat a dosa is some chutneys, maybe some sambar, but when I'm
09:02having this as a snack, just those chutneys are more than enough.
09:05I'm almost three lunches down now, and I'll tell you what's next.
09:08It's time for a big, long nap.
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