Chai Pani, Decatur

Before moving to Ohio and then Atlanta I used to have Indian quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong I have had good Indian since moving from California but just not as frequently. That might change now that I know about Chai Pani. I heard about this from Atlanta Eats and I was ready to dive in when they were talking about it at 10:30 in the morning, but I was good and waited a few weeks before I headed to Decatur to check it out. My friend Taylor and I went on Saturday night and right when you walk in you see a gathering of people around a man passing out pastry like cups with a mixture then dunked in a juice. Not having seen this before I was very curious but it took me a while to read what it was because people were always in front of the sign! Once we sat down we each got one and I will warn you they are juicy so best to eat in one bite. I don’t think I have had anything like it before, it was light and refreshing the big flavors were cilantro and onions but not over-whelming. We wanted to try a variety of things so we decided to go for two street food, think tapas and one thali, think a full meal on one plate. The first dish was Kale Pakoras, fried kale, with a sweet yogurt and green cilantro dipping sauces. When you hear that something is fried you are probably assuming that it is heavy but on the contrary this just had more of a crispy/ crunch to it The second dish was Bhel Puri, which was like a party in your mouth. It was sweet tangy and spicy, all flavors hitting at a different time! This is one of their most popular dishes and I can see why. The third dish was the Arangaon Chicken Thali, I have no clue how they prepared the chicken but it was unbelievably tender. It came with sabji- a cauliflower dish, basmati rice, daal, kachumber- a cucumber & tomato salad, raita, papadum, and roti. If one were to order this for themselves they would easily have enough food for two meals. I think that’s why I love Indian food, it’s so easy to share that you get to try multiple dishes! I already saw two other dishes I want to try so needless to say I’ll be back, the question is how soon?!