Sampling Indian Street Food in Berkeley

The sweets case at Vik's Chaat Corner, Berkeley
Photo by Madeline Horn

Where can you go in the East Bay to experience authentic Indian street food? Vik's Chaat Corner specializes in chaat (Indian street food), exposing Berkeleyites to flavor and texture combinations way outside the day to day and offering a taste of home to Berkeley's large Indian-American population. Planning a trip to India? I highly suggest you visit Vik's Chaat Corner to prepare yourself for the sensory explosion you will experience in India. Especially helpful for those planning to embark to India is the menu - which serves as a glossary of Indian street food, explaining the back story, the ingredients, and giving actual instruction on how to eat the stuff. Andre and I literally referred to the menu to guide us in eating our Pani Puri, clamshell-sized hollow crispy puffs which you poke a hole in, fill with a mixture of seasoned potato and garbanzo, then tamarind sauce, and finally bright green mint and chili pepper infused water, before popping the whole thing in your mouth.

Mango and Rose Lassis at Vik's Chaat Corner
Photo by Madeline Horn

Vik's Chaat offers exotic beverages to whet your whistle, including mango lassi, rose lassi, chai, and young coconut, hacked open for your sipping pleasure.

Vik's Chaat Corner's warehouse space also includes an Indian market, with lentils, basmati rice, tandoori spice, and mango jello. Ethnic-specific markets are fast becoming one of my favorite things in the East Bay. With Spanish, Arabic, Indian, Southeast Asian, Latino, even Nordic, you can get pretty much any ingredient and cooking utensil you need to recreate international flavors at home. After taking a cooking course in Thailand, I now plan to learn to cook in every country that I visit. After all, eating new foods is one of my favorite things about traveling!

Vik's Chaat Corner website: www.vikschaatcorner.com 
Open Monday-Thursday 11am-6pm, Friday-Sunday 11am-8pm


Have you been to India and tasted their street food? What were your favorite dishes? Have you also been to Vik's? How does it compare to real Indian street food?

                                             
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