Today, Bon Appétit joins Chef Meherwan Irani in Mumbai to try the city’s number one street food: Vada Pav. A deep-fried spicy potato dumpling in a bun topped with delicious chutneys, millions of these sandwiches are sold every day throughout the city, making them the most popular street food in Mumbai.
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00:00Whoo! If you're in Bombay, there's one sandwich you have to eat. It's the Wada Pau.
00:07It's a potato dumpling, spiced, dipped in chickpea batter, in a bun, with glorious chutneys.
00:12Cameron, millions are sold every day, all across the city.
00:15It's the number one sandwich on the planet. And right behind me is Aram Wada Pau.
00:19They sell thousands of Wada Pau a day. We're gonna go inside and see how they do it.
00:24Let's get into the kitchen.
00:27All of this is happening in less than 100 square feet. They're making the Wadas over the corner.
00:32Come on, let's take a look at what Chef Chetan's doing over here.
00:36So these are the actual Wadas. This is potato that's been boiled and then spiced with popped mustard seeds, curry leaves, green chilies, ginger, and a little bit of hing, asafoetida.
00:47It's the resin from this plant. And it's a very simple recipe. It isn't heavily masalified because the magic happens when he dips it in the fakora batter.
00:55The batter itself is also seasoned with salt. It's made with chickpea flour. And it's essentially got probably a hint of turmeric and a little bit of hing in it.
01:03Then it's deep fried. This has to be done by hand. There's absolutely no other way to do it.
01:07Andy's perfected his technique. The ball's getting tossed from one hand to the other. A quick dunk in the batter.
01:13The batter's got to be at the perfect texture, not too thick, not too thin. A little bit thicker than pancake batter.
01:18And then dunk it in the oil in such a way so that it doesn't sink to the bottom and stays floating at the top.
01:23It's set to roughly 200 degrees Celsius is what I can see on the front. His range is between 200 and 250.
01:30That's almost 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Extremely hot. Because remember, he doesn't have to worry about cooking the inside.
01:35He just has to make sure that the outside gets golden and crispy and fast.
01:39There's 36 of the wada's in a tray and he gets 55 in it at one time.
01:43So it's a practice motion where he's flinging a wada from one hand to the other, giving it a quick roll and dropping the oil.
01:50It's rolling off his fingertips. Think of Michael Jordan making that final shot in game six against Utah.
01:55The ball's just rolling off his fingertips. It's really amazing. I mean, there's no difference in craftsmanship and trade.
02:02It's just practice, timing, experience.
02:05He comes from his village every week to do this Monday through Friday and then the weekend he goes back to the village.
02:10He is the wada pao specialist at our wada pao. So he's going to get 55 in there.
02:14It'll take about two to three minutes. It'll get in that tray and start immediately over all over again.
02:20I just did the math real quickly. If he's doing 55 every three minutes, he's doing approximately a thousand.
02:24an hour. Separate from the oil, he's collecting what we call the bundi, the little crunchy bits that drip off the batter into the oil.
02:31And those are going to be part of the sandwich also. So you can ask for extra on the sandwich, the bundi, the chura,
02:37so that you get a beautiful nice crunch when you take a bite on the sandwich.
02:41This red garlic chutney is the smell of Harash to me. Tiny little baby garlic, sometimes fried, sometimes dried in the sun.
02:50Peanuts, red chilies, obviously dried red chilies, salt, and then the chura. This stuff is crumbled up and put into it.
02:58Everybody's got their own technique for how to make it. These guys add a little bit of this to that, and they make it fresh here almost every day.
03:05And this is what gives wada pao its distinctive taste. A wada pao without this, I mean, take a look at that hole in the window here.
03:14This is where it goes. Then up front are the maestros doing the sandwich assembly. So this entire operation, 99% of the wadas are going through that tiny hole in the wall to serve the hundreds of people gathered outside.
03:25Let me show you the other side of the window, right back here. Chetan, how are you? This is where the food comes out, the wadas come out.
03:34They go straight into the bucket over here. You've got two assembly stations, one on the right, one on the left. Take a look at the crowd outside.
03:41They're wondering what I'm doing in here. They just want their wada pao. They're ready to go.
03:44Once the buns open, the green chutney is spooned under the top and smeared with a spoon.
03:48Then they sprinkle the garlic red chutney, which is dry, onto the bottom so it sticks to the chutney and doesn't fall out.
03:54The sweet chutney is squirted onto the bottom from a squeeze bottle, wada stuffed on the inside, and then the fried green chili is stuck on top,
04:01handed to you on a piece of wax paper if you're going to eat it here, or wrapped up if you're going to take it to go.
04:06We're not even in any kind of meal rush. It's just a random time in the afternoon.
04:10In about an hour, people start emptying out of offices, but then I can't imagine what this looks like at 8 p.m.
04:16As folks decide that what they were craving for dinner, what they were hankering for, was a wada pao.
04:22We're on the street, literally. Everywhere around me, people are eating their wada pao standing on the street.
04:27I mean, this is the definition of street food. The wada pao is to Mumbai what the slice of pizza is in New York City.
04:32I mean, it defines Bombay. During the Civil War in America, when cotton production plunged, the cotton mills in Bombay went into overdrive so that they could supply cotton to the rest of the world.
04:41Suddenly, factory workers were coming out at all odd hours of the day, and they needed to eat.
04:46So the enterprising street cart vendors figured out how to make on-the-fly dishes on a tiny little hawker stand.
04:52So they'd go to the bakeries that were run by the Portuguese. They were baking this roll called pao, which is the Portuguese word for bread.
04:58And they put together these stomach-filling meals that could be done in bread with vegetables so that it would basically appeal to everybody.
05:05And that's sort of the origin of the wada pao and many of the other pao dishes. I'm salivating. I've been waiting for this moment for three days.
05:12One wada pao.
05:2025 rupees. This is insane. I mean, that's a quarter.
05:23So I got my coupon, and luckily, there seems to be a longer line right now than folks picking up the wada, so I got a break here.
05:30Just got to shove this in his face and get his attention. Can't be shy. You got to get, you got to be aggressive, you got to move in.
05:36If I stand here and wait for people, I'll be going further back every second. Here we go. Get right in there.
05:45And there's my green chili. Let's walk with this bad boy. I can't wait.
05:51This is a love story to Mumbai. I mean, it is, we've got the green chutney on the top, the wada itself.
05:58On the bottom, we got the tamarind chutney, the sweet chutney, as they call it, mita chutney, mixed in with some of that red chili garlic peanut chutney.
06:05And, of course, the spicy fried chili on top, so you get a little bit of heat. I mean...
06:16Woo! It's, I can't even describe the, what's happening in my mouth right now.
06:20The bread is so soft, it literally just tears apart. And then you hit the crunch of the pakora batter on the outside.
06:27And then the soft, warm, almost umami-laden potatoes just sort of coat the inside of the mouth with a creamy texture.
06:35And then, all of a sudden, the bite of that red chili with the garlic just hits your tongue, lights it up.
06:40It makes you want to go back in for another bite almost immediately.
06:44It's a, uh, virtuous cycle. Bite, burn, bite, burn.
06:53There are certain foods that have this special thing about it.
06:57I guess the word, the English word we'd call is crave-worthy, where every bite literally creates the desire for the next bite.
07:03I feel like that way with pizza, and, uh, huarapau is definitely one of those foods.
07:07Every bite creates the desire for the next one.
07:09That's when you know that you've got something truly special happening.
07:14It's a filling sandwich. Um, that's the idea behind a huarapau, is to fill the bellies of hungry, you know, office workers, factory workers.
07:21And it works as breakfast. It works as a snack in between meals.
07:25While we've been standing here, we've seen students. We've seen panhandlers.
07:28We've seen businessmen in suits. We've seen lawyers coming out of their courtroom cases.
07:32And it's a universal food. It transcends all ethnicities, socioeconomic classes.
07:37Rich, poor, student, judge, victim. Everybody enjoys a huarapau.
07:43If you come to Mumbai, there's so much you can hear.
07:46But the one thing you have to do to have the quintessential Mumbai experience
07:50is to have a huarapau. It is the sandwich that defines the city.
07:54Amazing history and an amazing sandwich.
07:57That's Mumbai all wrapped up in a package for you.
07:59History, story, the personal touch, and, as always, the taste.