Varanasi is also the cuisine capital of India because of the exotic fare of mouth-watering delicacies it offers. The traditional Senaras/’food is satvik vegetarian with the emphasis always on flavours, and very rarely on fancy presentation. What the city can truly call its own are milk and curd-based drinks: the thandai, Lassi and Benarsi paan. The city has a blend of the cuisine of the region with a superlative menu of vegetarian fare. There is a string of special dishes connected to various rituals and festivals. In routine, there is the typical menu of breakfast and snacks. Kachaurl jalebi is the perfect morning meal, and evenings and the afternoon are spiced up by samosa and launglata. Hot milk, malai and rabri shops mushroom on roads and streets in the evenings. Benares pan is famous for all over India.
Sweets of Varanasi
Benarsi mithais like malai malpuas, gu-jhias, lalpedas, kalakand, khirmohan, and khirkadan, besides hundreds of other sweets, delight your taste buds long after you’ve had them.A unique blend of premium sweets made of khoa, mewa and pista, makes up the menu of the shop that is located in Chaukhambha and has also another branch at Rathyatra. Most popular among the sweetmeats available here are butter burfi, karanshahi burfi and mango burfi. The yellow peda, nick- named chandrakala is yet another stellar offering, whose khoa sweets are the most popular. Kuber Bhandaar, is perhaps the lone sweet shop in India that exclusively sells sweet-meats for those on vrat (religious fasts). Rasra/and rasmadhuri, are just two of the specialties of this 50-year-old shop. Madhur Jalpan, another old sweet shop located A near tne Bansphatak, specialises in maal Pua and JaletJas.
The ideal evenings in Varanasi are accompanied by the munching of crispy samosas, chatpata chaat and sohals and sweet lavanglatas. In winters lavanglatas and imartis are complemented with hot milk. Though samosas and sohal are available every- where at sweet shops in the city, some shops like Jalyog and Madhur Milan, at Godaulia and Sigra re- spectively, are famous in this quarter. Chaat stalls too abound in the city serving some spicy tikkis and tangy golgappas. Shops like the Deena Chat Bhan- daar and Kashi Chat Bhandar are the leaders of the pack.
The shops selling Lassi and curd in summer, switch to rabri and malai in winter. But one of the most unique preparations of milk in the winters is the mallaiyo. Yellow in colour, it is pre- pared by first thickening milk over fire and then leav- ing it to be foamed in contact with dew during the night. In the morning the same foam is taken in a kadhai and then sold as mallaiyo.