Bhubaneswar Street Food – 9 Must Have Dishes

Bhubaneswar is a beautiful city, with the lush greenery, well planned infrastructure and of course a culture that blends spirituality with modernity.

With its relatively young urban areas, finding documentation on legendary eateries or street food can be rare. I just returned from this city after staying here for almost a decade and thought it would be a good idea to share these options with people who are either new to the city or travelling there.

Rasagula – Odisha’s Rasagola is a Must Have Street Food in Bhubaneswar

Let’s do away with the controversy first, since Bengal and Odisha both stake claim to being the inventor of this dish.

As a Bengali (born and brought up in Bengal) who has spent his childhood and teenage gorging on the white roshogollas and also as someone who has stayed in Odisha for more than a decade, I can be a good judge here.

The Odisha variant (there’s more than one) is very different from it’s Bengal counterpart.

The ones available within the city limits (also called as Pahala Rasagola) are steaming hot and less sweeter than its Bengali counterpart. They have a hint of cardamom and appear brownish or reddish in color.

These are melt in the mouth rasagolas that you can relish on a cold or windy evening

You need to be very specific when go to a sweet shop. Ask them for “pahala rasagola” instead of just “rasagola”; since sadly, most sweet shops in the city still sell the white, Kolkata variant.

Pithas – Traditional Sweets of Odisha

A city that makes and relishes pitha round the year – welcome to Bhubaneswar.

From kakra, manda (pronounced as mawnda), haldi patra pitha, Odisha offers more than a hundred varieties of pithas. And there’s a handful of shops that make pithas on a regular basis.

My favorite outlet is “Mitha and Pitha” (location below).

During my last week of stay, I was pleasantly surprised when I tried this pitha named as “vegetable pitha”.

Vegetables like cauliflower, carrot, potato and peas are chopped, cooked and stuffed inside a mawnda pitha and served with a thin chana matar tarkari (curry).

If you are in Bhubaneswar, try the pithas!

Malpua Aloo Kasa or Aludum

Malpua (a dish that resembles pancakes made of flour or semolina) dipped in sugary syrup is served with a spiced up dry potato curry

Doesn’t this sound unique? I discovered this pretty late and wondered how could someone put aloo dum on a malpua, till I reached this place.

Serving Style: Hot malpuas are served on a bowl made from sal leaves. Scoops of aloo dum (also called aloo kasa locally) are heaped on the malpua and chopped onions are thrown in. A toothpick accompanies.

Flavor Check: Toothpicks are inconvenient and using your fingers make for a better experience. How should you eat it, what should you take a bite off first? The malpua or the aloo dum?

Both together. Using your index finger and thumb, tear a piece from the malpua. Put a small piece of aloo (potato) on it, add in a piece or two of chopped onion and tuck it in your mouth.

Feel the flavors now! A combination of sweet and spicy flavors, this dish is a unique proposition to the street food story of Bhubaneswar.

Directions: If you have your back towards the Kesari Mall, take left and walk straight for 30-45 seconds without taking any turn until you see a small kiosk on your right selling evening snacks and tea. This is where you will experience a true and unique Odisha delight.

Bara, Gulgula and Piaji With Ghuguni or Aloo Kasa

If you are on the streets of Odisha, bara (pronounced ‘bawra’) and ghuguni (or ghugni) is the most basic fare that you would come across. Also the most inexpensive!

The ghugni (or chickpeas curry) is mostly watery thin and tastes bland, until some black salt (called bit luna in Odia) is sprinkled over it.

Many also substitute this ghugni with aloo kasa or alu dum, which is what I would prefer any day.

Apart from bara, you would also get aloo chop, samosa, piyaji and gulgula.

Talking of gulgula, this has been quite a revelation. A common Indian sweet, I tasted this for the first time in Bhubaneswar. Made of rice flour, and sometimes mixed with semolina, gulgula gets most of its flavor from sugar or jaggery and fennel seeds.

Served with ghugni, gulgula can also be eaten as is and does not require additional accompaniments.

Many kiosks also serve their own chutneys – a sweet or spicy one. Not to forget fried chilies that will take your street food experience in Bhubaneswar to another level, adding dimensions and layers to every bite you take.

Kulfis

Bhubaneswar is well known for its hot weather and kulfis are your answer to cool down at any point of the day.

There are multiple stores in the city that boast of kulfi and do a decent job. Narula, is a home grown brand that is my favorite for years now.

Narula’s kulfis have won over the hearts of the city. No wonder why kulfi and Narula are spoken in the same breath many-a-time. While they have their own store, you would find carts in most parts of the city that serve quality stuff of varied flavors like anjeer, mango, litchi, sitaphal, rabri, pan, kesar pista, etc.

I have loved their litchi and sitaphal for their natural flavors.

Chaat

I was in two minds on whether this should be on my list, because it took me quite a long time to find good chaat options and most of them are concentrated in one particular area of Bhubaneswar – Rupali Square.

On Rupali Square, you would find half a dozen of chaat shops, all in a line, next to one another. Each of them do an incredibly good job in feeding the city fascinating and delicious chaats.

The chaats in Bhubaneswar have a base of ghugni, topped with chutneys, curd and sev. A couple of pieces of dahi bada are tucked in while chopped onions and coriander leaves are liberally drizzled over the plate.

Priced at around 50 bucks for a plate, this is filling and make for an economical snacks-cum-diner.

Dahibada Aloodum – Best Bhubaneswar Street Food Option

And what do I say about dahibada aloodum? Haven’t I written already about how and why dahibada aloodum is Odisha’s favorite street food?

Conceptualized in Cuttack, this can be had at any point of the day – breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner. And a plate of this is inexpensive and filling, while ensuring that you have enough in you to beat the heat during the sultry summer days.

Below is a landmark of Bonfire. Just in front of this, you would find during the mornings one of the best Dahibara Aloodum kiosks of the area. Of course, every street has a handful of kiosks selling this mouth-watering street food, and most of them do a decent job with the dish.

Dahibada aloodum will always rank on top when it comes to the best street food of Bhubaneswar.

Oh, and always ask for a cup of dahi pani after you complete your plate.

Lassi

This makes the cut because of the uniqueness. Lassi to an average Indian is a curd based drink.

Until this average Indian decides to stop at Bhubaneswar for a day to savor it’s street food. A city that sees soaring temperatures during the summer months finds solace in a glass of lassi that is NOT JUST made up of curd and water/ice.

The lassi you generally get in Bhubaneswar ALSO contains coconut, rabri, bournvita (seriously?!), dry fruits, and occasionally a scoop of ice cream too! Introducing the very famous Lingaraj Lassi.

While this may sound funny and strange, it tastes DAMN GOOD! Extremely value for money, quality stuff and fills you for a couple of hours, these lassis are a must have when you are in Bhubaneswar.

Above I have pinned the location of Lingaraj Lassi center, however, you may try the other options too that are available in every nook and corner of the city.

Sweets of Odisha

Now this requires a whole blog and even that would be insufficient. However, it would be unjust to write about the street food of Bhubaneswar and not mention a couple of the sweets.

These are honorable mentions, without which my stay at Bhubaneswar would always remain incomplete.

Chhena Poda – Another Must Have Bhubaneswar Street Food

Curdled milk or chhena is flavored with sugar and cardamom and baked in a container over a medium to high flame.

Chhena Poda is a sweet meat that ticks the right checkboxes. It has optimum sweetness, not as much to kill your taste buds. It has a hint of cardamom that add notes of freshness to the earthy flavors. It has a juicy inside that intrigues your senses.

If rasagula is a must have in Bhubaneswar, chhena poda is unmissable.

Chhena Jhili

Very similar to chhanar jilipi found in Bengal, chhena jhili is warm, melt in the mouth sweet with juices dripping from everywhere when you take a bite.

This is a bomb of sweet juices that explode if you were to pop in the entire thing into your mouth. And always try them fresh when they are still warm.

Chhena jhili may also contain fennel seeds which breaks the monotony of sweetness by adding in the fresh flavors.

The Last Words

Bhubaneswar street food is a story that combines traditional and modern flavors. While the city is still evolving, its street food scenario is rapidly changing with more options ranging from sandwiches to tandoors and momos which I would not recommend to any visitor in the city.

Many of the traditional street food options that Bhubaneswar has today deserves acclaim – not just within India but globally. And Bhubaneswar is just a new-age city.

Odisha has a rich heritage, culture and food that one can feel proud of. Much of it is still unexplored by city-bred bloggers. And I wish this scenario changes. The food of Odisha needs to be discussed in larger forums, to preserve and promote one of India’s richest cultures.

Credits

Arkadip Ghosh and Priyanka Sarkar for the wonderful shots on this blog, while accompanying me on these short trips.