21 Mar 2018 – 15:15
By Anisha Bijukumar | The Peninsula Online
Ever heard of Delhi Bakery? Well, in spite of being in Qatar for many years, I had not heard of the 20-year-old bakery, which serves mouthwatering Indian snacks and sweets, until recently.
It was an incidental chat with a friend that led to the discovery of this bakery, which makes excellent samosas, a triangle-shaped fried dish with a savoury filling made of spiced potato and green peas.
New Delhi Bakery Sweets is located in Doha Jadeed, right next to Bank Street signal behind the Olympics Sports shop.
From the outset, it is not a very posh place, but the samosas they serve are just near perfect.
For me, the perfect ones are available only in the streets and alleys of Indian cities and my Pakistani colleague differs and insist that the best are from Lahore. But we did agree that Delhi Bakery has one of the best Punjabi samosas in Qatar.
The outside crust is thick and crispy and the savoury filling is spicy to the right level. As the demand is huge, you invariably get piping hot samosas right out the frying pan served with green mint chutney and sweet brown chutney made from tamarind and jaggery.
The potato and green peas filling is spiced with ground spice of coriander, cumin and other Indian spices.
The QR 2 samosa is worth every bite and we recommend eating it right there – piping hot. But if you are not comfortable eating in dingy joint with no interiors to talk about, then they will pack it for you along with the chutneys.
Delhi Bakery owners have been dishing out samosas in Doha for over two decades starting from a shop in old Msheireb and later shifted to the existing one in Doha Jadeed. The shop makes over 3,000 samosas daily, with the numbers going up during the weekend.
The menu is otherwise limited. They have chole with puri and halwa with puri, which we didn’t try. If you are ordering do tell us how it tastes.
The shop also serves many Indian sweets. While some were great, the others were just okay. The best bet is their jalebis, deep-fryed flour batter in pretzel or circular shapes and soaked in sugar syrup.
The Delhi Bakery jalebis were crisp and fresh and definitely a must try. Getting the texture of a jalebi right is the most difficult part; it has to break like a dry twig on first bite but has to be juicy inside without being soggy.
Their jalebi does right that.
The other sweets like rasmalai can be given a miss unless you are a diehard fan of the sweet.
The owners vouch that their samosas and jalebis are the most sold items in the shop, which is no wonder as you can see people streaming in and out throught out the evening.
What better way to spend an evening with family and friends over some steaming tea, hot spicy samosas and some seet crisp jalebi to keep the chat going on.
Recently I heard that they have started serving Chole Bature for breakfast, the next in my Delhi Bakery try-list.
If you go
Must try: Samosas
Other notables: Jalebis and Chole-Bature
Price: Very pocket friendly. One samosa cost QR 2 while a plate of 2 samosas cost QR3
Jalebi is 24 QR/Kg while QR 3 per plate
Location:
