Chaiiwala on the Road - Indian Streetfood Now In Service Stations?! [@NLi10]

 We have a Chaiiwala, it's at the top of the big hill by my house which prevents me from being a regular, but I have the app and I'm willing to make trips.  On the way back from Saltaire (pretty, near Bradford) we stopped at a fairly ordinary Roadchef services that's apparently at Sandbach.

It's always a disappointment to stop somewhere that doesn't have our favourite foods, or a farm shop.  So - imagine my glee when I see this little shed tacked on the outside.  So new that it's not on the google map, or the Chaiiwala app (no points!!) because it literally opened yesterday.  It's the second one in the country, apparently there is one at Watford Gap?

Being short on time and just wanting something small we had a samosa each - which is actually a first for me.  The wraps & bowls usually get all my attention.  At £1.75 a samosa it feels expensive if you are up Cape Hill, but at the motorway thats a steal.

Very crispy, kept warm in the heater thing.  No dip offered, but I'm very white so it wouldn't be expected that I'd know the wonders of the brown dip.

And it's fairly standard generous samosa inside.  Couldn't see the whole spices like the ones I like from the highstreet, but I could taste all the right things.  A few whole peas hiding at the bottom, good crust and big enough that you'd not want two unless it was a meal.

We had a car full of drinks and the father-in-law was paying so I didn't get us a round of karak chaii but maybe I should have just got a large one to share.

Overall - I'm not going to stop having the paratha wraps and the chaat bowls, but it's amazing to be able to get actual Indian streetfood at a dodgy services.  The plan is to roll these out UK wide, so I'm overjoyed.  Lots of similarly fanatical people to me were taking pictures to send to people who wouldn't believe that their choices are no longer Greggs or McD. 

Street Food Master - Smile Egg Waffles [@NLi10]

 Birmingham has been deluged with a load of food halls recently - and it's hard to find time to visit them all let alone try all the stands.

Street food Master is in the Arcadian one and stood out by having a cute pudding.

All the other street grill options looked ace too, but we were off to comedy so a light dozen waffles was in order.  We chose Nutella & Taro as the two flavours.

They did not have the faces, but came in chicken themed egg boxes so I was happy.

They are pretty big, but they are £1 each so it's very much a treat not a regular thing.

The fillings had mostly sunk to the bottom, but as far as deep friend snacks go these were gorgeous.  I bought these with a friend and we had 3 of each - and I think the rest of the table expected to share but we devoured them.  

Certainly a good idea to get more next time, but I have to try the other stalls and the other menu items!

Tortilla - Burrito meets Burger - Beef Smash Burrito [@NLi10]

 We had time before a show in Birmingham (the band Texas) so decided to take the family for Burritos.  Most went with a standard set of things, but I decided to try the new Beef Smash Burrito

Smash is essentially just taking a burger and cooking it on the grill as if it was mince and then putting it back together a bit - it just means that its all a bit more charred.  This is essentially how you cook Quorn mince so it's not exactly revolutionary but it is nice.

And there are loads of options!

It also seems to basically be a beef burrito but where the contents were grilled first

I got the meal deal with the nice lemonade and the salty salty tortilla chips.  These have a fun texture too like they are freshly made each day.

The large is a chunky beast and certainly filling enough

And sure enough is essentially just a beef Burrito with crispy mince.  You can customise whatever you like, but the default smash was pretty good.

Al La Mexicana needn't be worried about their business, but as an updated and healthier version of the Subway custom sandwich (and nicer hot) then this is great and I'm happy that I joined the loyalty scheme for the free guac and burrito next time I visit!

London Street Food Mother Clucker & Tea @Nli10

We went to see the Harry Potter play in London.  No spoilers here - but it is very good.

Seeing it over two days meant we got to eat at lots of lovely places which is the goal of any trip really, isn't it!

The locals had even got in on the act with Potter/Star Wars themed coffee available.  Not interested though.

What I needed was chicken!

I had the Chicken Strips - I only learned afterwards that I should have added the nice fries too.  Oh well.

Mother Clucker is one of those semi-street food things where you have a van that can pop up anywhere.  Here it's down Brick Lane by Rough Trade East.

And it's pretty good.  The chicken is tender and fresh, the coating is thick and almost like an apple crumble topping (thanks Kate!) but in a KFC style with all the usual herbs and spices but a lot more quality.  I'd make a special trip over just to eat this again.

Here in Spittalfields Market I found a Chinese Tea shop (Yi Yang? I forgot to get the name!) and picked up a lovely strong herbal Lemon tea.

I had medium sugar and not heated, which I think was a mistake in the Mini-Beast Arctic winds.  I enjoyed it though.  I got told off by coffee drinkers for drinking it too slowly, but these herbal teas are meant to be sipped and enjoyed.  Everyone else seemed to be going for some kind of milky bubble tea, maybe I missed out.

We had a great time wandering around hipsterville and catching up with old friends. Have to do it again soon!

Vegan Grindhouse at Hawker Yard, Birmingham (@NLi10) @HawkerYard @vegangrindhouse

Hawker Yard on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/HawkerYard/

I'm not a fan of trendy things, street food is another one of those warning signs that something is trying too hard. On the way back from playing cards at ManaLeak's new industrial location in Digbeth a security guard suggested I might like to eat at the place they were guarding, and that I was free to wander in and look around - so I did.

That place was Hawker Yard, a ruin-bar inspired collection of mini stalls. This could be a worry if it's just burger vans, but both the set-up of a two tier eating area and the choice of foods was certainly well curated.  There was Dim Sum, Greek and confusing array of vegan burgers at one end and a large, well stocked bar at the other.

Naturally I gravitated towards the most alien place - called Vegan Grindhouse. While I do like to think of myself as an 'unethical vegan' in spirt (more on that another day) I do eat meat regularly simply because I have a tendency to hang out in areas where nutritious vegan food just isn't viable (such as the pub I'm writing this in).

Here however the options are bountiful!

I didn't fancy a burger (people's obsession with bread still confuses me) so I opted for the tempting salad at the bottom.

Here it is - sitting on an oil drum, on the second storey of a scaffold structure from which you can watch all of Digbeth go by.

In theory there isn't much here, just some salad leaves and some vegan-chicken and vegan-mayo, but my goodness it was tasty. There is a little bit of wizardry here, making something that is close to raw fresh ingredients so appealing.  For one, the mayo both cools the jalapeños and livens up the crisp lettuce. The vegan-chicken is the real star. Presumably this is just their burgers sliced up and popped on the salad but with a soft but firm texture and an almost nutty flavour I think I'd rather have this than the real thing. It's almost certainly more nutritious too, with far more flavour than your standard festival chicken.

This is a new venture - this was a preview weekend that I just happened to stumble on. I think there were three or four separate stalls for food then the long bar. The plan seems to be to extend this to 8 food outlets and to have it as a regular weekend thing over Friday and Saturdays, and I'm all for it.

If all the food is as good as the Vegan Grindhouse offerings then it's going to be a magnet for hungry Brummies within a matter of weeks, as news about cool places to hang out travels fast. Definitely somewhere worth popping into town to explore.