There are so many things I love about traveling. Meeting amazing people and making new friends all over the world is one of them. Immersing myself in new cultures, languages, and traditions is another. Diving into the history of new places has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. And, of course, exploring the culinary creations of different countries is something I’ve loved since I was a kid. I got to do all of that in India, and even better, I got to do it all with my buddy Sam from Samuel & Audrey.
With my time in Ahmedabad coming to a close, Sam and I decided to go all-out for one last Gujarati meal and a tour of one of the city’s amazing historical neighborhoods! Come along with me, Sam, and our guides and new friends Rutu and Haard as we explore the sights and tastes of Ahmedabad one last time!
We started our final afternoon in Ahmedabad in a Pol, which is a neighborhood or housing cluster that houses families based on their caste, profession, or religion. There, we saw some really old and intricately designed housing, some beautiful temples, some ruined homes, cows roaming the streets, and even some dogs that were pretty aggressive!
The houses there look small on the outside, but Rutu explained to me that they’re huge on the inside. Some of them have as many as twenty rooms! We entered one of the dilapidated homes, and it was massive inside! Each room had four doors branching off of it, and there was a massive terrace. Exploring the pol was such an immersive, local, and uniquely Indian experience.
After a tuk tuk ride where I was literally hanging off the side of it, we caught another tuk tuk to go get lunch. On the way, we passed through a busy market. When we arrived at the restaurant, Rajwadu, we passed through a gate and walked along a beautiful path, past sandstone pillars and through stunning courtyards with gorgeous carvings of Hindu deities. The seating area of the restaurant was built like a huge, open-air tent, with lots of benches and tables to choose from!
I started with a refreshing coconut, lime, and ginger juice that had a ton of coconut flavor.
Our meal consisted of small rotis called rotlas, a Russian-inspired Baingan Ka Bharta, a garlic-and-potato dish called Lasaniya Batata, a yellow curry, a tomato sabzi, a khichdi, a patra, and a sweet dish called Sukhdi.
First, I dove into the patra, which is a vegetable roll that wasn’t too spicy or sweet; it was perfectly balanced with a nice tang to it.
The Baingan Ka Bharta was a really smoky eggplant dish with oil and vegetables that kind of reminded me of a dal. It was extremely tasty and the star of the entire meal for me! The Lasaniya Batata had a potent garlic aroma and flavor, and had a nice sweetness to it. There was no sourness or spiciness to it. It was definitely my favorite garlic dish I’ve ever had in India!
Next was the tomato sabzi, which also contained sev and coriander, which was amazing. I loved that these dishes had a slight sweetness to them, but weren’t desserts, and still had a savory element to them as well. The khichdi, or lentils with rice, was also fantastic. It had a slightly polenta-like consistency. And next, I went for the pickles with some rotla, which I was told would be spicy, but it wasn’t. It was still great, though!
Finally, we ended our meal with the Sukhdi, a sweet made from wheat flour, jaggery, and ghee. It was very buttery and a little too sweet for me!
All in all, my last meal in Ahmedabad was my favorite veg meal of all-time! I couldn’t get enough of it!
I hope you enjoyed this video of our Pol neighborhood tour and last Gujarati meal in Ahmedabad! If you did, please give it a thumbs up and leave me a comment below. Also, please subscribe to my channel and click the notification bell so you don’t miss any of my upcoming food and travel content!
My friends, amazing.
Oh.
Good.
What's up guys?
David Hoffman here from David's Bin here in beautiful Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
I'm here with my good friend Ritu from You Eat Me Insane.
I know it.
I got it.
And today we're going on a basically historical walk through the pole area which is the historical
area, right?
Yes.
So basically this place, we are at one of the poles.
The pole is basically a cluster of houses.
It belongs to a typical caste and community.
What's up dude?
There's actually a temple right here.
You can hear the bell.
And then after we explore the pole, we're going to go for lunch.
And we're going to like a village restaurant, right?
Rajwada restaurant.
Rajwada.
It's basically a village themed restaurant.
Gujarati village themed restaurant.
So we'll be tasting some Saurashtrian food.
That's not Gujarat.
This is yours.
Awesome.
We haven't tried that yet.
Yes.
Alright.
Let's go.
I'm excited.
Look what he's doing.
Walking through this pole, as you can see, a lot of old houses.
Some of them are abandoned.
There's temples.
There's lots and lots and lots of dogs.
And these dogs don't look like stray dogs but they're definitely aggressive.
Here we have basically a house in ruins.
And here we have the door.
Look at this.
Beautiful door.
Can I buy this door?
Can I buy the door?
I want to buy the door and take it home.
Yeah.
Lots of families here.
This guy is knitting something, as you can see.
Lots of cool stuff here.
It's really like a real local experience walking through this old town.
Basically, this particular pole, the houses, the specialty of this house is that there are two doors in every room.
You can enter from one door in one room and you can exit from the other door.
So you can enter every room.
There are two doors.
You can enter any time, any room.
So what Rutu is telling me is that these houses, they look very small but when you enter them, they're giant.
There are like 20 rooms because obviously they look very narrow from here but I'm sure they're very long and they're tall.
I mean, in terms of levels.
How many levels?
Not all the houses but a few of them.
Yeah, I mean, this one you can tell it's two stories but that one over there is three stories.
And this one is a giant house with like five stories.
So here you can find lots and lots of things happening, right?
One thing you can see is right here.
We got a cow.
So they feed the cow.
Nice.
Cows are gods in India.
Respect them.
And yeah, a lot of different people like, you know, cleaning their laundry, dogs roaming.
You hear birds chirping.
I love this narrowness, this alley.
And every house is very colorful.
Heritage home.
Yeah, it's like very old.
The carvings.
See the door.
The door it has.
And see the carvings are the basic things and the structure, how they make it in a congested area.
That's what the poles represent actually.
So was there a lot of money here?
No, not a lot of money I would say.
But these are the typical pole homes.
Good carved ones.
This house over here is one of the oldest houses.
Okay, so you can see the wooden carvings.
The support they have is made of wooden carvings.
You can see it there.
I gotta say, walking around here, it's very interesting how you see this.
What?
It's gonna hurt me.
Careful of the horn.
Careful of the horn?
I touched the horn.
What's happening?
Okay, so we're gonna enter one of these houses now to see the staircase.
This house is actually in shambles.
It's falling apart.
How's it look?
Whoa.
Staircase.
Just falling apart though.
Wow.
Every single room?
Wow.
Someone needs to buy this house and fix it up because it's a huge house.
Wow, look at that.
So big.
No, it's huge.
Look at this.
I mean, this is a huge staircase.
This looks like a stable back here where they used to keep horses and stuff.
Oh my God.
This is incredible.
This is really, really cool, guys.
This is like my boy Mike from Fierce and Far.
His favorite thing to do.
Visit abandoned places.
So he should definitely come here to Medabat.
And yeah, I really, really love everything here.
And there's actually like little puppies, man.
There's so many little stray dogs.
I feel so bad.
How about you?
Yeah, it's a sad scene though, for sure.
But it is what it is.
It is what it is.
I mean, that's how it always is in old towns.
It's like this.
But yeah.
There's a grumpy guy over here.
There's one grumpy dog that just doesn't stop.
And this is really cool.
Look at this.
They put their handprints everywhere.
Just handprints.
It's all handprints.
This is the temple, actually.
They painted it with handprints.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
All right, guys.
This is how I'm exiting the pole.
I'm on a tuk-tuk.
We fit?
Hey, what's up, guys?
What's up?
I'm here with my little kids.
Hi.
Oh, my God.
Thanks, guys.
See you later.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Let's go.
Getting back in the tuk-tuk.
Let's go to lunch.
Let's go.
So, this market is basically some jewelry market, mixed-up market.
You get clothes.
You get household things.
You get a lot of wholesale items.
You get some decoration items.
You get matai.
You get books.
You get everything.
The name of this place is Gandhi Road.
Gandhi?
Yes, Gandhi.
Okay.
The one thing I love about Ahmedabad is everybody is so friendly.
We haven't had anybody give us any problems.
Everybody wants to be on camera.
When we wave, they wave back and sometimes even more.
Exactly.
Okay.
So, after a quick 20-minute ride, we are here at the restaurant.
Rajwadu.
And we're going to eat some delicious northern Gujarati food.
It's very cool.
So, as soon as you walk into the gates of the restaurant, you walk down this beautiful path.
And here we have some beautiful pillars.
Look at them.
I think they're made out of sandstone as well.
Wow.
Nice village theme.
As you can see, these are the doorways.
Lots of detail.
Up here, we have Ganesha.
Got the sundial.
Here's a really cool setting.
This feels like I'm in an oasis in the desert.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
It's the same.
Madhuryo.
Yeah.
It's Rajwadu.
Okay.
No Raj beach.
Okay.
You just say Rajwadu.
Rajwadu.
The name of the restaurant is Rajwadu.
Okay.
And it's like a desert theme here.
You're in a huge tent, as you can see.
And there's some areas where it's, I guess, big benches to sleep on, right?
Out there.
And then here, where we're sitting on, what is this called?
Khatia.
Yes.
Khatla, Khatia.
You can see.
So, people during the older times, like, you know, even our grandfathers used to sleep
on this thing.
Sleep on these benches?
Yeah, the big ones.
Wow.
So, yes.
It's pretty, you know, strong enough to hold a person.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
I mean, they're like, basically, it's like a huge, almost like a door in terms of size.
Yes.
And then we have here something pretty delicious.
Yeah.
So, this is a coconut, lime, and ginger.
What a combination.
Yes.
It's a mocktail.
Coconut, lime, and ginger.
Yes.
You have ginger and coconut, my favorite, so.
Have it.
Oh, wow.
So refreshing.
It actually has like a, tastes almost, I mean, not the same, but like sugarcane juice.
Yes.
In a way.
Oh, you have a lot of coconut in there.
I mean, I think the ginger is the one that stands out the most here.
But yeah, guys.
So, we have a huge feast coming.
I'm ready.
How many dishes?
Around 7 to 8.
You go, dude.
7 to 18?
Eat.
7 to 18.
18.
I'm joking.
It's fine.
It's all I need today because we're flying tonight.
So, we're going out strong.
Keep it a little lighter.
Keep it lighter.
Alright.
So, our northern Gujarati feast has arrived.
There's so many delicious things here.
Everything has a different color, as you can see.
We have between like, you know, dark oranges, light yellows.
We have some green.
This one looks like a brownish orange.
Wow.
So many delicious things.
And here we have some rotis.
These are like tiny, I guess, like palm rotis.
It's a rotla.
A rotla?
Yes.
Okay.
So, we have the rotla.
I'm going to put one there.
What about this one?
It's a baingan ka bharta.
Okay.
So, baingan ka bharta.
It's mashed.
It's smoky.
We tasted it yesterday.
It's sort of like that but with a Saurashtrian touch to it.
Delicious.
Yeah.
So, this is lasagna patata.
Lasagna patata?
Yeah.
Lasagna means garlic potatoes.
I mean, I can smell it.
Yes.
I can smell the garlic.
I can smell it.
The aroma is like so potent.
So, we'll take this in a...
This one in a thing?
Yes.
That's a kadhi.
This is a curry?
Yes.
So, you put it in here.
Nice.
Oh, it looks fantastic.
Spicy?
Yes, a bit.
Always.
So, we take this one.
That's a sev tamatar ki sabzi.
Yeah, I was going to say it looks very chatty.
So, it's basically a tomato gravy.
It's a tomato sabzi.
Okay.
And they'll put lots of sev.
Lots of sev.
And coriander.
That's what looks so chat.
Yes.
Because chat always has that.
And then here we have some lent.
Khichdi.
Some dal, right?
That's a khichdi.
It's khichdi, okay.
It's a masala khichdi.
And what's the difference between khichdi and dal?
So, we'll be having it with kadhi.
Okay.
And this is a sweet dish.
Okay.
So, we'll have it later on.
Yeah, I'll get it later on.
How about this one?
Yeah.
This is a patra.
A patra.
Yes.
Do I start with this?
Yes.
So, patras are basically a vegetable.
You can say...
It's like a vegetable roll.
Yes, it's a vegetable roll.
Mmm.
Smeared with spices.
It's not...
It's not spicy.
It's not too sweet.
Just enough.
Mmm.
Tangy touch to it.
Super tangy.
Mmm.
Great appetizer.
Yes.
It's like a vegetable roll.
Yes.
My friends, amazing.
Oh.
Good?
Hahaha.
That's the bajra ki... bajra ka rotla.
Okay.
So, now we can have it with one of the sabzi.
Just the...
Yes.
It's a little hard.
Let me...
I think you liked it yesterday.
I hope so.
I like everything in India, so...
Yeah.
It's hard to tell you something I hate.
Maybe some...
Maybe curd.
Hahaha.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Has a little smoky taste to it, too?
Yes.
Mmm.
It's not at all, but...
Has a similar consistency.
It's burnt, actually.
The brinjal is burnt.
Right.
Burnt from the gas.
And then they...
Like, smear it up.
Like, mash it up.
Okay.
And then they cook it in a gravy.
Is it...
I'm sorry.
It's eggplant.
Huh?
Eggplant.
Yes, eggplant.
Eggplant.
I was like, what is this?
What is this?
Eggplant.
Yes, like a smoky eggplant.
A few different vegetables.
There's some oil, right?
Yes.
Oh.
I like that one a lot.
I'll have some more later.
We can go with this one.
This one.
Potato.
Garlic potato.
It's hard to get them, right?
There'll be a bit of sweetness to it.
Always, right?
Yeah.
With everything.
Oh, I love the garlic.
It is sweet.
Yes.
It'll be sweet.
But...
Not spicy, not sour.
Sweet.
Mmm.
That's the best garlic thing I've tried in India.
Straight up.
Oh.
I really like it a lot.
I'll eat more.
Oh, we have.
It's sev tomato ki sabzi.
Tomatoes and sev.
With spices.
Oh.
But still, it'll be sweet on it.
Mmm.
Oh, that's good.
More like a moist chaat.
What else is in here besides sev?
Coriander.
Sev, but then the sev is a bit different here.
Combination of katia and sev.
Okay.
Yeah, so yes.
I mean, what I love about all of these is that they're sweeter, but they're not like
a sweet, right?
They're just a little sweeter.
Almost like a tamarind chutney.
Almost like that.
Oh, this is my type of food.
It's a khichdi, so we don't have it with that.
Oh, you don't have it with this.
But then you can have it.
Sorry.
Mmm.
It's like mashed potatoes.
I guess I'll try it with that.
Sorry.
Take the curry, khichdi.
So I get the curry, put it on the khichdi.
Yes.
Mmm.
The curry is super light as well.
Very soupy.
Oh, it's lentil rice.
Yes.
Okay, because I was going to say it has somewhat like a polenta, another like very…
Mildly, you know, it's cooked mildly in spices.
Not, they don't use much of spices here.
Whoa.
What was that?
That was like a firework behind me.
It's a pickle.
And what do I put the pickle with?
Just have it with the rotla.
So we got a piece of rotla.
It's a mixed vegetable pickle.
Don't…
It'll be spicy.
No?
It's almost like kimchi.
Yeah, kimchi.
Mmm.
Oh, wow.
That's not spicy.
It's amazing.
Wow.
Sorry about that.
A double dip.
Yeah.
My favorite is this one.
Oh, and maybe the eggplant as well.
Mmm.
Okay.
So let's go to Sukhri.
Basically, this is a sweet dish.
We call it Sukhri.
Sukhri.
Look at this.
Yeah.
So what is it made out of?
Jaggery, ghee, and ground fruit.
Feels like a big caramelized cracker cookie.
Huge.
I mean, it's a butter stick.
That's all it is.
You want some?
I will have some.
I know you will.
Ha ha ha.
Yeah, so if you have a huge sweet tooth, you'll love this.
It's just too much for me.
It's a lot of sugar, a lot of ghee.
It's like a...
I mean, I'll have a...
And Gujaratis don't use sugar much in sweets.
No?
There's no sugar in that?
No.
It's all jaggery.
Oh, I mean, it felt like a sugar bomb.
No, but there's no sugar to it.
So basically, we use jaggery to all our food.
Okay.
Yeah, so not sugar much.
I mean, everything's been so good.
I really am in love with everything.
I mean, the eggplant and these guys.
You keep popping them.
Love this meal.
One of my favorite veg meals of all time.
Everything was so good.
Because everything's so sweet.
Yes.
It's like sweet savory.
Yes.
That's what it is.
Because it's so sweet.
And no spice.
Like, no spicy.
Alright, so we had such an incredible meal today.
I can't even believe how good that eggplant was.
It was a star of the show.
Thank you to Chef Pranao for everything.
The food was just delicious.
And yeah, we also did the Pol area.
I really loved walking through the history.
Walking into one of those houses and seeing how, you know, everything is in shambles.
But just the sheer marvel of it.
It's just impressive.
Yeah, and walking through those with cows and dogs and kids.
I mean, it's really awesome.
It's really like an immersive experience.
And yeah, you have to come try this food.
Because Northern Gujarati food is a whole different world from Southern Gujarati food.
Thank you to my friends at You Eat Me Insane.
You Eat Me Insane.
Thank you so much.
And yeah, so if you guys love this video, give it a thumbs up.
Give us a comment below.
Subscribe to my channel.
Sam and Audrey's channel.
And You Eat Me Insane.
Guys, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, dude.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you for everything.
Oh my gosh.
I'm going to miss you, my friend.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
