HYDERABAD: All over the world, street food is what makes a city vibrant and to savour the bursting flavour bombs, tourists flock in huge numbers around the year. In Hyderabad too, not only the locals celebrate street food, tourists come in looking forward to grabbing a bite of the delicacies. Keeping that in mind, two friends — one born Hyderabadi and another who made the city his home — Abhinav Rodda and Deepak Gosar — thought of bringing together the best of both the worlds of street food and cafe with Belly Baba.
Talking about how it all began, Deepak says, “I am basically from Mumbai and I have grown up having street food there like Vada Pav. In Hyderabad, even though it is available, the authentic taste is missing. With Belly Baba I wanted to bring the authentic Mumbai street food flavours with a twist.” With both the founders having a background in the food industry, they researched before coming up with the outlet in East Marredpally. “This side of the city lacks a proper cafe that serves good street food. So we thought it would be apt to start here,” says Abhinav.
After this quick chat, we concentrated on our chaat options and started with two cool drinks — Shikanji mojito and Yuzu mojito. Both the drinks were refreshing and made us all charge up to continue our gastronomic journey. Next, we tasted the Vada Pav and we could understand the difference from others. The potato stuffing was brimming with flavours and the chutney’s tanginess made each bite enjoyable.
Italian Puff, Bombay Grilled Sandwich, Spicy Paneer Wrap were the other dishes we tried from the menu. We focused our attention on the main dishes next. We tasted Pav Bhaji, Tawa Khichdi and Veg Alfredo Pasta. All the three dishes were delicious. Our next focus was two innovative dishes from the menu — Basket Chaat and Chinese Bhel. While the basket was made of fried potato, the bhel was made from fried noodles topped with chutneys and yogurt. We finished our meal with Mahabaleshwar’s favourite Strawberry with cream. “We will replace strawberries with other seasonal fruits like mango as the month progresses,” shared Deepak.
If you are a fan of all things chaat and want a place to hang out with friends and family in this hot summer, then Belly Baba is the place. The yellow interiors with huge mirrors and windows looking onto the street makes it an ideal place to sit and relax and enjoy fusion street food.