INDIA

If I were to describe Indian street food with just one word, it would be “colorful”. It’s an assault on the senses in the best …

Delhi is one of the most important cities in India, having served as a vital political, commercial, and cultural hub throughout its long history. It’s one of the oldest cities in the world and is believed to have been continuously inhabited since the 6th century BCE.

The word “breathtaking” is often used to describe picturesque places and scenery, but rarely is it meant in a literal sense. At the Taj Mahal, I literally felt my breath leave my body when I walked through the south gate and laid eyes on this majestically beautiful building for the very first time.

Kolkata is a city of revolutionaries and intellectuals. It’s regarded as the cultural capital of India, having spawned generations of artists, poets, writers, film producers, and Nobel Prize winners.

Mumbai is home to some of the world’s grandest Victorian Gothic architecture and an equally impressive Art Deco heritage. I never expected this, but Mumbai has the second largest collection of Art Deco buildings in the world, behind only Miami.

Dharavi is a settlement in Mumbai, India. It’s the third largest slum in the world by population, housing an estimated one million people living in an area of around 1.75 square kilometers. By those estimates, Dharavi is one of the most densely populated slums in the world.

There were three things I really wanted to do on my first-ever trip to Mumbai – visit Dhobi Ghat, see the dabawwalas in action, and go on a tour of Dharavi Slum. With just two full days in the city, I needed to be efficient with my time so I had to find a tour that covered as many of these places as possible. Thankfully, I found this one.

Apart from being a gastronomic trip, I expected this to be a spiritual journey as well. Many people, friends of mine included, describe it as a life-changing experience. Life-changing indeed it was, for reasons I never would have expected. And it all started here in Kolkata.

As always, I do a fair amount of research before a trip but there’s only so much Google can tell you. Insider knowledge, especially when it comes to food, is always best, which is why I think it’s so important to experience a new city with a local. Shailesh, a third-generation resident, was about to give me my first real taste of Mumbai.

It had become a dream of mine to enjoy authentic curry in northern India, which is why this stop at Delhi was the one I was most excited about on this three-city India food tour with A Chef’s Tour.