Chahat Vidéo & Variété

the street food is really good (pani puri) and its like 3 $ for 6 but usually 6 is not enough because its very light and good

The street food really is cheap and amazing here
very friendly place
I’m never been street eating in india but I believe this is what its like
Recommended if you are in the area. Good to walk into a place you didnt really know was a restaurant

Five words, people: AUTHENTIC INDIAN & PAKISTANI STREET FOOD !
At Chahat Vidéo et Variété one will undoubtedly find the latest and greatest Bollywood (Bollyweird) videos and DVDs of classic yesteryear fame as well as more modern renditions of the Indo-​Pakistani hyped-​up-​to-​the-​max type musicals and formidable examples of formulaic Subcontinent cinema. I’m talking straight up «Ek Laarki Jo Dekhaa Tau Pyara Lagaa» fo reals, y’all! You know, you know. I don’t really know what that means except that it has something to do with really really like like-​liking this girl and like dancing and singing in a meadow with a tree in between the two of you. Yes, siree bob, the shelves here are stacked floor to ceiling with premium bootlegged video bounty just waiting to be rented, rewound, forgotten about for three weeks and hastily returned with popping corn crumbs in the VHS jacket and an accrued total penalty of just over eleventhty-​sixteen thousand rupees with interest compounded quarterly at the nominal fixed rate plus two basis points per annum on whatever index the NASDAQ and S&P500 indices are indexed under. Yes! Back to the future — British Raj redux styles — this is 1991 and we’re having fun and this is 1992 and they’re looking at you and Raj Kapoor is pretty fly for a white guy in that new flick with Amitabh Bachchan wherein there are like sixty-​two (to the exponent of infinity) product placements for Crystal Pepsi and Western-​style trickle-​down capitalism and Maggie Thatcher’s ovary/​testicle combination she’s got going on down there and shitty music and cocaine. We must not forget the copious upon copious amounts of nasty ass cocaine that fuelled the grandiose and manic abundance of greed and insanity of this shameful époque.
The 80s and early 90s nostalgia aside … it suffices to say that I frequent this establishment not exactly on account of their extensive choice and selection in cinema but rather because of their extensive choice and selection in Indian & Pakistani street food! Yes, indeed, the «variété» in Chahat Vidéo et Variété is quite varied. If you’ve never had the pleasure to nosh on some good Indian street food, my Gods & Goddesses ! this is the place for you. This isn’t your Bubby’s street food, that is, unless your Bubby is actually your Nana and she hails from Mumbai. This ain’t no fifteen cent New York City dirty water hotdog with horse testicles, dog lips and cat nightmares stuffed and boiled inside that tube of rat-​king foreskins with Ebola infected blood infused ketchup and a vomit /​smegma /​yellow fever mustard. All I’m saying is don’t, for the love of Pete, eat those nasty ass NYC dirty water hotdogs. They mess you up. They mess you up so bad that you don’t even know that you’re messed up so bad. Seriously. All you’ll remember is that three days and forty-​eight hotdogs later you emerged naked from some back alleyway in the Upper West Side without any memory as to who you are, with six hundred dirty Euros up your left nostril and an achingly familiar yet reassuringly painful throbbing in your anus.
Alas, I digress yet again.
Come here and choose from an excellent selection of authentically sumptuous Indo-​Pakistani street foods. My favourite is the «Pani Puri» which is also called «Gol Gappe» and it is the most unique fast food /​street food item ever! They give you a plate of about twelve mini bite-​sized puris (fried bread) with holes in them filled with a mixture of flavourful spiced potatoes. This is served with a generous portion of the «pani» or «water» that is infused with a variety of traditional Indian spices and coriander. Here is the fun part! The technique is as follows: you take your small potato stuffed puri and submerge it in the «water» until the puri is inundated and filled to capacity, take it out of the liquid and without spilling, get all that goodness into your mouth and enjoy the roller coaster ride to flavour country. Your taste buds are going to for reals go berserk. This is such a tasty, substantially filling and refreshing snack. If you order two plates then it’s practically a meal. It is cheap cheap cheap and good good mmm mmm good! They also have other excellent street food favourites as well. «Papri Chat» is sort of the Indo-​Pakistani version of natchos. It consists of chickpea flour wafers with spiced potatoes, onions, cilantro, tomatoes and green chilli peppers (hold the chillies if you’re heat sensitive of course) with a yoghourt and tamarind chutney dressing. It is absolutely delicious. «Bhel Puri» is pretty much the exact same thing except they replace the chickpea wafers with puris and this crispy puffed rice.
Whatever your order … these snacks here are bound to be unique, delicious and absolutely guaranteed to satiate. After you’ve finished with the savoury options. You simply must try the pistachio «kulfi» or Indian ice cream. I don’t know what Faustian transaction these Indo-​Pakistani ice cream makers have undertaken but it’s delicious. !!