Having lived in various white-washed Western countries for most of my life, there is one thing my soul constantly yearns for. No, it’s not snow at Christmas or overpriced coffee from a hipster café with exposed brick walls. It’s street food.
Glorious, unapologetic, spice-laden, oil-dripping, joy-inducing street food.
Let me tell you, I think about street food more than I’d like to admit. It’s basically my Roman Empire. Every. Single. Day. I reluctantly accept – sometimes multiple times a day – that it just won’t be the same here in Australia as it is back in India or really, anywhere in Asia.
Because here’s the thing: Asia doesn’t just serve street food. Asia is street food. It’s alive. It has a pulse, a heartbeat. It dances in the chaos of the streets, it sings from a sizzling wok, and it hugs your soul in a crinkly paper plate dripping with chutney.
As a kid, some of my happiest memories involve eating copious amounts of pani puris and bhel puris on Juhu Beach with my grandfather.
It was a whole evening of messy, magical perfection: Eat a pani puri, play in the sand, hop on a horse that may or may not have been retired from racing, and finish the night off with fresh coconut water straight from the coconut.
The coconut guy would expertly hack it open with a machete (with the swagger of a Michelin chef), and then use the top to carve out that soft, sweet tender coconut flesh. Pure heaven. Gordon Ramsay could never.
And how can I not mention gola – that iconic tower of crushed ice drenched in syrup, the king of childhood cravings. Specifically, kalakhatta. That sour, sweet, pungent flavour that I haven’t tasted since I left India decades ago. It’s a memory etched in my taste buds. I mean, come on – that’s the original umami, at its absolute dramatic, tongue-staining best. On a hot summer evening at Chowpatty, nothing calmed your soul (or sweat) like a kalakhatta gola. Sticky fingers, purple tongue, and total bliss.
As an adult, every trip back to Asia reminds me just how intrinsic street food is to the culture. You could be drenched in sweat, dodging scooters, and possibly being eyed by a stray dog—but one bite of that snack and it’s all forgiven. Your taste buds are doing a Bollywood dance sequence, and honestly, who needs aircon when you’ve got that kind of joy?
I blame (and thank) Anthony Bourdain for keeping this love alive during my early adulthood. I devoured his shows like I devour a good banh mi. I’m talking reruns, quotes, emotional breakdowns—the whole fan club kit. I still remember the pure serotonin hit watching lanky Tony awkwardly perch on a bright red stool in Vietnam, slurping a local soup handed to him by a woman with a bubbling pot and zero time for nonsense. I felt that moment. His commitment to eating everything, everywhere, all the time? Iconic. Relatable. Deeply validating.
I, too, would sit curbside in the most chaotic of places just for a bite of samosa chaat in Bombay, or noodles in Singapore, or fried things on sticks in Thailand that I can’t even name but will dream about for years. Tony got it. Tony was us.
But now, back in Australia – the land of brunch and politely portioned tacos – I find myself dreaming of a different foodscape. Sure, we have “street food festivals” and “hawker-style events,” but if I need to sell a kidney to buy a $20 bao bun, we’re not really talking street food anymore, are we?
I’m craving the real deal. The grit. The flavour. The auntie yelling “next!” without looking up. The faint hum of Bollywood music in the distance. The unapologetically spicy chutney that makes your eyes water but you go back for more anyway. THAT is the street food dream.
So here’s to hoping that one day, we embrace a little more of that glorious chaos. Not a neatly plated, avocado-smeared version – but the real stuff. The soul food. The kind that doesn’t need a PR campaign because it’s too busy making you fall in love with life again.
Until then, I’ll keep watching Bourdain reruns, dreaming of Juhu Beach, and maybe – just maybe – trying to recreate that coconut-carving technique in my suburban backyard (results pending, finger count may vary).
Thanks for everything, Tony. And to street food – my forever love story.
Boundless and Unfiltered 