Indian restaurants in the United States are generally of two categories: pretty mediocre, run-of-the-mill, standard North Indian dishes, or high-concept fusion-y, expensive Indian food. Nothing is necessarily wrong with either of these – but can’t ya girl get some gobi manchurian once in a while? Finally we can, at Bombay Street Food!
I generally don’t like to go out for Indian food (my mom is clearly the best chef, duh!) but I received multiple glowing recommendations for this place. Bombay Street Food opened in November of 2018 in Columbia Heights, right off of 14th street. The founders of the restaurant felt that the D.C. community was really missing out on the best of Indian cuisine – the street food. They were definitely right!
The menu features many categories: street food classics, kati rolls, monsoon (snacks + chai), indo-chinese, biryani, and popular curry dishes. I was most excited about the indo-chinese – a category I rarely, if ever, see on Indian restaurant menus. This is my favorite restaurant food in India – its always a treat.
On my first visit, I went with five adventurous friends, so we ordered five dishes: palak chaat, chicken manchurian, gobi manchurian, panir pakora, and shrimp biryani.
Chaat is a broad category of a “mixture” of sorts, a street food that usually has pieces of fried veggies, chickpea crisps, potato crisps, and a variety of sauces and toppings. Palak chaat has fried spinach topped with potato pieces, red onions, yogurt sauce, chutney, and tamarind sauce. Its basically a bunch of fun crispy stuff with yogurt and tamarind sauce. I love ordering these kinds of dishes – because they are definitely not things I would make at home, but are a fun treat instead!
Next we had the paneer pakora, slices of deep fried paneer served with a cup of real chai. The paneer was coated in a bread sort of thing – and served with mint chutney and tamarind chutney on the side. This is not something I had before but I really enjoyed it! The masala chai served on the side was *actual* chai – not stuff served here that is essentially milk with a little bit of tea powder. This was a little heavier than everything else but I was a fan!
Next, we get to gobi manchurian, my all time favorite food. This is essentially made by coating cauliflower in a batter, deep frying it, and coating it in a spicy, tomato-y sauce. Its pretty labor-intensive, just because of the coating and the frying especially if you are making it at home. Gobi manchurian was my special birthday dish growing up – it was so annoying to make that my mom would only make it for me once a year. Its dubbed as “indo-chinese” food, and definitely something seen at restaurants more than at home cooking.
Anyways, I was incredibly happy to see gobi manchurian on the menu. Its not the best i’ve ever had, but its really quite good for D.C. – and a great “vegan wings” substitute for all my veggie/vegan friends. The dish is a pretty good size portion at this restaurant and the florets are quite big – during my second visit we struggled to finish. Fair warning, the sauce is definitely a little spicy! Either way, it really warmed my heart and I would definitely recommend. We also got the chicken version (chicken manchurian) though I definitely liked the gobi better.
During my first visit, we got an order of the shrimp biryani. It came served with a naan/bread top, which you cut open with a knife to reveal the hot biryani underneath. Since i’m from South India, I never grew up eating a lot of biryani – but it was nice to have the rice on the side of a lot of other spicy small dishes. The shrimp to rice ratio was a tad off but it was still pretty good. If you are coming to Bombay Street Food – I would steer in the direction of trying the street food/small plates and all the dishes you may normally not see on a menu – its worth it!
On my most recent visit – I ordered the palak chaat and the gobi manchurian again – plus the samosas and the dahi puri. Now. Let me say that I am really not a big samosa fan. There’s very few times (in my book) that samosas are worth it because there so much other better food. The samosa here wasn’t bad per say, it just wasn’t very impressive to me. So unimpressive that I clearly forgot to take a picture!
What *was* impressive to me was the dahi puri! This is arguably the best street food ever – round hollow puri filled with onion, yogurt and chutney. All the best textures all at the same time. You put one into your mouth (don’t even *try* cutting this one in half) and its crunchy and cool and spicy all at the same time. So good – definitely my favorite thing here!!
If I am going to recommend an Indian restaurant here – it is definitely going to be Bombay Street Food. They have a great selection of food that is exciting and homey, and it is such a good deal. Each of the street food dishes are under $10 – and you can easily come out of this meal spending just $10-15 per person (total!!). The service is great, and the food is great too. Move over Rasika, Bombay Street Food is here!!
The Bottom Line
My favorite Indian food in D.C. Its worth it.
Cone Rating: 4.5 Cones
Price: $-$$ (10-15 per person depending on what you get)
Location: Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C.
aditi eats 
One thought on “Bombay Street Food”