Mahek Chaat House

While I kind of believed that chaat was a south Indian thing, it turns out to be common to all the regional cuisines of the country. More or less a savoury snack, often served from road side carts and derived from words that mean among other things, "to devour with relish, eat noisily." And so we did!
Located on Scott Road in Surrey, in a strip mall around 86th Avenue, Mahek Chaat House seems to be well regarded in the South Asian community. We were on the hunt for dosa and the chaat story is just a bonus.
So we started with the above mentioned savoury snack, I believe it was called Mahek Chaat (there are several options on their menu). It didn't quite look like the menu photo which showed it covered with yogurt but it was delicious. What they call crispy flakes were basically a puffed and fried tiny flat bread which made a wonderful crunchy base for the potatoes, onions, chick peas, tomato, chutney, yogurt and coriander.  And we did eat it with relish and noisily! If you are not yet a fan of chaat, I'm going to go ahead and recommend it!
During our dosa explorations, we have also gotten into the habit of ordering the pillowy steamed idli and the little doughnut like vada that come with sambar and coconut chutney for dipping! As much as we enjoy this, I should remember that the dosa will always come with the sambar and chutney as well. We need to try something different next time.
We tried the Masala Potato Dosa. I'm not sure why it came as a triangle rather than rolled, but the crepe itself was still lovely and crispy on the outside. This one had the masala potato filling but it was way on the mild side and not strongly flavoured compared to what we have had in the past. I sometimes wonder if, when they see a non Indian face coming through the door, some take it as a sign to tone things down, possibly out of consideration for our inexperienced pallets? I hope that is not the case. At any rate, not the earth shaking experience but tasty enough.
We had room for a little dessert for a change and tried their Gulab Jamun. These tasty little balls are served in syrup. Two in a bowl was enough to pleasantly spike our blood sugar and round out our meal experience. Mahek is a pleasant, comfortable and airy little place. I like the home country home life type art on the walls. Our server was very pleasant and attentive.
I've been asked to add some sort of a rating to our blog posts. I was hoping that Blogger might offer some sort of gadget along those lines but if so, I haven't found it. So I though I would just add the old, rating out of 5 at the bottom of each post. 
For what its worth, we give Mehak Chaat House, 3.5 out of 5.
Mahek Chaat House Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Are you guys eating again? At some point Marie and I became the kind of people who take pictures of everything we eat, whether in a restaura...