THEDRUNKENMUNKEY
Crispy Okra Chips
Room-temp & crisp — diced onion, tomato, cilantro, chaat masala
Okra has a reputation problem, and the reputation is entirely deserved if you boil it. Boiled okra is slimy. Every person who says they hate okra is describing boiled okra.
Cut it fine and fry it and the opposite happens. The moisture goes and the slime goes with it, and what is left behind is a pile of crisp green splinters that behave more like a chip than a vegetable. That is the whole trick, and it is not a new one — kitchens in Gujarat and Rajasthan have been making kurkuri bhindi for a very long time.
The slime even has a name — mucilage — and it is water-soluble, which explains everything. Boiling gives it water to dissolve into. Frying drives the water off, and without water there is nothing for it to do.
We serve it at room temperature, which surprises people who expect it to arrive hot. Hot food steams itself soft. At room temperature it stays crisp for as long as it takes to eat, and it is the rare fried thing that is better ten minutes after it lands than it was on arrival. It comes tossed with diced onion, tomato, cilantro and chaat masala — the sour-salty spice mix that makes street food taste like street food.
Okra itself came to India from East Africa, a longer journey than most things on this menu made, and settled into Gujarati and Rajasthani kitchens as though it had always been there.
Chaat masala is the other half of the dish: black salt, dried mango powder, cumin. It smells faintly of sulphur in the jar and tastes, on the plate, like a Bombay afternoon.
It is also our standing recommendation for a first visit. Order it alongside the butter chicken and something from the bar, and watch the table pause when a plate of okra turns out to be the thing everyone reaches for twice.
“Try the crispy okra - unique and delicious.”
Dietary & spice
Vegan as it comes, and it carries none of the major allergens — no dairy, no gluten, no nuts — which makes it the easiest thing on the menu to put in front of a table where everybody is eating differently. The allergy menu has the full list.