Street food is the best way to take yourself from alien to local when you land in a new country, but it can be a daunting task with all those steaming, smoking, flaming carts loaded with foreign ingredients manned by fast-speaking, fast-moving locals. The beating heart of Indian food culture is street food; it’s fast but not fast food – they don’t scrimp on ingredients and everything is made fresh daily, hourly, or half-hourly depending on the dish, so you can put those Hitchcock-esque Bali Belly nightmares to bed. Eating is a communal affair, ask any Indian what a Lean Cuisine is and they’ll give you a blank stare, so join the scrum and home in on the vendors attracting the longest queues.

Chai
The stuff that comes in a teabag, right? Wrong. The Indian chai game is as serious as Sydney or Melbourne’s caffeine wars, but instead of pour-over and espresso, you’ll be waking up to milky cups of scorching hot tea laced with cardamom, ginger and sugar. Every chai wallah (that’s India’s answer to a barista) has his own recipe so taste your way through the city’s options. Warning: every first timer burns their tongue.

Delhi chaats
Fried snacks for any time of day made with potatoes, chickpeas or crispy fried dough topped with yoghurt, tangy tamarind and vivid coriander chutney, a sprinkling of spice and perhaps some fresh herbs, onion or tomato. Aloo chaat is made with a base of fried potato; samosa chaat is crushed samosas under the yoghurt and chutney topping; while chana chaat uses chickpeas. In two words, Indian nachos.

Rumali roti
Thin wheat flatbreads also called ‘handkerchief breads’ (rumal means handkerchief, roti means bread) because they come folded like a handkerchief. These breads are perfect for mopping up curry, or you can do as they did back in the resourceful Mughal period and use them to wipe your hands after a meal, although baby wipes work just as well.

Paratha
These moreish doughy, fried flatbreads originate in the north of India, which is referred to as the country’s bread basket for it’s endless plush fields of wheat. In Old Delhi also known as Chandi Chowk, they have a whole street devoted to serving them called Paranthe Wali Gali. Paratha are thicker than roti or chapatti and come plain, brushed with ghee and charred on a hotplate until golden, or stuffed with potato, lentils or vegetables.

Puri
In the morning, you’ll see locals eating these fried dough puffs made from what flour with some sort of accompaniment, be it chutney or a turmeric-laced golden curry sauce. Panipuri are India’s answer to shots, minus the alcohol. You’ll see the small round shells of fried dough (pani) stacked to precarious heights on counters and carts around the city. They are served filled with a mix of potato and chickpea stuffing, chutney and tangy ‘water’ (pani) or sauces. Pour the liquid into the crispy shell and eat in one go like a soup dumpling. No need to shout “shot!”.

Tandoori everything
The tandoor plays a big part in street food, being responsible for everything from soft clouds of naan to skewers of spice-marinated meat. You’ll find a tandoor vendor on every street corner as most people don’t have one at home so they’ll stop by daily, the same way we pick up a loaf of bread from the bakery. Watching the tandoor vendors wrangle balls of naan dough in the barrel-like hot furnaces is a spectacle worth stopping for alone.

Lassi
The lassi (we’re talking about the drink, not the dog) in India are worlds apart from the sweet mango versions we have in Australia. Made with sour buttermilk and flavoured with mint, lemon juice, cumin
or perhaps just a pinch of sugar or salt, they’re white, tangy and refreshing, and served with a spoon so you can enjoy the creamy iceberg of white buttermilk curd that bobs on the surface.

Kachori
In a nutshell, they are rich disc-shaped lentil-stuffed pastries. Kachori can be found in all corners of the subcontinent and each region has their own spin. Think of them as India’s meat pie, do you add ginger and chilli to yours, or pimp it with turmeric, tamarind and coriander? Perhaps you prefer sweet, as they do in Rajasthan, where mawa kachori are dipped in sugar syrup. In Delhi, they transform kachori into a wet chaat (snack) topping it with chickpea, potato, masala spice mix, yoghurt, coriander and tamarind chutneys, pomegranate seeds and sev, crunchy fried noodles made from chickpea flour – India’s answer to Chang’s noodles for anyone born before 1990.

Dine at a dhaba
Dhaba are no-frills roadside restaurants that serve local cuisine, but in big cities such as Delhi, they are more like canteens. The food is predominantly Punjabi, which means beautiful breads and pots of dahl. Ghee lends makhni dahl (black lentils) a rich sheen that’s perfectly matched with a tangy lime pickle and the country’s ubiquitous condiment, sliced raw red onion.

Kulfi falooda
When you think of India, desserts don’t necessarily spring to mind. Kulfi falooda is a dessert of saffron ice cream served with a sweet rose syrup and fine cornflour noodles (falooda), which plump up in the melting ice cream. It’s also an acquired taste.