Aam Papad – A Highly Irresistible Indian Street Food

Amritsar, the golden city is filled up with spicy, sweet and buttery food. Since this holy city is known for its heritage, apart from Golden Temple and Wagah Border, there are many more places to visit. You will also encounter hundreds of food stalls to kill your hunger. One thing is for sure if you are in Amritsar, there will be times when your belly will be all filled up. But here we have something different, something to digest your food, that is Aam Papad. ‘Aam Papad’, this word is enough to give you flashbacks of your golden days. It had been a childhood partner to each one of us. The Khatta-Meetha taste of Aam Papad will drive you back into good old times and will help you to eat more.

• Aam Papad: A delight
• The famous one in Amritsar

Aam Papad: A delight

Aam Papad is everyone’s favorite. Our childhood would have been incomplete without its tangy taste. All of us have some childhood memories connected with it. Every evening going to the corner shop and buying these shapeless strips of Aam Papad have given us so much pleasure and a sense of contentment. If you sneak peek through my list of best food items of Amritsar, Aam Papad comes out to be among top 5. If you are one among those kinds of people who love piquant flavors just like me, I would say Aam Papad is going to be your new favorite. To the ones who do not know what Aam Papad is here is a little description of that.

• Aam Papad is a roll of a strip (it is shaped that way), which is made of raw mango pulp. Basically, it is mango leather
• It is 100% vegetarian
• Aam Papad tastes a bit sweet, a bit salty all I would say is it has got mixed flavors and is really tangy

The famous one in Amritsar

The street food of Amritsar is known all-round. And why not the people here are serving for generations. Well, if you are in India you come across wide range of Aam Papad vendors. While researching for our street food bicycle tour, we had tried so many spicy and buttery food items, and now it was time to try out something different. So, we went to Ram Lubhaya, a vendor who is serving his amazing tangy Aam Papad since 1968. When I visited Ram Lubhaya Aam Papad Wala for the first time, I was stunned to see that there could be so many variants of Aam Papad. This place has got two outlets. One is the shop and the other one is their cart. The vendor is really humble. He has a bucket full of information about the local food of Amritsar. What made me admire him more is his love for the city. Although there were many things like ‘churan’, ‘hing goli’ etc, but what fascinated me the most is, there are up to 15 types of Aam Papad. The Aam Papad is so good that we have included this in our street food bicycle tour. If you are not done with it, get a box packed with a little of every variety.

Alternatives we tried on our street food bicycle tour

1. Dry mango Aam Papad
2. Khatta Aam Papad (Dry)
3. Salty Aam Papad (Dry)
4. Wet Mango Aam Papad (Sweet)
5. Ram laddu
6. Anardana Goli
7. Anardana with the seasoning of chutney and masala

Of course, this is not feasible to try each and every item at one time, so I have provided you the listicle of the “must to eat” things there.

From salty to sweet, you will find here every type of Aam Papad. Every Aam Papad is unique in its own way. The Ram laddu is for all those people who love to relish the taste of tamarind. The Anardana Goli is made of pomegranate. And with the addition of chutney and masala turns out to be so amazing.

The Aam Papad is served on a disposable plate. Upon the Aam Papad, a spice mix which is basically a blend of 12 different authentic spices, mint chutney, white salt, black salt and a bit of lemon is squashed. This Aam Papad is counted one among best desi foods of Amritsar. But let me tell you this place is only for food lovers and not for the for the ones who get obsessed and fascinated by the ambiance. And what my experience says is that when you eat here, you don’t care about the ambiance. The 50 years old taste of Aam Papad will make you forget everything.

That moment is really mouth watering when you see them sprinkling spices and squashing lemon. It is the spice mix, the key ingredient that has made this Aam Papad so popular. The lemon makes it even tangier. And then over that, the addition of mint chutney is the best part. When you finally eat it your taste buds excites with its tangy taste. And after you end up eating it you begin to crave for it. People generally go to Ram Lubhaya after their evening street food trial whether it’s me, his local customers or renowned celebrities like Chef Vikas Khanna even, we all love this Aam Papad.

So don’t you think Ram Lubhaya’s Aam Papad is something must try.
If you can’t reach out to him order his Aam Papad. But the best option will be coming to Amritsar, have our “Amritsar Street Food Bicycle Tour” and try other popular street food too. Apart from our food tour there are so many other things to do in Amritsar like you can have “Amritsar Heritage Bicycle Tour” and visit city like a local or “Amritsar Golden Temple Walking Tour” to witness the palki ceremony and much more.

Happy wandering 🙂