Jumpstart the day: The breakfast (right) is the real deal at Shyam Sweets. (Source: Surbhi Gupta)This shop demands a visit early in the morning, for it is their popular “Dilli ka nashta” that draws crowds. Bedmi aloo, matar ki kachori and halwanagori — these three dishes make the quintessential old Delhi breakfast, Shyam Sweets’ Sanjay Aggarwal tells us. A fluffy poori, bedmi is made by blending the wheat dough with ground urad lentil and a mix of masalas, while nagori is also a poori, made of suji (semolina), and is accompanied by suji halwa. One needs to alternately take a bite of each of both to savour their taste.
Shyam Sweets has been standing at the same spot for 108 years now, and was started by Babu Lal, who grew up in old Delhi’s Chawri Bazaar. “Halwai humara khandani kaam hai. My great grandfather Babu Lal ji’s father Anandi Mal used to make sweets at our native place, Allahabad, before he shifted base to Delhi. Even members in the extended family were halwais,” says Aggarwal, third generation owner of the shop.
Before 1910, the family had a smaller shop across the street. “Almost all the shops used to be small and sold poori, kachori, samosa, jalebi, imarti, and gulab jamun. As and when times changed, we added other sweets to the menu. When Bengali sweets came to town, we started making them, and then mewa sweets using different dry fruits,” he says. The current shop, which faces Chawri Bazaar’s Barshabulla Chowk, has remained the same since its inception, only the look and feel of the place and caught on with time. From a variety of sweets on offer, the popular ones are the purani mithaiyan — gajar ka halwa, mung daal ka halwa, patisa and gulab jamun.
After Babu Lal died, his son and Aggarwal’s grandfather Mukat Bihari Lal took over and extended the business. It is his recipe of bedmi aloo that has made the shop famous. “The secret is in the masala mix and we continue to use the same formula,” says Aggarwal, who has been looking after the shop since 1988. A plate of bedmi-aloo used to sell for four annas four decades ago. Now, it is sold for Rs 40.
Aggarwal’s son, Bharat, has also joined the business. He initiated packaged dishes like shahi aloo, chhole, dal makhani and shahi paneer, and packaged premium wedding sweets like dry fruits and mewa bites, baklava, and Arabian sweets.
Aggarwal says former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee used to savour their matar kachori. Former Delhi CM Saheb Singh Verma and PM Indira Gandhi were regulars, too.
