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Dizzy28 wrote:They are outside Grand Bazaar now. Northern side.shake d livin wake d dead wrote:few years ago people used to speak about kelvin and rose outside valpark(mostly night vendors)....ate a couple times and it was decentish....not sure if they still around.....when yuh go there is level kishore kumar yuh hearing
You type all this? Srsmaj. tom wrote:Obviously this entire discussion will always be a subjective matter. But let me try to set some scientific standardization with a rationale.
Doubles obviously taste best when served right away in front the server. To start: you should need 2 napkins to hold it because it should be piping hot, so hot that you must be forced to slow down and wait for it to cool (at least 10 seconds, to 30 seconds) to savour the meal or else your mouth will be burned.The truth is, it's hard to find a bad doubles if you're eating it on the spot it's the right temperature (2 napkin hold) and you're feeling the actual hunger for food.
- The barra: should be of sufficient thickness to be able to scoop and hold enough channa and sauces for a good bite. Some people make these paper thin barra that rip up in the middle like roti. wtf man! They're cheating you and they know it. Should be soft, have a very smooth savoury mouth-feel texture which makes you salivate more to distribute the flavour profile of the food when you chew a few times. It should hold up on its own without any channa.
- Most vendors get the barra right when it's hot, so the next obvious standard is the channa. Again, subjective. Some vendors put in a lot of spices and curry to make it dark, and some don't, and it's smooth and yellow. When hot and the channa running with steam, either way is usually good, unless these people really cannot cook. A man who knows his trade should have soaked the channa with salt or baking soda overnight before washing and cooking. This allows the magnesium and potassium and other salts in the bean to remain there, instead of being leached out in the overnight soaking. The result is a creamier texture of the cooked bean as well as a mellow burst of umami when the bean is crushed in your mouth. The channa should be soft with no crunch at all.
- Then the efforts of sauces are next: must have a decent pepper and a green sauce at least. Next is cucumber (but i know some people hate this in their doubles), and maybe the luxury of coconut chutney. Finally roast pepper for those who want the extra kick. Some have kuchela which is always a nice treat because the spicy, hot, roasted cumin and tangy mango goes very well with the channa. A good vendor would understand what ratio to serve these in the default "slight." Sweet sauce doesn't belong in a doubles. It's a savoury food. Sweet is disgusting in a food like that (imagine eating curry baigan and currant's roll) and you are doing yourself a culinary disfavour if you don't know how to pair certain foods to make your taste buds "pop" correctly. Plus sugar fools your brain into making everything taste better, but it masks the true flavour and spices of the food you're eating. That's why processed food has a ton of sugar or salt.
Therefore the test for a good doubles, for me, is how it tastes when wrapped, i.e. when it is not served in the optimal conditions. And a lot of doubles are truly nasty when cold. For one, the dark channa side does not bode well when cold. That curry spices only works when it's runny and steaming. Not soaked into a soft soggy barra like a floppy dog ears. Therefore my preference has been the yellow channa. It tastes just as good when not hot, it's not over-spiced and still retains the true flavour profile when dog-nose cold. It's hard to find the yellow channa, but there have been a few in Chaguanas that do it right. Then the ratio: do you want to unwrap a soggy messy rag on your plate when it's cold with half of the brown bag soaked and tearing with a touch, or an optimally wrapped and contained sandwich which is just almost spilling over? The barra will not be too soggy and should still have a decent mouth-feel bite especially around the edges. This is important too in serving hot. Some vendors don't understand the ratio and when the 2 barra gone, you're left with a bowl of soup and your fingers.
Conclusion: you just have to experiment and see what you like. It will always be subjective, but I ask some measure of standardization when conducting your tests as I have outlined above. And the ultimate test is a cold wrapped doubles on a plate. This should eliminate the bias of any old doubles tasting good when it is hot.
shake d livin wake d dead wrote:Dizzy28 wrote:They are outside Grand Bazaar now. Northern side.shake d livin wake d dead wrote:few years ago people used to speak about kelvin and rose outside valpark(mostly night vendors)....ate a couple times and it was decentish....not sure if they still around.....when yuh go there is level kishore kumar yuh hearing
How it tasting??
Dizzy28 wrote:They are outside Grand Bazaar now. Northern side.shake d livin wake d dead wrote:few years ago people used to speak about kelvin and rose outside valpark(mostly night vendors)....ate a couple times and it was decentish....not sure if they still around.....when yuh go there is level kishore kumar yuh hearing
oliverqueen wrote:"North people" talking about where have the best doubles, lol
They were never all that. And Kevin puts lettuce in his cucumber sometimes. Iike wtf man!!shake d livin wake d dead wrote:Dizzy28 wrote:They are outside Grand Bazaar now. Northern side.shake d livin wake d dead wrote:few years ago people used to speak about kelvin and rose outside valpark(mostly night vendors)....ate a couple times and it was decentish....not sure if they still around.....when yuh go there is level kishore kumar yuh hearing
How it tasting??
oliverqueen wrote:"North people" talking about where have the best doubles, lol
rspann wrote:Keshawn on Nelson St. Inside the plannings. Allyuh must try it
rspann wrote:Forty legs is real protein. Go look up" forty legs dread". I have to school you though. Wasn't a Bobo. Bobo does wear a kind of wrap on their heads. I saw one selling nuts on the highway come in the back of the gas station in curepe , pee, shake he Lolo and go back selling. So the flavor might be a little different in those doubles.
Yuh know I always seeing a crowd dey ..never got time to stop and try hummphreakazoid wrote:I dunno bout you all but I'm not paying 11 dollars for an aloo pie nah... Best doubles for me right now is an orange shed in Barrackpore (opposite GP-Gordon's plantation ground)
Zetski wrote:was in d airport early this morning so i take a spin by red cap and buy a doubles it taste ight.. stop overrating d man ohh gorrr d aloo pie was real good ngl
shake d livin wake d dead wrote:Zetski wrote:was in d airport early this morning so i take a spin by red cap and buy a doubles it taste ight.. stop overrating d man ohh gorrr d aloo pie was real good ngl
He not in the airport per say...his brother in the airport...be specific
screwbash wrote:oliverqueen wrote:"North people" talking about where have the best doubles, lol
nothing south doh taste good.they does chinks on the ingredents, ply ting come close was paltoo doubles and cause it was $2.50 or so then, so it worth the price yuh pay. plus if south doh have running water ever day who in they right mind go chance buying food. i tink was say no water in debe or environs for 2 days next week, idk how men go still buy doubles and ting by them sheds. i sure 99% ah people doh clean they water tanks and that does have real dirt and be brown inside with wasa water.
maj. tom wrote:Nice local invention there by Ms. Vidya. Didn't know she invented the chicken doubles concept. Seems like a lot of hard work on her part to prepare all that variety. Will have to check out the spot later in the year. 1 of that seems like a belly buster.
Amazing how we can witness and document how a local cultural food can evolve. Dunno how popular it will end up being on the NYC/Toronto export scale. Retaining the quality as the original product is going to be difficult for the copycats.