Chai Pani

This place has super friendly service. We had some very nice (and piping hot) chai.
We had 2 items off the menu, the Indian Mac & Cheese and a pancake type thing with yogurt and mint sauce. Both were very tasty, the pancake was oh-​so-​awesome.
The momma goes and cooks it fresh, takes a bit of time, but worth the wait.
I’d be a regular here if I lived in Edmonton.

Mmmm … nice stuff, nice stuff! Chai pani recently opened on 105^th street, right in front of the Chapters. It’s a great location and they serve up a unique menu.
Chai pani in Hindi means «tea and snacks». Perhaps influenced by the British notion of high tea (or maybe not), many if not most Indian families spend afternoons drinking some tea and having a small snack or two. This quaint boutique-​style café serves up samosas, parathas, a few salads an Indian club sandwich that sounds delicious and some other small eats. It’s not supposed to be a humungous meal, but just something that fills you up for a couple of hours.
I’ve had two «chais» here. The cardamom ginger chai and the old-​school masala chai. Both were very good. The tea is made in a traditional method of simmering water, milk, spices and tea in a pot and usually takes about 5 – 10 minutes to prepare. Yes! They don’t serve it up in half a minute, like Starbucks. But really, they aren’t supposed to be confused with chai lattes. The tea in fact, is very un-​latte-​ish without any sort of froth/​foam association. Not very milky, tasty and with good color. This is really how chai is had in India. So try it out!
The décor and ambience of this place is good. The lady working at the counter informed me that they might be having weekly specials like one week of Indonesian food and so on … don’t know how varied it will be — time will tell! I’m going to be stopping here every now and then, when I’m too lazy to make myself a cup of Indian tea at home.
One thing I couldn’t figure was that they have kopi lowak for $ 10 a cup. That’s certainly a very cheap price. Kopi Lowak is the famous (infamous?) coffee that’s produced from defecated beans from an Asian mammal (don’t remember which). Typically a cup of kopi lowak costs about $ 80 from what I’ve heard. So I’m curious now!