Fiery food, fiery skies: #28States28Plates Day 1 Blog

It started with a spicy, hot plate of Misal Pav! For those not from Maharashtra: here’s what it is: a spicy gravy poured on top of a mixture of sprouts and farsan, accompanied by some freshly baked bread. Not for the weak stomached, that’s for sure! While the Vada pav may be more widely recognised, misal pav is a far more traditional dish and that’s what we picked to kick off the first meal on our #28States28Plates road trip with!

Our agenda is simple: drive to every single state in the country, gorge on the best dishes that state has to offer, and then drive some more. Our drive started off from Pune: and the Misal Pav that we feasted on as dawn broke was a proper introduction to the food of Maharashta. But there were 27 more states to be explored, starting with Madhya Pradesh.

Pune to Indore is a relatively straightforward drive. Google Maps indicates 593 km which should take about 12 hours. But with our shoot schedules, you can always expect us to take a little more than that. The roads, though, were great. The Pune-Nasik highway we were on used to be a disaster but the road is brilliant now: a four lane highway snaking though lush green rolling hills. You do have to take a turn off the highway which forces you on to a narrow village road where you spend more than an hour, but you eventually do find your way back to wide highways. Madhya Pradesh has a sorted road network as well, and once we crossed the border, we noticed the conditions of the road drastically improved. Until we reached Indore, that is.

Indore is where we will be spending the next few days, exploring the town and the world-famous street food that this city has to offer. Have a recommendation on where we should eat? Get in touch with us on social media, we’d love to see these cities through the eyes of the locals!