Mysttik Masaala, a 2013 Vendy Award Finalist for Rookie of the Year, hasn’t been wasting any time since coming to everyone’s attention from the Vendy nomination.
The original Mysttik Masaala cart is located on 44th St just east of 2nd Ave for lunch. They recently opened a second cart on Park Ave & 54th St under the same name.
Now the two partners have opened a 3rd cart under the name Desie Khaana, located on the north side of 51st St, just west of 6th Ave. Working on the west side, we can walk to this cart from our office!
There are different specials each day at Mysttik Masaala, with a basic menu as well.
On our first visit to Desie Khaana, we tried the chaat off the basic menu for $5. It’s also a vegetarian dish, if that matters to you.
If you like variety, this is the dish for you! There were several different flavors in various parts of the container.
One area had a tinge of underlying sweetness from the tamarind. Another area was heavier on the green chutney taste.
Topping it all was an assortment of crunchy and crispy snacks, kind of like Chex mix. There’s an Indian name for it, but we cannot find it right now. If anyone knows, please put it in the comments.
There was a large disc on top that at first we thought was a carrot, but it turned out to be a type of cracker too.
Underneath the snacks were lots of chickpeas and chickpea puree, chopped raw onions, and cilantro.
If you’ve never had it before, chaat is a grab bag of flavors – sweet, starchy, herby from the fresh cilantro, and spicy too. Yes, this ended up being pretty spicy, by the time we got about halfway through.
The chaat from Desie Khaana was good, with an interesting assortment of flavors in that small container.
It’s tough to beat this dish for value. The chaat cost only $5, but was plenty filling.
You can find Mysttik Masaala and Desie Khaana on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed. For more information and menus, their facebook page is here.
We’re glad to see Mysttik Masaala expanding around midtown, and even more so now that they have a cart on the west side!
