Manek Chowk Ahmedabad

By day Manek Chowk is a jewellery bazaar; after 9 pm the goldsmiths' square becomes Ahmedabad's legendary night food market. Cheese butter dosas sizzle on giant tawas, pav bhaji is mashed under mountains of butter, and sitaphal shakes close the night — all vegetarian, all eaten at folding tables in a 600-year-old square.

Do not arrive at dinner time. Late is the whole point. Claim a folding table first — one person sits, everyone else fetches. Then order in sequence. A dosa while you are still hungry enough to face it, because the cheese-and-butter version is a meal by itself. Masala pav next, which is pav torn up and fried on the tawa with bhaji masala, and which is better than the plain pav bhaji sold beside it. Then one grilled sandwich shared between you rather than one each. Kulfi or a fruit shake at the end. Sitaphal is worth planning around. Custard apple has a short run from the end of the monsoon into early winter, and the shake made from fresh pulp is worth ordering first, because stalls do sell out. Skip the chocolate-and-cheese sandwich unless you are twelve. Skip the plain pav bhaji, which is better in a dozen quieter places. The lanes off the square are narrow. Park well back and walk in.

Manek Chowk is Ahmedabad's oldest square, laid out with the 15th-century citadel of Ahmed Shah's new capital and named for the saint Maneknath. For centuries it has run on a famous timetable: vegetable market at dawn, one of India's biggest jewellery bazaars through the day, and — once the goldsmiths' shutters come down around 9 pm — a khau gali that serves until the small hours. The night market's cheese-heavy dosas, tawa pav bhaji and fruit-pulp shakes are pure Amdavadi invention, eaten at folding tables in the middle of a medieval square between a mosque, a mausoleum and the stock exchange's old building.