Shillong Khasi Food Trail

Two things decide whether this trail works, and neither is on a menu. The first is the day. Iewduh — Bara Bazar — is shut on Sundays, and so is most of the rest of the city''s eating. A visitor who allots one day to Shillong and picks a Sunday loses the entire market. The second is the hour. Khasi food here is a daytime cuisine. Jadoh stalls are lunch operations and thin out by about half past two; even the best-known Khasi room in Police Bazar is reported closing around half past seven. Plan an evening food crawl and you will find the Khasi half of the city shut and only the Chinese and north Indian places open — and then conclude, wrongly, that Shillong has no food of its own. What you are here for is jadoh: rice cooked with pork, and in the traditional version with pork blood, which is what gives it the dark colour. Around it come dohneiiong, pork with black sesame; dohkhlieh, a warm pork salad with onion; and tungrymbai, fermented soybean crushed to a paste — the one dish on this trail that visitors either love or cannot get past. Putharo and pumaloi are the steamed rice cakes alongside. And there is no beef ban in Meghalaya. Beef and pork are sold openly, side by side, which is not true of most of the country and is worth knowing before you order.

NOT ON A SUNDAY. Iewduh closes and most shops close with it. This is the single most common way a Shillong food day is wasted. EAT KHASI FOOD AT LUNCHTIME. Jadoh stalls are daytime businesses and start thinning out around 2 to 2.30 p.m. If you want jadoh, dohneiiong and tungrymbai, that is a lunch plan, not a dinner one. Trattoria in Police Bazar is the stop outside writers name most often as the easiest first one. TUNGRYMBAI IS FERMENTED SOYBEAN. It ferments three or four days beside a fire, wrapped in slamet leaves in a bamboo basket, and it smells like it. Order it deliberately rather than by accident. JADOH COMES IN TWO VERSIONS. The traditional one is cooked with pork blood, which is where the colour comes from. If that is not for you, ask — a version without it is normal and nobody will be offended. SOHPHIE IS SEASONAL. The wild box-myrtle sold in cane baskets by women along the roadside appears with spring and runs through summer. Out of season, no amount of asking produces it. NO INNER LINE PERMIT. Meghalaya does not operate one, unlike Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur. Indian citizens need no permit to be here. ON THE MARKET ITSELF. Iewduh is a working market under redevelopment, not a food court. It is where you buy, look and ask; the cooked-food stops are around it and in Police Bazar.

Iewduh is older than Shillong. When the British site committee of 1862 was choosing a headquarters it picked the northern slopes of the Shillong range and the plateau of Iewduh, and when the place became the Chief Commissioner''s headquarters on 20 March 1874 the town was nearly named Iewduh outright — the name was dropped over a resemblance to Tokyo''s old name, Yedo. The market still runs on Khasi terms rather than municipal ones. It belongs to, and pays tax to, the Syiem of Hima Mylliem, a traditional chieftainship, not the city corporation. And the traditional Khasi week is eight days long and is counted by markets rather than by days, with Iewduh as the eighth. By 2024 the market held over 4,500 shop spaces supporting more than 15,000 livelihoods, and it is under active redevelopment. The other old name in town is Delhi Mistan Bhandar on Police Bazaar Road, a sweet shop founded in 1932 and generally called the oldest eatery in Shillong.