Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco · restaurant
A spare, no-frills room in the upper Haight where North Indian street food takes the whole stage — the kind of place where pani puri shells crack open into tamarind-mint broth and onion kachoris spend 40 minutes in the fryer before anyone gets impatient. The chole bhature (a blistered balloon of fried bread pulled over spiced chickpeas darkened with black tea) would make the trip worthwhile on its own, but the namesake jalebi — piped fresh into ghee, soaked in saffron sugar syrup, and shattering on contact — makes a case for being the country's best.