What to Eat in Ranchi Today?

Breakfast

Dhuska is the dish to start with. A batter of rice and chana dal is deep-fried into thick discs, crisp outside and soft inside, and served with ghugni (spiced dried peas) or potato curry. It is a morning food. Stalls in Upper Bazaar and around Main Road start frying early, and many are done by late morning.

Chilka roti is quieter and harder to find in restaurants. It is a thin rice-flour crepe, a bit like a plain dosa, eaten with chutney or a light curry. It comes from tribal home kitchens, so look for places that serve Jharkhandi food specifically.

Lunch

Litti chokha is shared with Bihar and is everywhere. Balls of wheat dough stuffed with spiced sattu (roasted gram flour) are baked over coals and served with chokha — mashed roasted brinjal, tomato and potato — and a spoon of ghee. It is heavy, so it works better as lunch than as a snack before a climb.

The seasonal dish

Rugra, also called putu, is a small wild mushroom that grows in sal forests after the first monsoon rains, usually around June and July. It is cooked simply with onion and spices. Outside that window it is scarce or preserved, and some places will not have it at all. If you see it on a menu in season, order it.

Sweets

Thekua is a hard, fennel-scented biscuit of wheat flour and jaggery. Every household makes it for Chhath in October or November, and sweet shops sell it year-round. It keeps well, which makes it good for the road to the falls.

Eating well

Most of these are cheap and eaten standing up. For a sit-down Jharkhandi meal, and for rugra in season, see the kitchens listed on where to eat. Hundru and Dassam have small stalls at the entrance, but choice is limited, so eat before you go down the steps.