GJ-2 INDIAN STREET FOOD — Restaurant in Knoxville

the bite that brought me back to life: i found hope in a pani puri

since moving to knoxville, things have felt beige. especially the food. and listen, i know for a lot of people here, biscuits and gravy, salt and pepper, and creamy comfort foods hit the spot, and that’s great. but for me, after spending most of my adult life in asia, and before that, california, i was used to bold flavors, street food, spice, color, brightness. food that felt alive. then i came here, and it was like that whole part of life went quiet. i stopped hoping i’d ever find something truly vibrant again. i stopped looking, honestly.

then today, while chatting with the woman running the truck, she asked if i’d ever tried pani puri before. i told her i hadn’t, and she offered me one. just one. and in that bite, something woke up. it was tangy, crisp, spicy, bright, alive. it didn’t just taste good, it felt like something inside me lit up again. like hope cracked open, like color came rushing back into a world that had been stuck in gray.

this wasn’t just food. it was a reminder that joy still exists, that flavor can still find you, that even in the most unexpected places, something beautiful can break through.

if you’re anywhere near knoxville, find this truck, eat the pani puri, it might bring you...

I was very excited to try their food as we were visiting Knoxville, but I was so disappointed. I called them and asked if they have everything on the menu and the woman said yes we do. When we got there to order chole bhature, the man said it’s only on Saturday. They should make it clear on the menu what’s available on what day. My food was super spicy that I couldn’t even eat. I order pav bhaji and pani puri. The water for pani puri was just plain extra spicy green chutney water. They should ask about the spice level before preparing the food. I ordered a thumbs up, and we were sitting outside in 103 degree weather, and they served us hot drink. The drink wasn’t even cold. When I asked the man if they have any cold drink, he said he is out. Well then maybe letting us know would have helped. Who wants to drink a hot drink while eating extra spicy food outside sweating in 103 degree weather. Total waste of...

Would never go to this place again as we ordered vadapav and panipuri and we waited for panipuri our almost for 30 minutes and then when we said just cancel the panipuri order as it’s too late now and we waited way long because we asked the guy how long it will take and he said 10 mins and waited for 30 mins so than of course anyone would be tired and the OWNER was right there and he said it’s okay “Cancel It” and he didn’t even care to know the situation or try to solve it, he was very RUDEEEEEEE, no one behaves like this with a customer. He needs to learn how to do business and specially how to behave with customer. If you go other restaurant and customer brings up problem the owner tries to solve it and he was like okay you can go. No one would ever do that to their customer like this, this was very insulting… VERYYYYY DISPOINTEDDDDDD. AVOIDDDD TO GO...