Mumbai-Jaipur Road Trip: Surat’s Sugar N Spice Serves Everything Nice Manisha Sharma December 25, 2012 Eating Joints views: 12986 I feel food and travel are married to each other. The best way to experience authentic flavours is to travel by road and stop over at local joints. Sure, some of these places may challenge your reservations about hygiene, but the food more than makes up for them. Having left 4 hours behind schedule from Mumbai, our drive to Ahmedabad was a frantic one as we wanted to reach as early in the evening as possible. My husband and I are ‘old school’ when it comes to planning road trips; in the sense that we prefer natural light while driving long distances. As a result, in our hurry to reach Ahmedabad before dusk, we had to give up the luxury of stopping along the way to try out some food. And it being winter and us being in the heart of undhiyu land, we saw many makeshift stalls selling this wholesome dish. I hope to stop at a few on our way back to Mumbai, so do expect photos and a blog post about that! After covering half the distance, we stopped at a highway eatery in Surat – Sugar N Spice. There are several Sugar N Spice outlets along NH8 before one hits Ahmedabad. This eatery surprised me with its wide variety of ‘fast food’. The large complex also houses a subway station, a paan shop and a chikki stall. This is a great place to stop at if you’re travelling with kids and are looking for clean, hygienic food. We were there at lunchtime – the place was packed with people and buzzing with all kinds of food being ordered and served. There were pizzas and pasta on the menu but since we wanted to order takeaway, we decided to go with more convenient finger foods. We took an interesting combination of items – from some dry paneer tikkas to vegetable spring rolls to aloo paranthas. My son Suyash decided to go with a sub and was quite happy with it. Everything was nice and spicy, and a great way to break the monotony of the endless open road that lay ahead of us as we drove ahead.