Around India In 80 Trains

After arriving in Chandigarh, Passepartout and I were overjoyed to come across a chain of restaurants called Hot Millions. Nothing more than a pizza and burger joint, but after spending weeks eating dosas, channa, variants of fried chicken, dhal and chapatis, my fingertips were tinged with turmeric, and my heart with a longing for a sloppy cheeseburger that wouldn’t have me contorted over a toilet bowl all night. And God, was this the best cheeseburger I have ever eaten.

It arrived in a little red plastic basket lined with greasy paper, the bun was fluffy and warm, the cheese dripping seductively out of the side and the meat: glistening, thick, sizzling slightly, felt like heaven when I sank my teeth in, crunching the gently fried onions, the mayo shooting into my palate. Even better, it was listed on the menu as “meat burger” alongside the chicken burger, which I ordered straight after just to check it was as good – and it was. Although more a breadcrumbed escalope of sorts, but still epic.

Passepartout had ordered a pepperoni pizza which was slow to arrive, and he was eyeing my burger, already developing food envy before his pizza had appeared. But once it came we were floored again. Large chunks of real pepperoni were frisbeed all over the surface of a bubbling cheesefest that made me momentarily ignore my burger, but not for long.

Hot Millions is a fun, family-evening-out sorta place, with plastic booths and an Archie-comic style interior that sings of shared malty milkshakes, canoodling couples and greasy-fingers. You just can’t go wrong. My only complaint is that we didn’t find them anywhere else in India – but then I guess that would make it that little less of a goldmine.