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Shopping for eats

Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

Crisp and spicy Bitter gourd chips are one of the many kinds of savouries that one finds at Maha Chips

Owned by V. Shivakumar, who is popularly known as ‘Chips Kumar,’ Maha Chips has different varieties of chips, mixtures and halwas.

“I was the first in the city to sell fresh banana wafers sold from push carts some 20 years ago,” claims Kumar by way of explaining the epithet added to his name. “Till I began this outlet, I earned my livelihood by selling chips from a push cart near Padmanabhaswamy Temple,” he adds.

Maha Chips takes pride in its rare varieties of chips made of colacasia (chembu) elephant foot yam (chena) breadfruit (sheema jacka) and bitter gourd in addition to the usual wafers made of bananas and jack fruit.

Says Kumar: “I try and test different kinds of chips, mixtures and halwas before introducing them in my shop.”

The golden bananas chips is available in different flavours – salt, sweet, spicy or with a dash of masala. While salt and sweet banana chips are sold at Rs.120 for a kilo, the masala variant is priced at Rs.130 per kilo. The cost of chips made of yam and breadfruit range between Rs.120 and Rs.150 per kilo, depending on availability.

Maha Chips sees demand peaking during the festival season, especially Onam. For instance, the average number of bananas used during the festive season would be around 3,000 a day, says Kumar.

The outlet, which boasts of a regular stream of customers belonging to all walks of life, also offers eight varieties of mixtures and nearly a dozen halwas. ‘Special Mixture’, ‘Bombay Mixture’ and ‘Sada Mixture’ are some of the special mixtures that has customers making a beeline to this place. The Special Mixture, priced at Rs.240 per kilo, contains badams, nuts and butter biscuits while the ordinary mixture’ is priced at Rs.80 per kilo. In addition, snacks such as onion pakodas and cashewnut pakodas are also sold at Maha Chips.

Maha Chips does not disappoint those with a sweet-tooth. There are several varieties of halwas including Maha halwa, fruit halwa, rice halwa, pineapple halwa and grape halwa. Common sweets such as ladoos and jalebis can be bought from here.

“We ring up customers who have a liking for rare varieties when they are prepared,” says R. Kannan, an employee. Maha Chips is gearing up for Deepavali ahead and has planned several varieties of sweets. Although Kumar is happy about the popularity of his outlet, he rues the fact that he is often unable to meet demand due to the seasonal nature of some of the ingredients.

Maha Chips works on all days of the week and is open from 9 a.m. to 10.30 p.m.

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