THIS is the closest you will get to authentic Indian street food without hopping on a plane and jetting off to the subcontinent.

Just one taste of bhelpuri and you could imagine yourself in Mumbai's Chowpatty Beach watching the sun sizzle as it sinks into the Arabian Sea.

Welcome to Babu Bombay Street Kitchen, the only place in Glasgow where you can dip into pau bhaji and bhurj pau then wash it down with an ice cold bottle of the wonderfully retro Limca, Thums Up or Mirinda.

Set up by Rachna Dheer and Gail Finlayson, the basement kitchen in Glasgow's West Regent Street is a homage to India's great tradition of chai and roti shops - come in and buy food to go or sit down at one of the small tables, surrounded by Bollywood posters, to delight in the taste sensation that is Rachna's home cooking.

Born in Mumbai, this is the street food she remembers growing up in Juhu Beach: sizzling spices, delicious vegetarian snacks and rich curries to entice the tastebuds. This is real Indian food, once tasted you'll never want a bland chasni or dull chicken tikka masala ever again.

"This is the reason we opened the place and why it's so important to me: pau bhaji," Rachna sits a plate of mouth-watering spicy vegetables on the table. "You've got to try it."

Crushed cauliflower, peas, green pepper, tomatoes and potatoes are topped with red onion, lime juice and fresh coriander, served with a touch of Glasgow - a toasted, buttered Morton's roll. It tastes incredible, hard to believe this explosive burst of fresh spices could come from such a small plate.

"We have a special spice mix which is only used for making pau bhaji. You can't make anything else with it," explains Rachna, 39, who now lives in Strathbungo, in the city's South Side.

"Unlike garam masala, you can't use it in other dishes, bhaji masala is only for pau bhaji. In India, it's street food and we have it with bread because there's no time to make chapatis on the street, so in Glasgow a buttered Morton's roll is perfect. Just tear the bread and go in.

"This is why I opened because I couldn't find pau bhaji anywhere."

Open from 7.30am, breakfast specials include a Bombay omelette roti wrap made with ginger, onion, chilli, coriander, topped with green chilli and coriander mayo and wrapped in a roti. And spicy scrambled egg bhurji pau, using free range eggs, ginger, red onion, tomatoes, green chilli and coriander, is served in a toasted and buttered Morton's roll.

FORGET the abomination of chai lattes that appear in high street coffee shops - wash it all down with a cup of proper chai tea, made the traditional way.

"We make the chai with our own spices - cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and black pepper - we then have to boil it and reduce it, then add milk and reduce it again," says Rachna. "It takes hours to make but then you have that thick sugary tea. We also use the same masala to make our chai chocolate brownies."

The lunchtime rush serves hot food, including dhal, homestyle curries and cold snacks. There is also Kerala coffee and homemade mango lassi, traditional tiffins, layered lunch boxes filled with curry, dahl and rice to take away.

Open until 8pm from Wednesday to Friday, pop in for a bite to eat after work or take home butter chicken or garlic chilli chicken.

"We started off at the farmers' market in Glasgow, then I went to Edinburgh and other places," says Rachna.

"We opened here a year back in May and the feedback has been good. At first we had to convince people that we didn't have doner kebabs, samosas or pakora. Now we have so many regulars and they know exactly what they want."

l Babu Bombay Street Kitchen, 186 West Regent Street, Glasgow. Visit www.babu-kitchen.com

angela.mcmanus@eveningtimes.co.uk