NOMMING MY WAY THROUGH MUMBAI

Like I have mentioned a million times before, 2014 has been a great year so far bringing in lots and lots of food with some sporadic travel mixed in. Ringing in the Christmas on the other side of the country, I spent my whole last week of December visiting my family in Mumbai, unlike my last visit which just lasted for a day and a half. This time I spent 5 days there, relaxing, and taking in a lot more of the cities varying neighborhoods, the food it has to offer, the Vitamin D from the ever shining sun.

I had made a list of things I wanted to do, while I visited this place. It included 10 items I wanted to do which also included a lot of eating especially the authentic Maharashtrian food and offcourse the obvious ones like pani puri and pav bhaji, nothing beats the Mumbai pani puri and pav bhaji ;)

Food Junction: Our first food stop bought us to this small kiosk located on the 2^nd floor of Dattani Mall, Vasai, serving South, Indian, Chinese and Fast food. After enjoying a 150 min PK, we made it to this place round 10 at night since we dint have much options available. While there we noshed on, Veg Manchow Soup and Schezwan Fried Rice. If I was rating this place in Bangalore I would have straight away given a 2/5, but since I was in a new town and getting to know the place and people and learning there way of eating, I would give them a 2.5/5. In my opinion, veg manchow soup was similar to hot and sour soup with a difference that they did serve the crispy noodles along with this. One thing I have noticed is, many places fails to provide the exact manchow soup which it is supposed to be; the dish they serve is Hot and sour soup with fried noodles, and this keeps happening at a lot of places in Bangalore too. Although,the soup food junction served had tons and tons of garlic and ginger, which definitely did provide my throat a relief.

I could have passed on the fried rice, given the amount of oil dripping out of the dish. It looked totally unhealthy and everytime I took a spoonful of it into my mouth my heart ached with discomfort.

Elephanta Caves: Located on an island near the Gateway of India, elephant caves are one of the important tourist spots. It’s a one hour journey from Gateway via ferry and once u reach the island, one needs to walk around a couple of km to reach the caves. While strolling our way to the caves, we came across this small restaurant at the entrance of the caves. Since all of us were famished, we made our way to this food hole and ordered for 2 meals and fried rice. Since it’s a tourist spot the place was crowded. We went on a slow day, and services were not on point. We were constantly flagging down our service for silverware, water, condiments, you name it; whatever we needed was never on our table. However the food was tasty. The meals were perfect. 2 chapathi’s, potato bhaji, rice with dal, papad, achar and gobi curry, made their way to our table. A simple yet filling meal that gave our taste buds a swirl of comfort. The fried rice was quite alright.

Kubera: This joint has a strong foothold in Vasai for many years, and as far as I remember, this was my dad’s favorite joint when we stayed in Vasai, which means this place was there 25 yrs back or may be more. Although each one of us was full till brim and we had plans on skipping dinner, we had to buy Pav Bhaji from this joint. Why? It’s a tradition my uncle follows for many years and after hearing it I felt its kinda cute and dint have the heart to skip it. So the tradition goes something like this: If my uncle visits Bombay for any reason with his family, and comes back home late night around 9 or 10, they usually buy pav bhaji with lots of extra pav’s , goes home, freshens up, heat the food, spread it on the table and eat; and this is always followed by a lip smacking dessert. The Pav bhaji was perfect, nothing like what we get in Bangalore. A must try!

Dalini Fine Dine: A new restaurant opened near my uncle’s house, we thought of giving it a try. They serve Mughlai, Chinese, Continental, and Gujarati/Rajasthani thali. Since my uncle had already tried Mughlai, we went for Chinese this time. Our order went something like this, Veg Manchow soup, Potato ginger garlic, Steamed rice with Thai green curry, hakka fried rice with Manchurian. Manchow soup as usual resembled hot and sour soup, but def did help my throat. Potato Ginger garlic was so-so. Thai Green curry has to improvised a lot to meet the usual standards, fried rice again was quite alright, Manchurian was a little different than my usual Manchurians I order, so I loved the presentation and shape of this dish, although this dish ended up having lots of salt, which was a spoiler king.

Onam: A kerala restaurant in Mumbai, one of the saviors for Malayali’s in case there wife’s are not home to cook. This place is frequented by my appan (mother’s sister’s husband) when his wife is out of town. They serve authentic Kerala food that includes, all types of fish, chicken, beef, Kerala Paratha and meals. We ordered for one meal and parathas and beef curry and veg kurma. My appan had this enormous meal that includes red rice, sambar, rasam, moru curry, pickle, papadam, uperi and payasam. He seems to be enjoying his meal lavishly. Mom, I and chitta went for kerala paratha and veg kurma, which was quite good and very reasonable. My brother was gulping in parathas and beef curry which seems to be nice too.

Dhuri: This place opened a year back near Vasai Railway Station. On the 5^th day after a tiresome yet mesmerizing visit from Haji Ali and Chowpatty, we made our stop at this joint to fulfill our pav bhaji tradition, and parceled out 3 pav bhajis and extra pav to eat at home. This place wasn’t as good as Kubera but it was quite alright I suppose.

Chowpatty: A walk from Marine drives to Chowpatty is the best way to enjoy an evening in Mumbai. Since we were all tired to walk, we caught a taxi to Chowpatty and made our way to the food stalls. Tanda pani puri, garam pani puri, gilla bhel, sev puri, gola, pav bhaji, these were our companions for the night. The best among all of it was pani puri, nothing like what we eat in Bangalore. Apart from this even the gola was awesome. These 2 are must try!

Prakash: A very famous place in Dadar, serving the authentic Maharastrian food. A place i had been meaning to stop all week, I finally made my way there on our last day. Conviniently enough, it was a small joint famous among lots of mumbaikar who specifically come here to enjoy a maharastrian meal. Sabudhana vada, kotmeer bade, batata poha, usal, puri bhaji and piyush were the items we ordered. Piyush is a must try here, its an amazing drink! I would pass over the batata poha, but puri bhaji, sabudhana vada and kotmeer bade was exceptional. If you happen to be in Dadar, then make sure to visit this place.

    

Most of the places i visited, are missing photo's. Either I forgot to click pics or I was too impatient to do so. There wasnt a single meal i wouldnt eat again or a restaurant i wouldnt recommend. Hopefully some of you have been to these places, heard of these places or plan on going in future.