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 2nd 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 5th 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.
