The Supremacy Debate

Over the years, the debate has been on. Which is the best mango around the world. India loves her mangoes. We produce the world’s highest number of mangoes and export as little as we can since we just eat up most of our produce. I love such passion.

No one can be more passionate about mangoes than Bengalis. And Bengal knows her mangoes. Any true Bengali will tell you that only 2 districts in this world produce the world’s best mangoes. Malda and Murshidabad. Everyone else is just a hopeful imposter.

Ever since I was a child, I have been well trained to identify mangoes and their unique tastes. Even though we fall in the category of the “Mango People” or the commoners, in terms of mango we developed rich and cultivated tastes. Every year we would start in early May, getting irritated with every bite of the first batch of mangoes that would come to Calcutta. Suddenly, people would remember long lost relatives in Murshidabad and Malda. In fact legend has it that I was given away in marriage after strong evidence of Ze Wife’s Grandma’s outstanding culinary skills in making mango pickle. Though this theory is strongly refuted by all.

And that’s not surprising. I remember the day when I was sent off to far away Muzaffarpur, both my grandmas called me up to say that I was going to the land of litchis!!! No farewell, No “take care of yourself”, not even, “Don’t get married without letting us know!”. Plain and simple I was told of litchis. Only later while I had worked on Foods for a long period of time, I realized the importance of provenance.

So I grew up in the summer months of Calcutta eating everything possible that can be made of mangoes in various stages of ripeness. Apart from the whole mangoes, there were pickles, chutneys, sherbets, sweets, puddings, custards and even lentils!!! It was perhaps the only time a self-respecting Bong Household would serve something other than Rosogolla and Fish Fry when people came unannounced.

And as a child, every single year I waited for the Himsagar to arrive!

Last year was the first year of my life when I did not have Himsagar. Maybe it was work, maybe it was an effort to like Alphonsos and treat Badami with some respect that made me wait for Himsagar till I found the entire West of India has not even heard of them. In fact, Langras are also a rarity. Then one day, I found this one vendor from Bihar who said, “Sir, aap jaisa aam ke samajhdaar kahan milte hain aajkal? Yahan log sirf yahan ke aam hi khate hain” He did sell me litchis at a fleecing price of 10 USD per KG but then if you are called a connoisseur, you end up paying!!!

Ze Wife has the bloodline to understand mangoes. So with her for the last few years we have gone ahead and tasted mangoes from outside India. And we feel today like the protagonist of The Alchemist! The Thai mangoes are good only with the sticky Jasmine rice. The ones from Cebu (in the Philippines) are passable at best, and the lesser said about the Chinese varieties, the better. Today my sister started crying on FB saying my niece has to satisfy her love for mangoes with Mexican mangoes which are pretty sour. Can you beat that? Mexican? I am still in shock. So after travelling around the world, and eating almost everything of note except the Spanish mangoes, I have decided it is Himasagar that my heart desires.

Even after this realization, this year, we took it upon ourselves to try every variety of mangoes available in Mumbai but nothing seems to satisfy. Lalbag, Totapuri, Alphonsos, Badami, Kesar, Dasheri, nothing!

Today we finally found some decent langras. And as we were biting into the softness and the sweetness, the evil plan was hatched. Do you know which is the only district that can come close to Malda when it comes to Himasagar? The answer my friend is Rajshahi. And I shall say no more.

The Beginning of Sin

I have been always fascinated by the story of the apple and man’s first sin. At the outset, it is a straightforward demonstration of human nature. We love the forbidden. We love to reach beyond our limits, to touch what’s beyond us. Exploration of the unknown is our inherent nature. Deep within, the explorer calls out to every single one of us. And therefore over the ages, men have sinned – gone beyond the acceptable limits.

However, on deeper analysis, sin is a lot more complicated. And nothing demonstrates its veracious stages better than gluttony, the only sin I succumb to again and again. It starts with temptation – the subtle hints that come to you from the aroma, from the sounds in the kitchen, the clink of glasses, the sizzle of a molten lava cake, the sudden appearance of a red velvet dream. The next is resistance. We turn around, we refuse and yet the hunger rises within and it’s a hunger like no other. It’s not for physical satiety, rather it’s for the soul, the tainted soul. For the pure soul can resist any temptation. We try to retain the purity. But unlike the Son of God, we finally succumb.

What follows next is the actual act of sinning. We vacillate between snobbery at it best and Gluttony at its worst. In the former, we assume the shroud of pretence, assume who we are not and then slowly we slide in to our sin. In the other, the distinction between man, created in the image of God, and an animal slowly vanishes and in some strange semblance to the apocalyptic world of Animal Farm, men forget their nature.

What results however, is only temporary satiety. The soul is tainted a bit more but the now darkened soul is not satisfied. It wants more and more.

Post this, comes repent. A shameful look at self and the promise of making every bad deed good comes. And if the repent is strong maybe temptation is kept at bay. For temptation, it is certain to come and the cycle repeats itself.

The question is – can it be broken?

There’s No Food like Home

So the last couple of weeks have been a gastronomically delightful one. I have tried authentic Filipino, Japanese, Thai and Malay cuisines, all within a week’s time. There are many more countries to explore, many more fears to conquer. I love understanding new flavours, new cooking methods and new ways you can turn the same old broccoli into something completely different. But as I went around experimenting, I realized that to let your taste buds go wild, understanding flavours you have never tried before is an experiment not many can appreciate. We don’t like messing with our taste buds. And that’s the biggest concern for food marketers around the world. You are ok to let go off your mom’s skin care regime, replacing it with whatever new technology that the skin guys come up with. But there’s no way you’ll ever let go off what you think as great food, what you tasted as you were growing up.

Tomorrow my nation celebrates her independence day and as I walked around Little India with half of what’s left of an old friend and his future better quarter (half of half is a quarter right?) trying to find hair oil in this country with more versions of shampoos and conditioners than I have hair left on my head, I realized that the only great insight for Food was taste of home. And home for me will always be a clumsy juggernaut of a democracy called India that rumbles around destroying all hopes of order and decorum but which always vibrates with life and a million cuisines full of spices that ensures that by the time you are ten, your taste buds have been numbed to the extent that anything mildly spicy will be bland for you.

Singapore is a great place for food. It lets you understand multiple cuisines; it showcases fusion food like no other place, (except perhaps Gujju Land which has No Onion No garlic Pudina Pizza) it lets you experiment. But after 2 weeks of experimentation, when I sat down at LN for an Andhra meal with friends, I found bliss. Food that reminds us of home is our umbilical cord as we grow up. It keeps us connected. The food courts in Singapore are a great place to observe food habits and as I looked around while sitting near the Fortune of Wealth, it struck me. We might love to experiment with food while we travel, we might have a cuisine that we love back home on our weekend nights but when we are away from home, there is nothing more pleasing than finding the familiar smells and sights and then lose ourselves in the food that we grew up with.

As much as a Foodie I can become, the heart always tugs the stomach along to the memories of childhood.

Mumbai Food Guide III

I have not reviewed restaurants for a long time but it does not mean I have stopped paying visits to them. However, what has changed now is that I feel a bit grown up and just good food can’t get my attention.

Let me start from down south. A place I visit rarely these days. But the other day I was at this beautiful restaurant called Suzette. Italian crepes and brilliant coffee – That’s what makes it a nice place to hang out while you wait for the play to start at NCPA. The best part, they really care to ask how you would like your coffee, juice or food and they show that they care about your food. It’s a cosy little place and just so perfect for an evening of crepes and conversations.

Le Pain Quotidien is the other new Restaurant near Gateway and though I can never get myself to pronounce its name, it makes up for it by serving some amazing breakfast. However, it needs to have more veg options. I think it has a nice location for the shutterbugs. It’s a good idea to have time in your hands, your camera in your bags and wait for the sun to rise up above Mumbai. Somehow, South Mumbai is one of the only places in Mumbai where time seems to stop for a moment. And you can sip on your coffee and read a book. In South Mumbai and in my secret coffee day in Bandra.

Wich Latte, though a chain, actually serves really nice sandwiches if you care to walk down Colaba Causeway and look for a cute little shop. The service is a bit lazy but the sandwiches and the choice of breads make up for it. The coffee is average so you might want to see what other beverage is on the menu.

If you travel down north, you might want to stop for a nice lunch at Gallops, the restaurant at Mahalakshmi Race Course. The cuisine is mostly Indian and authentically so. The ambience is old world, the clientele are the regulars and you just might feel a little out of the place because clearly in your jeans and T shirt, you just don’t seem to belong there. But if any restaurant outside the gymkhanas, Jimmy Boy and Café Britannia can remind me of an old Bombay which was not yet Mumbai, this might just do the trick.

Coming back to my love of Mumbai, Bandra, the choices keep getting interesting. However, the two biggest disappointments also come from here. The first was Pali Village Café. This is a place where the ambience is one of my favourites and if you walk in on a lazy Saturday afternoon post the rush, you will be delighted with their service. However, you walk in on a weekend night and the waiter will be standing over your shoulder ready to swoop down before you can put down your soup spoon. Also somehow the place that has a fatter wine menu than a food one makes me a bit uncomfortable. If you have such an impressive wine menu, you need to have people who understand wine.

The second one that really really upset me was Eat Around the Corner. That’s the reincarnation of one of my old favourites - Just Around the Corner. But this is one reincarnation we could have done without. The pizzeria and Costa Coffee is gone, the entire concept of making your own salad is a thing of the past, the food is still good but they decided to put up a sign whose gist was “hey guys, if you come in here, spend at least 250 bucks and don’t treat this like a coffee place.” I walked out the first time I saw it. The next time I went back, thankfully someone had the sense to remove the message and I had to agree that the minestrone soup was really nice.

Khan e Khas on the other hand wowed me with their service. It is the poor cousin down the road to the well known Mini Punjab. But the food is excellent and one night V and I decided to order in a few stuff. Now we ourselves were embarrassed with the quantity we were ordering but the guy said, “Even if you order only 2 roomalis, we will deliver that.”  Now that’s service I would pay for.

Yellow Tree is my favourite Bandra joint in recent times – not because of its heavenly curly fries, but because it’s perhaps the only place in Bandra which can boast of some space and allows the luxury of a slow and nice dinner over conversations. The food choices are a little strange and I am never sure of what is the cuisine they excel in. But even then, the curly fries, OH!!! The Curly Fries.

The last in this list had to be Nanak Sai. It’s not a restaurant you would find in the regular food guides. But for us it has been the source of numerous breakfasts, late evening snacks and light dinners – you get the gist. It was one of the most affordable places until recently and even now the value for money remains extremely high when ordering in. I loved the way it’s located. There have been days when I have picked up a book from Danai, the lovely quaint bookstore beside it, ordered a cup of tea or a juice and read the book under the spreading shade of the tree outside the shop. But then someone decided to open a Costa Coffee and the cacophony drove me off :)

Happy Hogging :)

Pets, Food, Movies

Bearded Goon took me to learn “How to Train Your Dragon” and memories just rushed in. I never had a pet as a kid. Probably because no one thought I was capable enough to handle one but I would like to believe that it was because of my eclectic choice of pets. I was clear that I needed a pet. And like most things in my life I had also short listed my choice of pets. I either wanted a baby dragon or a baby elephant. Given that my sister is evil, she kept in hope saying that the lizards in the house might just turn into dragons one day. You see, for a really small kid, genetical engineering is a tough thing to comprehend. And well, elephants, sigh… That’s a story for another night.

Anyway, that’s the only reason why I loved the movie. Great animation, simple story, a long forgotten love for machines, caramel popcorn, all made it extremely magical. It ended with a beautiful thought – “We may have nothing and a very had life, but we have dragons as pets.”

Coming back to other things I loved as a child, if there was ever anything I loved more than books, it must have been food. And thus, I have decided I will make “Julie and Julia” a compulsory viewing for people who loved Food. A simple story but the way love for Food is celebrated in the movie is just out of this world. Amongst recent movies, the only other place I found such exotic display of culinary delights was in It’s Complicated. Meryl Streep beautifully created the joy of cooking. And yeah, I cooked last Sunday inspired by it.

Well Done Abba is a movie which could never have been a blockbuster but if you love a good story, if you love the way great directors have an eye for details, go and get a DVD for yourself. It tells you life is still simple, systems are corrupt but can be challenged, not all men in this world have learnt to accept bribes and that still in the heartlands of India a strong police force can evoke fear amongst the minds of the wrong doers.

Green Zone and Hurt Locker both disappoint. Guess any more movies on Iraq and War and WMDs and audiences will just retire hurt. After all, we can take night after night of IPL, but night after night of War movies. There has to be a limit.

Fortunately, one could watch Jane Kahan se Aayi Hain to just forget that such things exist and could just leave the brains behind and believe in a movie about love across planets. Not a bad movie I must admit.

Or one could watch Shutter Island and marvel at the unlimited horrors that the mind can create. Absolute Classic. Old Dogs however disappoint. You can’t take Robin Williams and John Travolta and dish out a half baked cake. That’s just unfair.

But coming back to pets and food, tonight I shall dream about Dragons and Desserts. It should be a good night.

Mumbai Food Guide Redux

Moshe’s Café – I have eaten at many places in my life where the food has been good but seldom have I fallen in complete love with the food. Moshe’s food is like the ultimate seductress. It is slow in coming but when your dish arrives, it is as fresh as the first dew on the morning grass. And then when you put in your first morsel inside your mouth, your palette thanks you for making this love story begin. I loved the food at Moshe’s. Just a word of caution – be prepared to shell out some decent amount of money and do not be in a hurry.

Jimmy Boy – Near Asiatic, this is the place for authentic Parsi Food. I first went to Jimmy Boy during the Parsi New Year and fell in love with it’s huge ‘dawat’ – it’s special marriage meal. And more importantly, it’s the only place in Mumbai where they still serve Palonji’s Ice Cream Soda. If you are from Calcutta, you might remember the taste of Bijoligrill.

Sundance Bar – It’s worth going for even if for the name and if you love Paul Newman. The food is just ok, but you can always drop in for a quick drink or bite after work and then catch the train from Churchgate. I however am extremely disappointed with their service. Sometimes easy clientele often makes you arrogant.

Indian Summer – If you think you need a nice Indian taste in South Mumbai, I should recommend Indian Summer. The kababs are really good. The Chicken, I have been told is exquisite. The only problem however is that the crowd is mostly elderly or consists of families eating out. I feel like bringing down the average age of the clientele every time I go there.

Pollyesther – After all the eating and merry making if you would want to go ahead and dance your night away go over to Polly’s. The cover charges are high and the music is excellent till about mid way. They play classic rock till around 10 in the night and then the plebeians come in with their request and the same old dance numbers.

Caravan Sarai – From South Mumbai, if we move to Bandra and still would want to have Indian Food, I definitely recommend Caravan Sarai. The price might be a bit on the higher side but it definitely ensures that your taste buds thank you from the bottom of their hearts.

Bassilico – In Bandra again, this place is definitely overpriced and the serving sizes are really small. But the ambience is nice and you wouldn’t mind sitting here with a friend discussing how life is going on.

Da Vincis – If however, Bassilico’s disappoint you, go ahead to Da Vincis. The food is good, the music better and on Wednesday’s there is a person on guitar who is kind enough to not sing if you request him not to. I mean, he sings pretty well but I really felt awkward when someone is singing standing by your table. It’s nice to see it in the movies but not that exciting when it happens to you. I just guess I am not pseud enough.

Garnish – If you are as middle class as I am and often suffer from a liquidity crunch as I do, come down to King’s circle. This is a place that has one of the largest menu cards that I have seen with items at all price points. The crowd is mainly college going. I sometimes wonder though how on earth do college going kids these days have so much money. Or is it just Mumbai?

Hariyali – This is frankly not a place I can recommend going because at the end of the day this is just a bar but even then this has one of the best food at its price points. Situated just below the Wadala Flyover, this place has given me a lot of my late night snacks. The waiters got upset when we kept on ordering food without ordering any liquor but as we became familiar they decided that we were some freaks of nature who come into a bar on a Friday night to just eat.

Of Liquor and Food

Since I came back to Mumbai I again went ahead to explore the food options in Mumbai. Ever since I left Bangalore I missed the Andhra style restaurants where the waiters really wanted you to eat and leave as a happy man or woman. Thanks to JK, I was introduced to Ram Naik. This is a small South India just outside Matunga Railway Station. They serve meals here and not the usual idli dosas. It’s a relief for all those like me who are tired of eating out every night; find the guest house food to be too bland and the dabbas not up to the mark. The best part these days however is an almost out of the world mango juice which is worth every penny you spend on it.

Also I have been searching for authentic Maharashtrian food for some time. I think I have found one at Mahim near Goa Portuguese. It still requires one more visit before I put the details up on this blog.

When it comes to food I am unabashedly jingoistic. After coming to Mumbai and having vada pavs for breakfast, lunch and dinner at times I feel ashamed at the craziness we displayed for the sole McDonalds in Canaught Place in Delhi when we used to travel back from Pilani. For all those who come into Mumbai and want to have safe vada pavs they must visit the Jumbo King outlets near almost every railway station.

Coming to liquor however I come a cropper. I can give you details of every single mocktail served in any pub in Bengalooru. Give me a few months in Mumbai and I’ll be able to tell you the same about Mumbai. But the point is I somehow like the pubs and lounges of Bangalore much better than Bombay. Even Hard Rock Café I find dull and boring these days. But one day I’ll be able to give you the details about Mumbai pubs.

In my numerous visits to pubs with friends, teams and whoever joined, I have most often been the one to tell the auto or the taxi driver where to go. In fact, if it were the US, I would be the designated driver of the group. But these outings have also helped me to find out the easy getaways for the teetotallers of the world. The answer my friends is Apple Juice. Given its colour the Appy Fizz or even a normal Apple juice can easily be misconstrued as a glass of Whiskey. The other option is Sprite or Mirinda. Have a glass in your hand and you can happily pass it off as Vodka. Take the Apple Juice in your hand, go and shake your body on the dance floor and you are safe for the night. In case, just in case you have to show alcoholic content in the beverage in your hand pick up a Breezer and claim that you are having a bad day. It works. Always.

But if you are a non smoker then even I am at a loss how to save you from the passive smoking that is a given in these places.

A Thought for Food – The Hiker’s Dubai Food Guide

UAE is a great place for food fanatics, especially if you are the types who kill innocent animals for your own palette’s pleasures. If you have read a bit of Tim Harford and his paperback economics, you’ll perhaps know about the tourist traps – the costly and overpriced restaurants at the major tourist attractions around the World. Now Dubai has its fair share of them, like the ones on Burj Al Arab, Dubai Marina and Souk Madinat Jumeriah but overall you’ll be able to survive. That’s the other good thing about Dubai, Sharjah and even Abu Dhabi - you tend to get an extremely wide choice of price range. So you can have a really nice lunch for as less as 5 AEDs or spend perhaps your monthly salary at one shot. I figured out pretty early that going and searching for Caesar Salad in the up market restaurants is not worth spending my time and money on. So if you are hoping this post will help you find the best place for a camel roast, forget about it. My post is dedicated to all those herbivores who land up in a foreign land and forgo most of their meals in search of decent edible vegetarian food.

To be very frank, it isn’t so tough in Dubai if you know where to look. We start at the very bottom – the cafeterias. This segment has mallus everywhere. Almost 90% of the shops are run by them. Bangladeshis form the second largest group of hoteliers. Now these places might not serve you lunch, but will always have porothas and curries at your disposal and of course Lipton tea. If you are a bong, try finding a Bangladeshi one (mostly in Abu Dhabi) and you might actually get an excellent fish curry. Some restaurants are allowed to serve lunch and dinner and here you get your real value for money food. For example, if you are shopping in Bur Dubai, definitely go in to Highland Multi cuisine restaurant, near the Astoria Hotel. Really good food for souls tired from incessant shopping. In fact, while eating the Egg Bhurji there, I almost stood up and sang Jana Gana Mana after being subjected to scrambled eggs, Spanish omelette, cheese omelette and such bland ‘delicacies’ every morning at breakfast. Jai Hind. Seriously, I single handedly must have increased the pepper consumption of my hotel in these few weeks that I have been here.

Now if you are a little more status conscious, remember three names – Satwa, Karama and Bur Dubai. These are the Asian dominated areas in Dubai and thus of course are home to some great food. You have your Saravana Bhavans, Kamats, Mithais lined up in these places and the quality is really great. But what you must definitely try are Pakistani restaurants. (Most of them are concentrated in Sharjah. Yeah, no wonder we lost every time we played there) In fact, while I was having Vegetable Biriyani in Karachi Darbar at Karama, tears started flowing down my eyes, violins began to play in the background and I almost forgave our friendly neighbourhood country. It is undoubtedly the best Biriyani I have had in my life. Even, the Biriyani had during my school days at Zee-Shan in Calcutta by saving pennies from my already puny pocket money did not taste better. And of course order carefully if you are ordering parathas or roties. The Pakistani counterparts are perhaps double the diameter of our small but beautiful chapattis.

If you are however more patriotic and still want to have good North Indian Biriyani, do not worry – a mallu would have opened a Sindh Punjab or a Delhi Durbar Restaurant for you. But then you must go down to Satwa roundabout and sit on the roadside benches of Ravi Restaurant. Remember the violins in your ears? Here I am guaranteeing that they’ll become almost an orchestra, especially if you have survived on McDonalds or Burger Kings.

Speaking of fast food, things are pretty much the same like in Mumbai or Bangalore. You have your usual Subways, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Burger King along with a few others. These are spread across the city, in petrol pumps and in Food Courts in the malls. As usual, they will typically have only one vegetarian variety, so ensure you do not visit the same chain without having a good interval between visits. In Dubai however, Burger King definitely tastes better than McDonalds. Your search for Indian chats will again take you back to Karama, where you will find yourself in Bombay Chowpatty.

For the more experimenting types, if you are from India, I’ll definitely recommend the Lebanese and Turkish restaurants. They are pretty much spread across the city. But try to take someone who’ll know what to order. A good idea would be to go ahead and walk down from Satwa Roundabout and look around for a restaurant you might want to explore. The other good cluster of food joints is near the Shangri-la Hotel at the Dubai Manhattan. From Nandos to Tony Romas, this place has a good variety for the Friday Nights. For those who want to cook, you’ll fall in love with the supermarkets which has fresh and canned food of every sort. The animals that have been killed for your eating pleasure, I hear, are also extremely succulent. In fact, even smaller outlets might have a great collection of fish for the bongs and the mallus. But you can make do without cooking if you are here for a short duration. In fact, my kitchenette will wish I had never tried making pasta. :)

Also, remember the Breakfast Buffet. Yes, it will get boring and repetitive and you’ll try searching for vegetarian food and end up with different versions of potatoes. You’d have made a perfect permutation combination of all types of bread available. But still if you get lost in the way, the heavy breakfast is what keeps you alive, trust me.

Here’s a song for food and lovers of good food. The mouse always knew it. Seeing this movie made me believe more in mice than H2G2 could :)

Dreams are to lovers as wine is to friends

Carried through lifetimes, (and) spilled now and then

I am driven by hunger, so saddened to be

Thieving in darkness; I know you're not pleased

But nothing worth eating is free

My hope is a banquet impatiently downed

Impossibly full, now I'll probably drown

Many thieves' lives are lonely with one mouth to feed

If giving means taking, I'll never succeed

For nothing worth stealing is...

Free at last; won't be undersold

Surviving isn't living; won't eat what I'm told

Let me free, I'll astonish you; I'm planning to fly

I won't let this party just pass me by

The banquet is now underway, so...

Bring out the bottles; a new tale has spun

In clearing this table, my new life's begun

I am nervous, excited; (oh) just read the marquee!

A lifetime of hiding; I'm suddenly free!

My dinner is waiting for me

A lifetime of hiding; I'm suddenly free!

My dinner is waiting for me

The Food Fanatic

I always wonder if God wanted us to diet, he would not have let us invent recipes. Being the God fearing person that I am, I believe therefore that it is my solemn duty to appreciate every such recipe as created by men. People wonder how a good plate of Lasagne can capture my imagination more than a couple of beautiful but undernourished women nibbling on their Caesar salad at the next table. Anyway, since I can not ever explain to them that a beautifully made dish is equivalent to Mozart’s symphony, I prefer to keep silent. But it seems that I am not alone. The director of Ratatouille obviously thinks so too. It was heartening to see a movie give food the respect that it deserves. We live in a world of ready made food and quick solutions. Sometimes, it’s good to pause awhile and remember the cuisines that we have lost due to our busy lifestyles. Perhaps elish macher paturi will no longer be made at a Bengali household, perhaps the sambhar at my friend’s place will be the MTR ready to eat version, but even then they will stay on in our memories.

Due to certain reasons, I haven’t been able to explore the food scenario in Mumbai as much as I would have liked to. But anyway, here are some places worth mentioning.

Chandragupta – This Indian Food joint is just opposite the powerhouse of Maharashtra politics – Shiv Sena Bhawan. Situated at a convenient location, yet a little distance from Sivaji Park, it offers good Indian food, although expensive. However, when you have a man following every customer to the restroom to hand him a paper towel, what else can you expect.

Pizzeria and Not just Jazz by the Bay – comes out a winner simply because of its location. Excellent pizzas and then a walk down Marine Drive, the perfect setting for good food and a romantic night out.

Peshawari – The most overpriced restaurant I have ever been to where a Naan variety can cost as much as one rupee less than a grand. Yups, that’s exactly what you think it is. An excellent choice to impress your clients and offering really great kebabs. But vegetarians might find it coming out a cropper. Do not miss out on the Dal Makhani here.

Oh Calcutta – They say bongs will find it even if it is located in a not so searchable location. Excellently prepared food, but try not to experiment too much. Stick with the suggested dishes as they have mastered making them. And yes, you can order in Bengali.

Grill Cottage – The most value for money restaurant in my second most favourite place in Mumbai. On Carter Road, this place has old-fashioned sitting arrangements and a person who will come with a pitcher and wash basin to help you wash your hands. Try the Full Lassi here. Many a friends have been asked, “inke liye to launga, aap ke liye bhi full glass?”

Crepe Station – my favourite Brunch Location also on Carter Road. Nice, quiet and serving good Italian dishes, this is a must visit if you want to impress someone with your refined taste for food and yet not come out as very flashy.

Royal China – Though I have mostly covered Mumbai food joints geographically, meticulously covering each and every milestone in specific areas, I have also diverted in search of good food. The best Chinese joint in Mumbai according to me is in Powai near Hiranandani. One of the few authentic Chinese places.

Satranj Napoli – At Andheri, this place might aid you rub shoulders with the who’s who of Bollywood. The first time I went there, I saw Ramu of RGV ki Aag infamy. The interesting fact is that this place serves Indian and Italian cuisine with equal ease and dishes out K serial starlets every hour.

Tavaa – one of the safest on the pocket in the hugely expensive city of Mumbai. In case, you cannot manage to get into Moti Mahal in Bandra, you should try out this nice place just nearby. The veg starters here are extremely good and you must try them even if you are a hard-core non vegetarian.

Amici – After you walk out of Tavaa or Pot Pouri, you should walk into Amici’s for its heavenly 96% Fat free dark chocolate gelato.

God exists. :)

A Trip Down Memory Lane V – The Food

One of my biggest regrets in Pilani was that NO ONE EVER baked a cake solely for me on my birthday. So what if it was during the compres? It’s true that people have atoned for their sins later and I have happily gorged on dinner and filter coffees and baked cakes from Pilani sent to me. But the grudge remained. The whispers from wingies were pretty audible. “Poor guy! He should have a girlfriend.” “Friends do not bake cakes during compres,” they would say over my treat at ANC, “get a girlfriend, dude.” Anyway, as one of my readers complained, my blog seems to be a happy blog, and I intend to keep it that way. So let’s talk about the good things. So here was this sweet lady who ACTUALLY baked me some of the best cookies I have ever had and we had not even met earlier. One of the most touching moments of my visit, I owe you one, lady.

The best part about going back is the treats, especially after your farewell treats at Bangalore, they never seem to be a pain in your pocket. I remember how carefully we used to fix up the menu, someone always keeping an eye on the budget while we were on campus. Anyway, when the talk about food comes, we have to talk first about the redis. My saviour during the really bad lunch days, the redis have not changed. As soon as I entered I went to have breakfast at Gandhi redi, the next day was Nagarjis. But nothing would be complete without mentioning Gulabji. The Vyas redi is not the best redi, neither is Gulabji a hot favourite amongst students but he will always hold a special place in my heart as my official gate call passer. In the lazy afternoons, Gulabji would bang on the doors of 132 Vyas and say, “Uth ja. Tujhe koi bula rahi hain.” In fact, after a few times, whenever he would see a known cycle, he would smile between his beard and moustache and quickly make a shikanji without even asking and while the rider rested he would have gone to call me. His kids are in school now and he is a happy man. I don’t know if we will ever sit down together and talk about Haryana Politics but I was really happy that he remembered Madhuban Banerjee. “Yaar tera name bahut tough hain. Aaj bhi nahin bata pata hoon.”

At C’not, Chimpu has a new offering in the form of Khas. People now do not know the birth story of PPW, Sharmaji’s is not the favourite of people anymore. All flesh eaters have deserted GD; everyone goes to Nobles. Annapurna is deserted most of the times. I still consider it one of the best Dosa Makers of India. When I went in to Annapurna’s and ordered Haldi Doodh, the guy gave me a huge smile. It seemed someone had ordered Haldi Doodh after a long long long time. Sharmaji loved Rahul more than anyone of us in DOPY but because we were Rahul’s friends and more importantly DOPYites, I always managed to get huge discounts on Moruchaya/EPC/personal/non-personal/impersonal treats too. So I was actually happy the DOPY decided to sit down for dinner at Sharmas. The food has not changed even after all these years and so has not the Sharmas. Everyone in the family is a Sharmaji, it’s just that, to each one of us, Sharmaji meant one of them.