Thaksen Aani Mandali.
A few metres from the tony restaurants of Colaba is a market where a Rs30 plate of special dahi puri is considered an expensive meal on the street. Colaba Market, one of the oldest in the city, is busier and livelier on weekday evenings than Colaba Causeway is on weekend evenings. Young men and women walk around and check each other out, fishermen in shorts and chappals disappear behind the curtains of country liquor bars, a street vendor supplies peanuts to the Taj Mahal hotel, and designers’ assistants come to Pradhan to buy lace, borders and buttons.
Colaba Market, unlike Dhobi Talao market, has maintained its liveliness over the decades because it’s still an open market and there has been very little interference from the authorities. Strand Road, and the two streets that branch off from it, look like a village mela every day. There are some shops here that are so product specific – selling only bangles, garlic or loose spices – you wonder how the owners support their families with a thela that has no apparent system to its inventory. But they do, and have done so for generations.
The smaller shops are specifically for local people including those from Azad Nagar – a mix of fishermen’s families, and residents of the shanty town next to their homes - and the ones living in the buildings in the neighbouring areas. They all consider a walk through the market a fun way to spend an evening. While the shops may not be the ideal place to start buying your supplies from if you’re not familiar with the area, it’s worth peeking around just to get some local flavour. Here are my picks of the ones worth browsing by:
Jagprasad Bhelwala
A good place to fuel up on pani puri, sev puri and bhel before a shopping trip. There is almost always a wait, often because people take away parcels. The pani here is well balanced, neither too sour, nor too spicy, and the stall is more hygienic than the others around the market. The price doesn’t hurt either, and Jagprasad always gives a bonus puri with masala and sev as a cap to the snack.
Outside the Telephone Exchange, Strand Road. Daily, from 7.30pm to 10.30pm. Rs13 for a plate of pani puri, Rs15 for a plate of sev puri or bhel puri.
Venus Florist
Venus is in an odd spot. After Jagprasad, there is a line of minuscule shops: an open-to-the-street barbershop, mattresswallahs, and a host of tailoring and alteration units, all of which specialise in jeans, and have names like Pappu, Nasir, Nadir and Super Men’s. These are punctuated by chicken centres where the hens sit in crammed cages. “When we got the shop 71 years ago, the ‘cutting’ was done in a building behind,” said Shivaji Abbaji Gaekwad, who owns and runs the flower shop. “Now we’re used to the sounds, it doesn’t really matter.” Most of his business comes from deliveries, and between Gaekwad and his helper, they cater to customers across the city. At Venus, I buy tulsi and mogra, and order desi gulab (the kind used to make gulkand) for sharbat, cocktails and other culinary uses. Gaekwad also sells honey-scented agarbattis.
Shop No.6, Plot No.7, Strand Road. Tel: 97027 17930. Daily, from 7.30am to 10pm.
Pick Point & Co. Vegetable Seller
They may have started as a small vegetable stall in 1952, but now Pick Point is the smartest vegetable seller in all of Colaba Market. They deliver as far as Altamount Road, and are quick to mention, even to Antilia. Their vegetables are only marginally better than those of the other vendors, but what makes them stand out is the variety of products and services. If customers ask for an item, Pick Point will stock or source it. There is little logic to the variety of packaged products they keep now, but a few minutes at the shop will reveal nam pla (Thai fish sauce), feta cheese, dried mushrooms, coconut milk, meat tenderising powders, dried herbs, “hommos tahineh” cans by a company called Daily Fresh, and about five dozen more items. They never take days off, even when the rest of the market is closed.
Shops No.4 and 5, Plot No.7, Strand Road. Tel: 022 2285 6452. Daily, from 7.30am to 9.30pm.
Yash Snack Corner
Jagprasad says that Yash Snack Corner was started by a relative who trained under him. Indeed the former’s pani is better than the latter’s. But there is one thing that Yash serves that Jagprasad doesn’t. And that is Sindhi puris for pani puri and dahi puri. These puris are made from a mix of dals and and are darker, smoother and crunchier than the standard ones made from rava (semolina). They are also three times the price. Instead of in a pani puri, I’d recommend them in Yash’s “special dahi puri”. When a customer orders this (the most expensive item on the menu), he or she can also choose from three fillings – ragda, boondi, or my pick, a mash of potatoes, onions and chaat masala.
Shop No.11, Shalimar Building, (take the first right after Pick Point), Lala Nigam Road. Daily, from 5pm to 10pm. Sindhi pani puri Rs25, special dahi puri Rs30, regular pani puri Rs13.
Panalal Hiralal Gupta Peanuts
Anil Gupta sells peanuts for 14 hours a day, every day. Roasted and raw, peeled and unpeeled, big and small. Sure, he sells four kinds of kurmura, fat poha, banana chips, fat masala sev, boondi, channa jor, chikki and other fried snacks too. He even sells the Sindhi puris to Yash Snack Corner. But peanuts are his bestsellers and his biggest source of revenue for a reason – they taste really close to the famously delicious ones from Bhavnagar in Gujarat. They are always fresh, perfectly salted, with a bold crunch and sweet finish. Gupta says he supplies peanuts to the Taj. When I don’t eat half of my stash on the way home, I use it to make a peanut-green chilli-garlic chutney, homemade peanut butter, or a sweet and spicy peanut chikki. The proof of his success is in how his shop (and he) have steadily grown larger over the years, progressing from a hand cart to a 50 square feet room.
Near Shop No.11, Shalimar Building, Lala Nigam Road. Tel: 98195 89499. Daily, from 8.30am to 10.30pm. Unpeeled peanuts Rs170 per kg; small peeled peanuts Rs180 per kg, large peeled peanuts Rs225 per kg.
Gauri’s Seasonal Stall
The bejewelled Gauribai has a unique business model. She will only sell one to three things just as they hit their season, and she will sell three kinds of garlic – the slender and strong “deshi” or “gaunti” from Gujarat, a medium sized and milder one from Japalpur, and the fat, mild, and easily peeled kind called “Chinese”. At the moment she’s got jamun and totapuri mango; in a couple of weeks, it will be water chestnuts and maybe fresh peanuts in the shell; in the winter, she switches to ber and amla; during Shivratri, it’s ratalu or sweet potato.
In front of Janata Book Depot in Gala House (first left from Pick Point), near Super Garlic, Lala Nigam Road. Daily, from 9am to 1pm and from 4pm to 9pm. Jamun Rs20 for 250 grams; unpeeled deshi garlic Rs20 per kg.
Super Garlic
Javed and Amul sell heaps of garlic cloves sorted by size from this cart with the coolest name in Colaba Market. The smaller cloves are cheaper because they are the toughest to peel, says Javed. But look beyond the garlic – they sell packaged Maharashtrian chutneys including kharda and thecha, as well as derived ones such as “Kolhapuri jhatka” (made with red chillies and garlic) and “Puneri chatka”; Malvani masala powder; copra (dried coconut kernel); and Maharashtrian pickles like gud lonche (jaggery pickle) and aamba lonche (mango pickle).
In front of Janata Book Depot in Gala House, (first left from Pick Point) near Super Garlic, Lala Nigam Road. Daily, from 9am to 1pm and from 4pm to 9pm. Dried coconut Rs120 per kg; chutneys Rs17 per packet; Malvani masala Rs250 per kg.
Thaksen Aani Mandali (or Thaksen and Co)
The father and son that run this shop are the fourth and fifth generation owners of a family business that started out as a sprout shop. The business continues to sell green vatana, chowli, matki (moth beans), chana, black chana, and mung sprouts, including one basket with everything tossed together for ussal. But if you poke your head under the various packets dangling all around the front of the cart you’re likely to find rice-based snacks shaped like wheels, tubes and macaroni that you fry before eating. There’s also spicy rice khichiyas, black sesame powder chutney, and fresh kokam. I recommend the mixed sprouts for ussal (they have the fastest turnover), and the khichiyas if you’re feeling adventurous.
Below Akbar House, entrance of Rajawadkar Lane, diagonally opposite Colaba Fish Market. Tel: 022 2282 5187. Monday to Saturday, from 7am to 9pm; Sunday, closed.
Premchand Gupta Kharvas
Follow the sound of temple bells to the end of Rajawadkar Lane. Outside the door of the Hanuman mandir is Premchand Gupta’s 38-year-old stall, where he sells kharvas so fresh, it’s still warm. This sweet preparation made from bovine colustrum (the first milk produced by a cow after she gives birth) is a hit with many of the kids accompanying their parents shopping. Gupta cleanly slices a chunk of the flan-like steamed milk, wraps it in banana leaf, weighs it, cuts it into bite-sized pieces and hands it over to his eager young customers. The entire process takes less than five seconds.
Outside Hanuman Mandir, end of Rajawadkar Lane. Daily, from 6pm to 10.30pm. Rs14 for 100 grams.
Roshni Bajaj Sanghvi is a Mumbai-based food journalist, a contributing editor at Vogue magazine, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City, and the restaurant reviewer for the Hindustan Times newspaper in Mumbai.