Cutlets from Lourdes Fast Food.
A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from my friend Sameer Seth. It said, “Was walking down Bazar Road the other day and saw this gentleman setting up a folding table with a hot box of chapatis. Long story short – ended up have some amazing pork sorpotel and home-made chapatis – vinegary porky goodness!” There was also an attachment. It was a photograph of a slightly crumpled paper menu. It looked much like one of those photocopied flyers that are tucked into the newspaper. The menu listed over 50 items, including - along with sorpotel, vindaloo and beef chilli – bottle masala, chicken pan rolls, fugias, and wedding rice.
To say I was restless to try Lourdes Fast Food’s fare would be an understatement. At first, from reading the email, I thought that Lourdes was a little stall on busy Bazar Road selling a couple of Goan dishes. Then, a closer look at the menu revealed that, in fact, Lourdes’ flavours are all East Indian. I Googled the name of the shop. There were no results relevant to Mumbai. (The first result was a video of pop star Madonna’s daughter Lourdes eating fried chicken.) Lourdes Fast Food wasn’t on any of the food listings websites either.
What I find strange about East Indian food in Mumbai is that there are very few restaurants that serve it (though there are a few thelas around Gorai). Few people outside the community – apart from those who have East Indian friends or live in East Indian pockets of the city such as Byculla, Bandra, and Malad – know anything about the cuisine. Yet, this is a community and a cuisine that originated right here, in Mumbai. East Indians were originally Marathi-speaking local fishermen and farmers who converted to Roman Catholicism under the Portuguese. The community adopted the name East Indian on the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria to distinguish themselves as North Konkan Catholics, and British subjects (as opposed to immigrants such as Goan Catholics who were Portuguese subjects).
I spoke with a few East Indians in Mumbai’s food industry for a little history and perspective. “All East Indians were born and brought up in Maharashtra,” said Glyston Gracias, the chef-manager of Smoke House Deli. “Before the conversions, we were grouped by vocation – kolis (fisherman), shetkaris (land-owning farmers), bhandaris (brahmins) and salt-pan owners – and we worked with a barter system. When we converted, the East India Company supported the community, offered wages and security, on our own land.” As with most Indian communities, there are minor differences in the way East Indians with different background eat. For instance, Kolis eat more fish, and shetkaris eat more meat. “Everybody eats the same dishes, but there are variations across the community,” said Gresham Fernandes, the executive chef of Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality, which owns Salt Water Cafe, Smoke House Deli and the Mocha chain of coffee shops. “But East Indian food and language [dialect] is completely different, even from Goan cuisine,” said Fernandes. “Our masalas, like our [universally used] bottle masala use dry spices. Goans use more wet chilli-based pastes.”
Indeed, the first taste I’d had of East Indian food was at Fernandes’ home, where I ate a meal prepared by his mother Ancida for a trial run of The Gypsy Kitchen last month. There, a motley group of diners feasted on sweet home-made grape wine, tangy pork tamrial, chicken khuddi, crepe-like chittaps, handbreads or appas, and more. The flavours tasted familiar yet completely new. The appas, for example, reminded me of bhakris, but were more rough-hewn and fluffier.
Last week, I finally made my way to Bazar Road, the busy market street to the east of Waroda Road and walked up and down until I came across the husband-and-wife team of Gilroy and Lourdes Nunes, who started Lourdes Fast Food five years ago. I sampled a prawn cutlet, a mince chop, and some masala-fried kite fish from their tray, while they told me about how East Indians prefer cooking at home and eating their own food rather than going out. Lourdes prepares everything they sell at their home, which is a few minutes walk away from their table. As the evening went by, and things ran out, she’d go home and return 15 minutes later with a fresh batch of hot food. The table’s offerings, however, are limited to snacks, and a few cold bags of sorpotel and vindaloo, ready to heat-and-eat. Most of the items on their menu are available on order, and Gilroy does deliveries himself. Even though the Nunes’ business is not listed, they have a steady stream of customers that live in the neighbouring area (though Lourdes was recently quoted in a recent Times of India story about bottle masala).
The day after I visited Lourdes Fast Food, I called Paul Kinny, the executive chef of the InterContinental Marine Drive, and asked him to recommend East Indian cookbooks. “There are hardly one or two,” he said. “One came out few years ago, but it was more Goan.” Kinny told me that one of his cookbooks is about 30 years old; I hope to photocopy it soon.
Each of the three chefs I interviewed for this column wants to raise awareness about their community’s food. Gracias said that he rues the fact that East Indians haven’t traditionally shared recipes with the next generation. Even when mothers-in-law share recipes with daughters-in-law, they intentionally leave out an ingredient or two, or alter a technique, he said. Kinny told me that his wife Smita makes and sells sweets unique to East Indian cuisine such as fugias, and date and walnut rolls. Fernandes, meanwhile, mentioned the East Indian food festival that is held at St. Anthony’s Church in Vakola in November. I’ve already marked in my diary.
WHERE TO ORDER FROM
Lourdes Fast Food
111D Bazar Road, opposite National Bakery, Bandra (West). Tel: 98670 45434.
Nunes makes everything from brain cutlets to fresh bombil pickle. Orders must be placed at least one day in advance. From Rs 12 for a cutlet or a chop to Rs500 for a kilo of curry such as beef ball curry or chicken khuddi. Bottle masala, Rs1,000 per kilo.
Smita Kinny
NL6, Building 3, Flat 6, Indraprastha Society, Sector 10, Nerul. Tel: 2770 2333/98331 81777.
From November 10 until mid-December every year, Kinny takes orders for fugias, marzipan, milk cream, kulkul, date and walnut roll, and other sweet treats. Customers can pick up their orders from December 22 to Christmas Eve. From Rs500 to Rs900 for a kilo.
Kimenna “Kim” Godfrey
111A Bazar Road, Bandra (West). Tel: 98201 13825.
Godfrey offers evening tiffins with “one veg, one dry, one gravy, and one fry”, most of which is East Indian food. Apart from the dabbas, people can also order separate East Indian dishes such as khuddi, lonvas, chittaps, tongue roast, moile, and liver masala. Orders must be placed at least a day in advance. Rs150 for a tiffin.
Lalita Ferreira
House 99, Flat 101, First Floor, Misquitta Villa, Kalina, Santa Vruz (East). Tel: 99674 74994.
Get sorpotel, vindaloo, mince roll, pork chilli, fugias, and much more. Ferreira also sells bottle masala, fish masala, and vindaloo masala. Orders must be placed four days in advance. From Rs15 for a mince roll to Rs500 for a kilo of a curry. Bottle masala, Rs800 per kilo; fish masala, Rs700 per kilo; vindaloo masala, Rs700 per kilo.
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.