Thali at Odisha Bhawan.
Lately, every lunch meeting I have in South Mumbai happens at one of two places on Pitha Street in the Fort district – Hotel Deluxe or Taste of Kerala – both of which, for those who are unfamiliar with them serve food from the state that likes to call itself God’s Own Country. I’ve been frequenting them for years now, but in the last few months, it’s been more frequent than usual. Asked to pick between the two, I can’t – it’s like eating at two different Mallu friends’s homes. There’s also something about discussing work or life with a colleague or a friend while your fingers are two knuckles deep in ghee-soaked fat red rice and sambar that, if you’re not deft, could drip off the banana leaf and on to your lap.
On one of these nap-inducing lunches, my friend Rachana Nakra told me about how, in her neighbourhood, she has such meals at Kerala House, the state bhawan or guest house where visiting officials from the state are offered accommodation and subsidised meals when they are in Mumbai. She also has them at Meghalaya House – set up for the MPs and MLAs of that state – at Grace restaurant which has been contracted to a Keralite, and is better known for its food than even Kerala House. It’s been listed on restaurant listings websites, has a Facebook page, and has been written about in a few newspapers. I’m embarrassed to admit, I’d not bothered to find out more about it until now.
Thanks to the freeway, it’s now quicker to get to Vashi from Fort than from most parts of Bandra. I spent four afternoons in the state guest houses, and my total daily commute from the southern most part of the city to Vashi every day was about one hour and twenty minutes by road.
Just like in Delhi, Mumbai’s state bhawans are mostly clustered around one neighbourhood. Here they’re just off Vashi Bridge and all walking distance from each other. Rajasthan Bhawan is under construction and looks it will turn out to be the swankiest and most modern of the lot thus far. UP Bhawan has a cafeteria, but you’ve got to stay there to be able to eat its food. Vashi already has a fairly active restaurant scene, and some of the most formidable food courts in its malls, but I decided to try out the four state bhawans that are open to everyone.
Kerala House
Plot 8, Sector 30A, behind Raghuleela Mall, near Vashi Railway Station, Vashi. Tel: 022 2781 0112.
With photographs of mohiniattam dancers and boats along backwaters on its candy pink walls, Kerala House’s restaurant tries to be a little bit more than just a cafetaria. The standard meal comes in two white plastic plates – one regular sized for a heap of Kerala rice, and another quarter plate with a haapla (the South Indian papad), a salted sundried and fried chilli, three vegetables (that are changed daily), as well as completely addictive mango pickle and a ginger-tamarind-jaggery chutney called puli inji.
Fret not – though the portions on the little plate seem like they’re bits of prasadam from a temple, you can ask for as much as your appetite desires. The rice gets topped up endlessly and alternately with a light but saliva-stimulating rasam, a hearty sambar, and a creamy tangy dahi kadhi. There are steel buckets of rice and sambar and a row of those four-bowled food service containers found at all thali places. The servers always have an eye on your plates to see what you might be missing. It’s a sadya (Malayalam for a traditional vegetarian banana leaf thali) alright, just without the complications of a banana leaf.
There are three a la carte dishes: fish fry, chicken fry, and a coconut-y fish curry that seemed more Goan than Keralan. All the jugs contain pathimugam – a pink, herbal, and supposedly miraculous drink made by soaking chips from the red hued Japan Wood tree in hot water. If nothing else, it works as a digestive – I’ll vouch for that – and you will need one here, because the food is as tasty as it is at Hotel Deluxe or Taste of Kerala, if not more. Afterwards go check out Kairali, the government crafts shop for carved wooden elephants, beautiful saris and dhotis, and Tuna’s soap which comes in its own handmade shell-shaped soap dish made from betel nut palm.
On Sunday, the variety of vegetables is doubled, a couple of snacks and payasam are added to the menu, and the banana leaf tradition is followed for the Sunday Special Sadya. Rs70 for a weekday meal; Rs120 for the Sunday special sadya.
Odisha Bhawan
Plot No.5, Sector 30A, adjacent to Kerala House, Vashi. Tel: 022 2781 3371.
Of all the state bhawan canteens, Odisha’s is the most modest and so is its food. Almost each one of the 50 diners who eat there every day has the thali which contains in addition to a main dish of vegetable, chicken or fish curry, one leafy vegetable, one dal, rice, a rice crisp, some sweet boondi, chapatis and a little bowl of lime segments, green chillies and onion wedges. Manager Deepak Pradhan says that the dishes are influenced by Bengali food, but are lightly spiced and delicately flavoured in keeping with Odiya cuisine.
On the day I visited there was saaga, a spinach dish that reminded me of Sindhi saibhaji, and a simple dal alongside the rohu macha besor (carp fish cooked in a tomato-based gravy laden with crushed mustard seeds, coriander, green chillies, garlic and coriander) in my fish thali. The besor was the highlight of the plate. I also tried a very greasy mutton kassa, or Odiya-style kosha mangsho – there are better versions of the dish available in the city. I would go back for the traditional Odiya dessert, chenna poda. This translates to burnt cheese, but is really a cheesecake made from sweetened chenna baked in the oven until the top is caramelised. Take it home and pop it into the fridge overnight; it squeaks between your teeth the way rasgullas sometimes do, and it’s pretty delicious cold. I don’t know of any other place in the city that makes them.
The handicrafts shop alongside, in the same building, has painted wooden images of Jagannath, cane paintings, Sambalpuri sarees, spoons made from horn, and quirky gamchas. Veg thali, Rs100; chicken thali, Rs150; fish thali, Rs180.
Assam Bhawan
First Floor, opposite Centre One Mall, Sector 30A, near Vashi Railway Station, Vashi. Tel: 99305 03714.
Behind the reception a couple of buxom tea pickers pose alongside a one-horned rhino in a mural. The TV by the stairs seems to always be on and tuned to a Sunny Deol starrer. The restaurant on the first floor of this bhawan is named Bhogdoi, after a tributary of the Bramhaputra river that flows through Assam. It’s run by a Shetty, but thankfully employs a few Assamese cooks to churn out Asomiya dishes and thalis alongside Bengali ones, as well as some mutton and chicken sukke, and Chindian fare. A popular starter is the lurid chicken fry chilly topped with tons of curry leaves. It tastes as it sounds.
While the poultry was satisfyingly spicy and flavourful, the vegetables in the Asomiya jeera zaluk (cumin and black pepper) chicken thali were standard-issue and slightly overcooked. It’s much better to order a la carte here. Get the katla fish sarson with a kick-in-the-teeth snap of ground mustard seeds and oil, and the rohu fish kaliya in which a thick gravy rich with onion, ginger, garlic, garam masala, and chillies occasionally provides pops of sweetness thanks to the raisins hidden in it. Asomiya thalis from Rs65 to Rs150; Bangla thalis from Rs110 to Rs190.
Meghalaya House
Government Circuit House, Plot No.25, adjacent to Assam Bhawan, Sector 30A, Vashi. Tel: 022 2781 5532.
The folk at the reception may be wearing Meghalayan traditional dress, but at Grace restaurant, don’t expect jadoh, momos, or any pickled bamboo shoot – just a whole variety of very enjoyable non-vegetarian (and some vegetarian) food from Kerala, as well as sadya on Sundays.
Ask manager P. K. Mathew aka Baby what to order. After I went to pay up for a meal of a plate of appams (three pieces) with vegetable Chettinad and rabbit roast, I got a disapproving slow shake of the head from him and a lesson on how to do appams right. Then I was made to sit down and try Malabar parotta and beef curry, handed a small take-away portion of amber-hued, coriander-laced, coconut-y chicken mappas (coconut curry) with instructions to have it with fresh appams from one of the Pitha Street places, and educated on the finer differences between palappam (made with coconut) and kalappam (made with coconut toddy).
The meat on the bunny was tough and gamey, but the roast gravy had all the tingling burn that I expected from it. Grace’s extensive menu also lists Kerala preparations of quail, mussels, clams, squid and karimeen (pearlspot fish). At breakfast they serve dosas and the steamed rice and coconut preparation puttu. From Rs60 for sambar to Rs280 for crab roast masala.
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 a restaurant reviewer for the Hindustan Times newspaper in Mumbai.