A thali at Murali’s.
There aren’t many exciting reasons to go to Andheri East. It’s not the hippest of neighbourhoods, and few parts of it are easy on the eye. Unless they live or work there, most people don’t look forward to a day in the neighbourhood. It’s always crowded, noisy, and dusty and negotiating it is always slow. But after spending some time there last week, I can’t wait to go back. In fact, I am going to go back this week, and again this weekend, and I think you should too.
One conversation changed my mind about the area, and a few meals made the commute worth the effort and inconvenience. I was standing at the cash counter of a tiny restaurant, paying for an excellent meal of chicken pepper fry, egg roast, and parotta, when I asked the cashier, “Why Marol?” He said that Saki Naka and its surrounding neighbourhoods, Marol, Chakala, and the western fringe of Powai, have the highest density of restaurants serving the cuisine of Kerala in the city. Like most townies who have grown to love them, I turn to Taste of Kerala or Hotel Deluxe in Fort for my fix of sadya, or karimeen pollichattu with appam, kappa with meen curry, puttu with kadala curry, and more. I started looking farther afield a few weeks ago, when my friend Megha Mahindru and her husband Mohan Kumar, who is from Thrissur, told me about the meals they have been having in the area, and recommended a couple of places. I kept looking around and found half a dozen more.
As I ate my way, appam by appam, parotta by parotta, through the neighbourhood, I heard about even more places. “Lots of these places are good only for bachelors,” said one cashier. “They are not good for high families, they are mess-type places.” Another owner told me that 50 years ago, Malayalis made up most of the population of Saki Naka, “almost 90 per cent”. The area wasn’t as crowded then, and rents were low. The rest is the classic story of migration to metropolises in search of opportunity. A few people moved from the state, loved it, told their friends and families about it and then facilitated their move.
According to one manager, the nearby SevenHills Hospital on Marol Maroshi Road and the Holy Spirit Hospital on Mahakali Caves Road employ a sizeable number of Keralite staff members. Similarly, the Larsen & Toubro and the Indian Institute of Technology campuses, both in Powai, respectively have a large number of employees and students from the state. This not only means that the restaurants have a ready market, but also that they need to keep their meals home-style and affordably priced. Not all of them are great, especially the ones that have multi-cuisine menus, but all of them are worth at least one visit because they each have a few dishes they do well. Onam is on Sunday, September 7. I know which part of town I’m hitting this year for onasadya.
Benzy’s
Hotel Benzy Palace, Vijay Nagar, Marol Maroshi Road, Andheri (East). Tel: 93226 79465/022 3260 6382. Open daily, from 8am to midnight.
Benzy’s is in a hotel, has four dining rooms, seats up to 180 people at a time, and has a multi-cuisine menu that runs for pages. Last Onam, they served 1,200 onasadya, parcels included, and every day they feed over 100 people. The food is tweaked to please the masses, and for speed and convenience. So our karimeen pollichattu, while pretty tasty, seemed to have been cooked and then wrapped in a banana leaf for effect (instead of being seared after wrapping). The peppery kakka ularthiyathu (sauteed clam), a dish served at most toddy shops, was made better by a squirt of lime. Chef Thomas Zacharias, a Syrian Christian from Kerala, accompanied me through some of the meals. He rated the duck roast as the best dish, even if the meat had been chopped somewhat messily. It was slightly sweet from onions, warm and thick from the fried spices and fun to eat with both appam and parotta. Among their bestsellers is Kerala biryani, sweet with raisins, cashews, onions and pineapple. Prices range from Rs15 for a parotta to Rs290 for duck roast; seafood priced as per size.
Just Kerala
Hotel Samraj, First Floor, Chakala Road, Andheri (East). Tel: 87679 03005. Open daily, from 11am to 3pm and 7pm to midnight.
At Just Kerala, the beef dishes are available off the menu, because they don’t want to offend some guests, but regulars who love them make sure they sell well. The veg thali of rice, a large bowl of sambar, rasam, bottle gourd pachadi, vermicelli payasam, stew, carrot and bean poriyal, pickle and papadum made a pleasant enough lunch. The curry of the kappa meen curry was delicious. Prices range from Rs20 for a plate of appams to Rs400 for duck roast; seafood priced as per size.
Murali’s
First Floor, above Tunga bus stop, between DTDC Centre and Fast Food & Chinese, near L&T Gate No.7, Saki Vihar Road, Powai. Tel: 99307 83012/99875 19741. Open daily, from 9am to 9pm.
The landmark is a bus top. It’s hard to find, unless someone takes you there or you call the owner and he sends his little pig-tailed daughter downstairs to look out for you. When you make your way up via a precarious narrow metal stairway, more like a glorified ladder, you enter Sudha and Muralidharan Velayudhan’s crowded, almost shanty-like, one-room and kitchen home. Murali takes orders and serves, Sudha cooks in her tiny kitchen where she prepares 12 to 15 items a day. The daily changing menu is decided by the both of them, depending on what’s available in the market and what they feel like making. Among bags of veggies hanging from hooks on the walls, a desk with a school bag, a small shrine, and other personal effects, is a framed certificate from restaurant listings website Burrp! that says Murali’s is “a humble place with a large heart for serving food”. For Rs150, I had two pieces of delicious chicken nadan curry, two near-perfect appams, kanava (squid) thoran, a slightly chewy and gamey beef ularthiyathu, fried chicken, fried surmai steak, perfectly cooked fat-grained red rice, sambar, rasam, moru kachiyathu (chilled sour yoghurt curry), bean and shallot mezhkkuvaratti (stir fry), and a drumstick and potato curry. There was a stream of customers through my meal, and they were clearly all regulars. Murali said he feeds about 20 people on an average day. For Onam, he has planned a menu of 22 items. Prices range from Rs50 for a rice plate to Rs160 for a fish thali.
Santosh Cafe
Laxmi Chawl, Gokhale Nagar, opposite IIT Main Gate, Powai. Tel: 98335 76875/98332 40503. Open daily, from 7am to 11am.
For 30 years, Satish Narayan’s dad Narayan Rauni ran a “mess-type” place near Kanjurmarg. Then father and son moved to Powai because it’s a “posh area”. It’s been 25 years since and the place, even though it’s tiny and basic, is popular. Santosh Cafe is known for its biryani counter, from which it serves Mumbai-ised Kerala biryani, which is less sweet and more spicy. Through the day, people stop by for snacks such as sweet bonda, sugiyan (a batter-fried tea time snack with a coconut, jaggery and mung bean filling), parripu vada (dal vada) and pazham pori (banana fritters). Breakfast starts at 11am with appam, idli, dosa, vada, puttu, idiyappam, kadala curry, and stew. Lunch is a simple sadya with two veggies, rasam, moru kachiyathu, sambar, rice, pickle and papadum. Biryani is only served after 5pm. Satish said their bestsellers are all sorts of fish and beef fry. For Onam, they’re offering a menu of 20 items. Prices range from Rs50 for a rice plate to Rs100 for a fish thali.
Spice of Kerala
Shop No.3, Marol Maroshi Road, near Uttam da Dhaba, at the junction of Military Road, Marol, Andheri (East). Tel: 022 6526 2172/98334 54006. Open daily, from 11am to 10.30pm.
Call ahead before you go to Spice of Kerala. Our first choice of dishes was not available at the time we visited. For example, kappa meen (roughly mashed tapioca with fish) curry is available only after lunch hours, from 3pm. The place may not look like much either, just another tiny spot open to the street, with less than a dozen seats, and poorly-taken photographs of dishes on the walls. It’s not surprising that a good part of the business at this three-year-old eatery is takeaways and deliveries. But we still enjoyed the flavourful chicken pepper fry, egg roast and flaky, soft parottas. The manager said that their most popular dishes are fish fry and fish curry, and that their Onam menu will feature 21 dishes. Prices range from Rs10 for a plate of idiyappams or appams to Rs160 for a fish biryani; seafood priced as per size.
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.