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Chutneys To Make A Meal Of
Kailash Parbat’s mirchi kachori chaat with imli and mirchi chutneys. There are restaurants I would not visit as often as I do if they stopped serving chutney. Most times, they serve chutney that I wish...
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Oldie But Goodie: Golden Bhelpuri House
Photo: Sheena Dabholkar. In the 1940s, Badrinarayan Bhatwal Sharma came to Mumbai from Jaipur and set up a bhel stall in front of Nathalal Bhavan in Sikka Nagar. This was no ordinary bhel stall. It...
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On The North Eastern Canteen Trail
Thali at Jakoi. One day before the calender switched to 2013, I completed a small resolution I had made in 2012. I ate at Nagaland’s Kitchen in Delhi, a meal that I had planned over a year ago. I...
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Bombil Times
“No, you don’t get pure, authentic Koli seafood anywhere, not in the restaurants or the five-star hotels,” says Ravindra Kharde. “That’s why we wanted to have this festival.” Kharde had just led me...
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Chaat For Rs575?: How Five-Star Hotels Price Street Food
Chaat counter at the Renaissance Convention Centre Hotel. Have you eaten a plate of pani puri or a vada pav that costs over Rs350, not counting taxes and tips? It tastes pretty much like a milder...
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What To Taste At Taste of Mumbai
Ellipsis’s Rocky Road ice cream. Twenty chefs demonstrating 30 dishes over five sessions, 12 pop-up restaurants serving 48 dishes of four bites each, and yet, most of us will pick only one four-hour...
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Haleem of Fame
Haleem at Kakori House. Until recently, I only trusted haleem, khichda and nihari as the best kind if I ate them at friends’ weddings catered by specialists, or during a Ramzan trail through Bohri...
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Charge Points
Remember those happy days when standalone restaurant bills didn’t include that one line? The one that is not legally mandated, the only amount that diners can rightfully refuse to pay, the one that...
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Sour Dough: Making European-Style Bread In Mumbai
Colette (to Linguini): How do you tell how good bread is without tasting it? Not the smell, not the look, but the *sound* of the crust. Listen. (She presses the bread between her hands.) Colette: Oh,...
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Waiter, There’s A Lie In My Soup!
When restaurants serve you a lemon… The rice in your risotto? It’s probably from Goa, not Italy. The scallops? There’s a chance they’re less mollusk, more stingray. That New Zealand lamb rack? Possibly...
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Crazy Chaat: 11 Of Mumbai’s Most Unusual Street Food Snacks
Aloo tuk chaat at Zaffran. Mumbai loves chaat, and those of us who eat on the streets here will ferociously proclaim the virtues of our favourite chaat wala. Often the chutneys are the magic...
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Buy Lanes: A Food Walk Through Colaba Market
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...
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How Mumbai Became A Meat-Loving City
Foie gras burger at Two One Two. In a city with vegetarian “districts”, meat is still managing to have its moment in the spotlight. Mumbai is now home to Facebook groups such as The Porkaholics and...
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Sindh City
From left, sundried gawar and karela, and sundried yogurt-stuffed chillies. One day, 43 years ago, Ulhasnagar resident Ashok Mirchandani was sitting at the corner of First Pasta Lane with his dad,...
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Mumbai’s Endangered Restaurants
New Sardar owner V. N. Prabhu says the restaurant will shut shop by the end of the year. Photo: Sohrab Nicholson. We’ve raved about New Sardar’s excellent sandwiches and their “batsal”. Now we...
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What’s Your Beef?
A burger at Cafe Sundance. We just can’t seem to get enough of burgers. They’re showing up on menus all over the city. We have eateries dedicated to them, such as Gostana and Burgs. Stand-alone...
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Monsoon Meals: 12 Dishes For The Rainy Season
Toast sev puri at Gupta Chaat Corner. Certain kinds of food are particularly comforting during the rains: fried, fatty, hot, soupy, meaty, crunchy. The following is a list of snacks, mini-meals and...
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One Man’s Poison: Foods That Most People Either Love Or Hate
Mmm methi. Why we hate spinach and yoghurt, or love karela and bacon may be a matter of genetics, life experiences, or familiarity. Last week, when I was in Hong Kong, I tried century eggs for the...
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MB Recommends: ‘First Food: A Taste of India’s Diversity’
On the day I received my copy of First Food: A Taste of India’s Diversity, I read it from start to finish in a couple of hours. In its 160-odd pages of text and pictures, it contains dozens of short...
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Can Mumbai Call Itself A Truly Great Food City?
Every week, there are at least two new restaurants that are new enough to qualify for reviews. Yet, when friends or family ask me, “What’s a new place that is good? What you would recommend?” I...
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