Every city has secrets, and if you’ve lived in Mumbai, for as long as I have, you’d probably know a few of them. Mumbai from the very beginning has been a city of migrants, a sort of mercantile magnet attracting folks from every state, community, region, religion and background, from all over the country and along with them they brought their food. As they settled in community ghettos, these people from different parts of the state and country laboured to recreate their lost culture, habits and sense of community and the simplest way to do that was with food.
Maharashtrian Khanavals catering to the needs of immigrants from Maharashtra, Udupi Restaurants and lunch homes catering to the South Indians, Goan clubs and cafes providing fish curry to Goan settlers in Mumbai, Sindhi Mithai and snack shops in Chembur, all paved the way for a food revolution in the city. Some of these have survived, some have innovated, and some have long gone. But you can still find the odd gem, the wayward dish, the improvised creation still around here and there. So, let me go beyond the Vada Pav, Bhel Puri, Pav Bhaji and give you a list of foods that you may or may not find everywhere, but are so intrinsic to Mumbai, the people of Mumbai and the diversity and contradictions of this city.
I’ll start with Batsal because I couldn’t find Batsal anywhere in this city anymore. Batsal is a Batata Vada in Misal with Dahi. As far as I know, it used to be available at New Sardar at Parel-Lalbaug which no longer exists. It is a plate of hot Batata Wada, doused with hot Misal, garnished with onions, Farsaan and Sev, coriander and lime juice, served with a small bowl of chilled, sweetened, beaten curd. You pour the cold ‘dahi’ on top of the hot Vada and Misal and bite into this contradiction of flavours and textures. Cold, hot, sweet, spicy, soft and crunchy. It’s such a simple dish, I wonder why no one has tried making it again.
Next is Café Madras’ Tuppa Dosa. Tuppa means ghee and this dosa is doused in ghee. The batter is predominantly made of ‘urad dal’, and that’s why these dosas ferment beautifully and turn out to be really fluffy and soft. Though the Dosa is crisp when made, quite like a crepe is quenched in syrup, this dosa is submerged in hot ghee. The end result, if well made, is that the edges should remain crisp, while the dosa itself becomes soft and glutinous. Delicious if stuffed, dunked in sambhar and chutney, with podi or just by itself.
Mohanbhai’s Pudlas. A ‘pudla’ is another kind of crepe or dosa. But unlike dosas, pudlas are made of ‘besan’ and are not fermented. A bit like a Chilla. Mohanbhai Pudlawalla has been making Pudlas near Zaveri Bazar for over 50 years now. You can have a plain ‘pudla’ or a tomato ‘pudla’ or six or seven other varieties, including a bread ‘pudla’ made with slices of bread in batter and cheese. All the Pudlas are served with chopped onion, and three types of chutneys, a red chilli-garlic chutney, mint-coriander chutney, and sweet and sour tamarind chutney. It’s light and soft with crisp edges and is healthy as well as filling.
Egg Masala Fry at Olympia Café. While no trip to Olympia Café at Colaba can be complete without the Bheja Masala Fry or the Bheja Kheema, I often find myself eating just a simple and plain Egg Masala Fry. It’s two boiled eggs in a greenish gravy, presumably of coriander and chillies, a strong flavour of garam masala and a recipe that I have found impossible to perceive or decipher. All I know is that the taste hasn’t changed in the last 25 years. That along with fresh bakery bread or with Olympia’s thick chapatis, raw onion and green chilly is quite unbeatable.
The Chicken White Sauce Patties from Darukhanawala’s Kaka Kaki, a caterer who does Bohri food. While most of the Dawoodi Bohra Community live in Gujarat and speak the language, a large populace made Mumbai their homes, in fact, their religious leader too lives here, and their weddings are the one place to get invited to, if just to partake of the Bohri Thaal. The Chicken White Sauce Patties is also called Russian Patties, which have got nothing to do with Russia. They have a thin mashed potato layer outside, stuffed with an eclectic mixture of shredded boiled chicken, chopped chillies, coriander, lots of cheese and béchamel. It’s silky, soft, spiky and egg fried crisp on the outside a bit like a parsee cutlet or a Farcha chicken.
McCraigs’ Goa sausage Bun. Do I need to say more? It’s Goan sausage baked in a bun. Bandra and Orlem in Malad are famous for their Christian owned bakeries. Well-priced mutton and chicken puffs made with a distinctly different recipe from an Irani bakery’s mutton and chicken puff. Samosas, Anglo-Indian style cutlets, Chicken, Ham, Lamb, sandwiches all made with a sweet, mustardy mayonnaise. And buns. Hot Cross Buns for Good Friday, Sugar coated Raisin Buns and Goa sausage buns every day. Cooked spicy and vinegary freshly made Goa Sausage stuffed in bread dough and baked. The buns come out hot and soft oozing with aromatic and piquant Goa sausage.
The Kheema or Bheja Sandwich from Gopal’s Mutton and Chicken in Chembur. The Chembur Camp, it’s where the Sindhi community which fled the ravages of partition were settled. The area is home to some of the finest Sindhi food you can find. Gopal’s Mutton and Chicken cooks cauldrons full of Sindhi style meat curries and grills with Sindhi style marinades. They also make a super Keema Sandwich. It’s a flat round, well spiced ‘bheja’ or ‘keema’ patties fried on a large iron pan till crisp on the outside and soft inside. This cutlet is then served inside a pav (which is buttered and plunged into the tandoor for a minute or so) and along with a spicy onion gravy and chutney. It’s unbelievably divine.
This is just the tip of the iceberg that is the food of Mumbai. In future columns, I will attempt to recollect many more such foods, dishes and secrets that this big fat city may have hidden from you.
Kunal Vijayakar is a food writer based in Mumbai. He tweets @kunalvijayakar and can be followed on Instagram @kunalvijayakar. His YouTube channel is called Khaane Mein Kya Hai. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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