More Food.Fabulous Food in Mumbai

When you visit Mumbai there are a few food 'institutions' you HAVE to go to!! Really these places are maybe holes in the walls and are not the most scenic to look at.... BUT the FOOD is FABULOUS!!

The pictures are not that great of these places, that's why I collaged them... but the FOOD is just the BEST!! Trust me, go and try it when you are in Mumbai, these are the places that the insiders now, but not the tourist guides will tell you about! Only maybe the last one... Cafe Leopold and Juhu beach of course, but that is also because of the activities there.

Tucked away In a little side street on the second floor on Dadiseth Agiyari Street in the Kalbadevi area you will find Thaker Bhojanalay. Chosen as the BEST Thali restaurant in Mumbai for the consecutive years of 2007-2011.

Gujarati cuisine is in many ways unique from other culinary traditions of India. It is one of the few cultures where a majority of people are vegetarians, and a cuisine with a blend of exquisite flavours and textures. Typical Gujarati Thali (plate) consists of Rotli (wheat bread), Daal (pulses), Bhaat (rice) and Shaak (vegetables).

We LOVED it! Even the girls thought it was quite fun to dip their roti in all these little bowls and taste different flavors, most of them not spicy and vegetarian so wonderful to bring the kids!



Another great place to eat Parsi food... remember I wanted to eat from all regions of India, so before was Gujarati, now it is Parsi food that we are tasting at Britannia Cafe in the business district of Ballard Estate.

Britannia was founded by Rashid Kohinoor in 1923, the same year his son Boman, the current proprietor, was born and still walks around and helps at the restaurant at a spiffy age of 88!. He took our orders and made a small talk with the girls, they were a bit taken aback by this old man still working!! LOL
The restaurant’s most popular rice dish is made with Iranian berries and a secret ingredient passed on by Boman's wife to his younger son Romin.

From the looks of its peeling walls, chipped ceiling and old Polish furniture, the café hasn't changed much since then. But that doesn't seem to matter much to diners who dig in to Britannia's dhansak-rice (a stew of mutton and pulses), sali boti (mutton) or sali chicken cooked in a subtly sweet gravy sprinkled with crisp potato chips, and the signature dish, berry pulao.

It was very special food and I truly enjoyed having lunch there!! Definitely a place to go back to!!



A new experience for me... eating out of your car in front of this road side restaurant called Bademiya on Tulloch Road, behind Taj Mahal Hotel. Well if you can call it a restaurant, a street stall with a few tables on the side of the road, but most people are just parking there and eating in the car. The waiters serve you right there through your window... so funny, but the food is SUBLIME!! Again an old time favorite of Mumbaikars.

A visit to Mumbai simply isn't complete without trying the succulent kebabs and grilled chicken from this legendary road-side restaurant. It's some of the best street food you'll ever have! Try their mutton rolls and kebabs, simply delish!! And see how the fastest roti maker in Mumbai creates those huge rotis so fast!!





There are 2 beaches in Mumbai; Chowpatty and Juhu. You don't go to these beaches to swim but to see the action, the entertainment and families goes there in the evening to hang out with friends and have a bit to eat... street food galore! Everything you ever wanted to try you can find there. We went to Juhu beach on 1 evening and we took a look there, although WE didn't eat there, because Charu was not sure MY stomach could handle it, so the kind of food you see here, we ate at Swati, I posted about that yesterday. But if you are adventurous and you eat all the time at street stalls in India, then go to JUHU beach and enjoy all the scrumptious looking snacks and dishes!! And supposedly you can see the best sunsets on this beach, but I went already after dark...



Last but not least is Leopold Cafe on Colaba Causeway, in the Fort area of Mumbai. It was one of the first sites attacked during the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. They still have the window with the bullet holes in it. The cafe was mentioned extensively in the novel Shantaram. It's a multi-cuisine restaurant with a bar on the first level, and serves cuisines like, Indian, Western, Chinese, South American, beer and alcohol. And has 333 food items on the menu :-)

A great hang-out for the locals, so a good place to seen and be seen! Try the Chicken Tikka here.



I hope you enjoyed this food guide, and next time when you visit Mumbai, think about going to these places. You won't be disappointed!! We LOVED all of these!!

Have a foodie day!
Mireille xx

~ Food.Fabulous Food in Mumbai ~

As you know one of my reasons to go and see India was to visit my friends, but also to learn and eat more of this Fabulous Food I wanted to know more about.

I mean we all go to Indian restaurants and eat the Butter Chicken, Chicken Tikka Masala & Tandoori lamb curries, but I wanted to know MORE! The UNKNOWN recipes, and since I have read already a lot about Indian food I knew there was so much MORE!

Particular I wanted to know more about the STREET FOODS! Because this shows the culture of the country, the background of different regions... that is what I wanted to know about!!

But eating on the street for a foreigner can sometimes end up in upset stomachs, so Charu and Kavita, my friends brought me to the places where you still can eat the street food, but in a safer environment... which I totally was happy about, the good food but the more cleanliness places... BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!!

At home Charu already made us some typical breakfast dishes for us to try like the delicious Lassi drink and the yummy Aloo Puri, a puffy bread with a soupy curry with potatoes and tomatoes. And of course each household has their own recipe for this classical breakfast or snack dish. But this one was the first for us... so it will be the BEST and always be compared to the REST!
We also tried Akuri (scramled eggs Indian style with herbs, spices, tomatoes) also called egg bhurji, fried and stuffed parathas (Indian flatbread)... all so yummy!!



So one day we went to Swati Snacks, right around the corner of Charu's home, an experience in vegetarian street food and Gujarati cooking. A small place, but hugely popular, so either you make a reservation or go early to avoid the crowds! This is what we did, since early for Indian standards is normal lunch time for us, we were there around noon, still quite, but soon after it started filling up!

We had some very interesting dishes like Swati's signature dish called Panki; a banana leaf stuffed inside with ground moong dal (split green gram) and besan (gram flour) mixed with a paste of yoghurt, green chillies, fenugreek and asafoetida. It is not spicy, and therefore the tangy green chilli in the chutney complements it wonderfully.



We also had Pani Puri, it's a round, hollow puri (ball), fried crisp and filled with a mixture of water, tamarind, chili, chaat masala, potato, onion and chickpeas. It is small enough to fit completely in one's mouth. And you get this explosion of tastes... it is so yummy!

Then we had Sev Puri and Bhelpuri, which is a is a puffed rice dish with various vegetables and a tangy tamarind sauce. Just 2 different versions. The Bhel puri is with puffed rice and the Sev Puri is with small rice cakes underneath the mixture, both extremely tasty! And you have to try these dishes when you go to Mumbai!!



For the girls we ordered a Dosa. Which is a fermented crepe or pancake made from rice batter and black lentils. It has a neutral and a bit sweet taste, lovely!



As last we had Vada Pav, an unsweetened bun with a filling of finely cut green chilies and ginger and a tempering of mustard seeds and turmeric are added to a mash of boiled potatoes, and after dipping patties of the mash in an herb-seasoned batter of gram flour, the patties are deep-fried. It is typically served with a chutney which is commonly made out of shredded coconut “meat”, tamarind pulp, and garlic.



See here a clip from the restaurant, as you can see we had some of these foods and the drinks the guy recommended we had too, so refreshing! Sugar cane juice and raw mango juice (Kachi Keri)



This was just the beginning of our food adventure!!
We tried many more dishes, all so scrumptious, delicious and dishes that almost nobody knows about outside India, so I hope next time when you go to an Indian restaurant you will try something new. I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised!!

Indian cuisine is so divers and a heaven for vegetarians!!
Please share with me what your favorite Indian dish is... besides the standard dishes I mentioned at my first paragraph!

Have a lovely day,
Mireille