India

Mumbai:

Namaste Mumbai! A'Salaam Alaykum Mumbai!



Bhel Puri



Vada pav: fried potato fritter stuffed in soft bread with chile powder and fried chilis. So good. So good. So good.







No pictures, but other highlights included idli and coconut chutney for breakfast, chicken liver curry, and my favorite thing I've eaten so far, goat brain fry masala.

More to come.

cool, enjoy

Today started off with another great breakfast at the hotel. Upma, a dry porridge of wheat and spices with a little coconut milk is in the running to replace my current all-time favorite breakfast food of developing world champs, ful.

Upma, idlis with coconut chutney and qeema.


Spent the early afternoon (pre-juma'a prayers) walking around Islamic Mumbai, near the Minara Masjid. Sweet vendors abound around the famous Mosque and the streets are absolutely jammed with people. This is one of the densest urban areas I have ever experienced.





The sweets at Zam Zam were superb. Upon walking in, we were greeted warmly and inundated with free samples of everything. By the time I left, I felt I had eaten half a cup of ghee and sugar. Not a bad thing at all since these sweets were impeccably fresh, the ghee not at all greasy, and imparting an ephemeral bovine richness to the palate.
I particularly enjoyed fig and nut barfis, a mango halwa that was just ridiculous, and another halwa topped with berry jam. I took a half kilo of sweets to go. I will definitely be back. "Zam Zam" indeed, because this place puts out some blessedly good stuff.









Zam Zam
Mohammad Ali Road, opposite Minara Masjid
Mumbai

Please post more. So fascinating, especially the street food. Friends have mentioned how delectable delicious they are.

Thoroughly enjoying your post. Enjoy your trip.

Habibi, thanks for an excellent breakfast. Keep them coming. Hope the food and travels keep getting better.

Awesome pics! Breakfast food: Upma is really yummy made with suji (cream of wheat/semolina). Try poha(flattened rice) for breakfast if you get a chance. If you are in Mumbai, there is a place that is famous for it's fruit ice creams like sitaphal(custard apple). Don't recall the name so ask around. Really enjoying reading about eating you way through India:)

gooseberry wrote:If you are in Mumbai, there is a place that is famous for it's fruit ice creams like sitaphal(custard apple). Don't recall the name so ask around. Really enjoying reading about eating you way through India:)

Thats "Natural's" (or "Natural Ice-Cream Parlour", I guess They have branches all around Bombay now - the original, I believe, was located near Juhu (I still remember being dragged to it by a friend soon after it had first opened, many years ago

Their sitaphal is indeed quite sensationally good - one of the best icecreams anywhere in the world IMHO. But then most of their natural icecreams are terrific - their mango is sensational too (but wont be available now, their fruit-ice-creams are purely seasonal, with chunks of fresh fruit in them - the Mango icecreams will first start becoming available in about April Id guess). Their chikoo icecream is also quite outstanding BTW - chikoo=sapodilla.

c8w

P.S. BTW, second/third/fourth or whatever the kudos for the post - very enjoyable to read/see!

c8w

Upma, idlis with coconut chutney and qeema.

BTW, Ive often had idli with coconut chutney for breakfast, and also kheema... but not sure Ive often had them on the same plate. Congratulations! (Good to see there are some more people out there who prefer their idli's with coconut-chutney too like me... too many just go with sambar

BTW, very impressed with how much ground youve covered already - as also with your vada-pav adventure. Vada-pav's are one of the great things about Bombay (especially snackish veggie chaat Bombay), along with bhel-puri and pani-puri... but it can be unhealthyish/unsafeish street-food for those without a strong immunity (unlike, IMHO, the grilled kababs etc).. when you said you really wanted to try Indian street food you obviously really meant it

Spent the early afternoon (pre-juma'a prayers) walking around Islamic Mumbai, near the Minara Masjid. Sweet vendors abound around the famous Mosque and the streets are absolutely jammed with people. This is one of the densest urban areas I have ever experienced.

Its always one of the densest urban areas in the world IMHO, at all times, in the Mohammad Ali Road area... but you actually chose the "best" such moment too - the densest period of its always-dense population intensity is always the pre-Friday-prayer-time It is also, obviously, a great day for street-foods, kababs, sweets etc - and also for special fare at restaurants in the area. This is also one of the great areas anywhere for food during the month of Ramadan (ie post-sunset, until pretty much 3am, really).

(Oh, BTW, if you do actually want to experience *the* densest moment of urban-population you'll ever have... try taking a local train sometime between 4 and 6pm on a weekday Though, honestly, I wouldnt recommend it - maybe just go near a train-station at that time, experience it vicariously, and grab a couple of pics of the train pulling out of the station with a few hundred people spilling out of the open train doors and hanging on by their fingernails, and thank your stars that you arent actually on the train

The sweets at Zam Zam were superb. Upon walking in, we were greeted warmly and inundated with free samples of everything. By the time I left, I felt I had eaten half a cup of ghee and sugar. Not a bad thing at all since these sweets were impeccably fresh, the ghee not at all greasy, and imparting an ephemeral bovine richness to the palate.

Damn those things look good! And youve got it right above - dont be afraid of "ghee" (*the* best kaju-katli you'll get anywhere is IMHO at Tiwari Brothers in Bombay - and they boast that they make their kaju-katlis from "pure ghee" too.. as you say, its what makes it so smooth and gives it such a great mouth-feel). All the sweets are completely fresh in these places, usually - and many actually cannot be refrigerated, they must be consumed within a few hours (which, IMHO, makes them very safe, awesomely fantastic in taste...and just a touch fattening

I particularly enjoyed fig and nut barfis, a mango halwa that was just ridiculous, and another halwa topped with berry jam. I took a half kilo of sweets to go.

I love the fig-barfis from that area - my personal fave I think (the dry-fruit ones are pretty good too). Am impressed you got a good mango-halwa! (One of the mango-halwas I personally like a lot in Bombay, I get from a place called "Mathura Sweets", near Churchgate... but its made from fresh mangoes and a cream-base IIRC, redolent of alphonso mangoes, but cannot be refrigerated, and isnt available outside of mango-season unfortunately.. or didnt used to be, anyway!) Not sure Ive even tried the mango-halwas from this area... next time in the city, thanks for the rec

c8w

Some more pics from Mumbai. Most days were spent eating the excellent breakfast buffet at our hotel in Colaba and small lunches of street snacks (vada pav!!) I'm a big fan of South Indian-style breakfast - idlis, upma, coconut chutney, sambar. Relatively light, but enough carbs to really get your day going, especially with a piping hot cup of masala chai (I take mine black, but with 3 spoons of sugar - izyada we would say in Arabic).

On our last night in Mumbai, on a recommendation from a friend, we dined at Trishna. The restaurant is considered one of Mumbai's finest seafood destinations, famous for their black pepper and butter crab. We were not disappointed....

Located off a side street in the Fort neighborhood, its a bit hard to find.



Interior is welcoming and not too overdone. I like the nautical theme.



We started with pomfret tandoor, hyderabadi style. Coated in split black pepper and spices, and slightly smokey from the tandoor, this delicate fish was excellent. Really excellent. Served with their creamy (cashews?) coriander chutney, it was a heckuva opening shot.



Goan shrimp curry and seafood biryani. The former was ok, the latter a stunner. Best biryani I've ever had.





Finally the crab. Struck me as more continental than sub, but hey, what is there to complain about fresh crab, tons of butter, garlic and black pepper? Fabulous.



A great meal at Trishna. Highly recommended. Reservations suggested, attire casual, but don't be a schmuck and show up looking like some hippy backpacker.

Trishna
7, Rope Walk Lane,
Fort, Mumbai,
+912222703214

The next morning, I rose early, took c8w's advice, and headed to Islamic Mumbai for one of my favorite foods, nehari. Noori Mohammad is a hotel and restaurant on Mohammad Ali road, near the Minara Masjid said to prepare one of the finest nehari's in the world. Doesn't seem far from the truth, but I have yet to visit Pakistan. It's not a fancy place. But that's not why you are here at 7am. You are here for 12 hour simmered beef shanks served with fresh bread. Best thing I've eaten lately, nay, in a long long long time. c8w, thanks for the heads up. What a find.







Nehari, garnished with stewed beef fat, served with lime and ginger, and of course fresh nan.


Much much more to come. Goa, Gujarati homecooking, Baroda street food, and whatever I find in Delhi.

Cheers

On our last night in Mumbai, on a recommendation from a friend, we dined at Trishna. The restaurant is considered one of Mumbai's finest seafood destinations, famous for their black pepper and butter crab. We were not disappointed....

Good choice! Trishna, Apoorva and Mahesh Lunch Home are my three choices for seafood (of the Keralan/Goan/Mangalorean styles) in the area..all very good, all slightly differing levels of casual etc. And all fairly close to each other in the Fort Area, walking distance from each other.

We started with pomfret tandoor, hyderabadi style. Coated in split black pepper and spices, and slightly smokey from the tandoor, this delicate fish was excellent. Really excellent. Served with their creamy (cashews?) coriander chutney, it was a heckuva opening shot.

Still my favourite fish, BTW - many who grew up in Bombay seem to crave the "bombil" (also referred to as "Bombay duck"), but IMHO the pomfret is the best damn fish around! And, as you experienced, completely fresh in Bombay (caught that morning, usually).

Goan shrimp curry and seafood biryani. The former was ok, the latter a stunner. Best biryani I've ever had.

Ooh. Dem's fighting words Seafood biryani can be great.. but best biryani ever had? A good goat biryani at Delhi Durbar (not far from your Colaba hotel) should be able to match it

Surprising that the goan shrimp curry wasnt great.. but Trishna isnt particularly Goan I suppose (the more Goan-specific spots in Bombay probably do a better job with it, Goa Portuguesa et al).. and anyway you'll get awesome Goan shrimp and fish curry in Goa itself

A great meal at Trishna. Highly recommended. Reservations suggested, attire casual, but don't be a schmuck and show up looking like some hippy backpacker.

True. Though if you happen to be dressed like a hippy backpacker...just walk down the street to Mahesh Lunch Home probably, for something quite similar (though that too has been refurbished compared to its old iteration).

The next morning, I rose early, took c8w's advice, and headed to Islamic Mumbai for one of my favorite foods, nehari. Noori Mohammad is a hotel and restaurant on Mohammad Ali road, near the Minara Masjid said to prepare one of the finest nehari's in the world. Doesn't seem far from the truth, but I have yet to visit Pakistan. It's not a fancy place. But that's not why you are here at 7am.

Good man! I too think its the finest nehari in the world - Pakistan's could not be better, as I say to all my Pakistani friends ! And, while you say its not a fancy place...note that the place you went to actually is a little spruced up from the old days It used to be quite a dinky little hole-in-the-wall, but the food has always been spectacular (many "foodie-snobs" around the city wouldnt ever dare to go there, but would order in, the fools). But really the only way to eat is to make the trek there, and have it hot and fresh off the 12-hour-slow-fire!

You are here for 12 hour simmered beef shanks served with fresh bread. Best thing I've eaten lately, nay, in a long long long time. c8w, thanks for the heads up. What a find.

Nehari, garnished with stewed beef fat, served with lime and ginger, and of course fresh nan.

Damn, that gets my stomach rumbling just to look at it Food of the gods, that is. Thigh-meat of the buffalo, from what I understand. Cooked the old fashioned way (ie in a big old cauldron, with a whole bunch of ingredients...fennel, dried ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, clove, mace, cumin, black pepper, ginger, bay leaves, garlic, wheat flour, ghee... then apparently the cauldron is covered and sealed with atta-flour, a 20-lb weight placed on top, and it goes onto a low-flame for 12 hours!)

And that dish is officially nalli-nehari, BTW - nalli is the marrow from the thigh-bone (and a lot of it, since its from the thigh-bone of a buffalo). Slow cooked over the 12 hours, a lot of it oozes out and mixes with the nehari itself... its quite a delicacy (you can actually order a plate of either nalli-nehari, ie chunk-of-meat-plus-marrow, the standard order; or else just a half-plate of "nalli", ie just the marrow with the "gravy".. those are not very "substantial" since there's no meat involved, are more expensive, and, most importantly go very very quickly in the morning

Nalli-nehari and kheema at Noor Mohammadi. It might seem more than a little gluttinous to eat it for breakfast (and it isnt exactly "light" fare)... but it is one of my very favourite foods in Bombay, if not the world. Iam very glad to hear you liked it

Much much more to come. Goa, Gujarati homecooking, Baroda street food, and whatever I find in Delhi.

Ah, Goa! You ought to really enjoy that! (Make sure to try bibinca for dessert sometime, and goan sausages, and the rechcchades, in addition to the usual fantastic fish/shrimp/crab). And, BTW, there is a Nehari spot in Delhi which is supposed to be very good too.. if youre in the mood you could go there and offer us an unbiased view about its excellence compared to Noor Mohammadi (it cant be as good! I refuse to believe it! But Iam slightly partisan in this regard

c8w

love trishna

looks like you are having a great trip

Finally back from India...lots of pics and posts to update, and will do so in due time.

To call India a country is a misnomer. Even "sub-continent" fails to capture the diversity, size and humanity of India. As far as I am concerned, India is a world unto itself, comprised of multiple, parallel histories that somehow manage to constitute, usually cohesively, often violently, a single nation-state. But enough with the critical poli sci speak.

After Bombay, we moved on to Goa. A remarkable place, Goa, even despite the ever-present hippie/euro-trance vibe. Avoid that scene (unless you are into boring trance music played ad nauseum) and seek out the finer pleasures in Goa - renting a 250cc Honda, exploring the lush spice fields, gorgeous and quaint villages, and the Portuguese architecture (why is it "Portuguese" when Indians actually built it?). Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the wonderful foods I ate in Goa, but one of the finest things I had there was Crab Xacutti, a course, coconut-based, spicy curry with chopped, fresh crab.





A melon and mint shake at Ome Made Cafe in Anjuna, delicious.


After Goa, we moved up to Gujarat, to attend a friend's engagement ceremony. The first meal I had there was home cooked at my friend's uncle's place, and in keeping with their Jain religious traditions, was devoid of root vegetables (onions, garlic, ginger). I didn't know this while I was actually eating my meal, and only learned later. I was really surprised because the food was very very very flavorful, despite "missing" some of the base components we normally associate with Indian, and almost every other cuisines. Healthy doses of fresh ghee on everything and fresh chapatis may have had something to do with it.

From my friend's place in Ahmedabad (pronounced "Amdavad.")



More to come, this time sooner.

habibi,

did you get to Agasi in Ahmdebad?

there is some very good food to be had in that city.

I am envious of your trip

Spent a couple days in Mumbai recently, which were unfortunately culinary hindered due to a city-wide shutdown in response to the death of local political icon, Bal Thackeray. This meant we ended up eating most of our meals at 5 star hotels since they were all that were open (even the taxis weren't operating so we had to get around on foot, not an easy task in sprawling Mumbai). I won't go into much detail on the hotel meals since they were completely forgettable. Fortunately we were able to experience a couple food highlights before the city went into lockdown.



Across the street from the famed Leopold Cafe is the innocuous Olympia Coffee House that specializes in no frills, down-to-earth mughlai food. I have no idea how a place like this exists in the middle of the primary tourist district only a couple blocks from the Gateway of India. When we walked in nearly everyone was in traditional Islamic clothing and there were no women to be seen. On first glance my wife hesitated, but the guy sitting at the pay counter signaled us to a table and the food smelled amazing, so we grabbed a seat.



They are particularly famous for their qeema pav which I believe they only serve at breakfast. It's a simple, ground lamb curry with lots of onion, plenty of turmeric, and a good spicy kick. It's served with white bread that's important since it's your primary utensil (well, that and your fingers). The only other option on the menu was a scrambled egg dish with a good amount of fresh chilies. They also serve a mean cup of South Indian Coffee which is brewed with a healthy dose of sugar, milk, and chicory. It was a pleasant, if quick breakfast since the tables were turning pretty rapidly. As we were finishing up some women and others in western clothes started trickling in, so we realized we weren't as out of place as it seemed at first. Still it was a memorable experience both for the atmosphere and for the delicious and satisfying breakfast.

Olympia Coffee House
Colaba Causeway (across the street from Leopold Cafe)



No trip to Mumbai would be complete without partaking in their famous street food. The most common street food item we saw was the Mumbai hamburger, vada pav. It's essentially a potato mashed up with onions and spices, fried so it develops a golden crust, then placed on a soft and doughy bun and topped with chutneys. By the middle of our trip we had grown quite tired of the South Indian culinary innovation of pairing carbs with carbs, but since this was our first example of this phenomena we quite enjoyed it. The key was the assertive spicing of the potato and the cooling contrast of the chutneys (yes we ate the chutneys and we had no stomach problems). It made for a quick and remarkably filling street snack.



The other iconic Mumbai street food is pav bhaji. I was impressed to learn that it is generally cooked to order, I had just assumed it was sitting around in a big pot waiting to be served. When you order it, the basic ingredients (butter, potatoes, tomatoes, other veggies, some dirty looking water, spices, butter) are thrown on a flat metal pan that is super hot and the ingredients are tossed around for about 20-30 seconds as it sizzles and starts to boil such that the mixture can be mashed into a paste. Then the mixture is put on a plate, and one of the soft, buttery buns (pav) that are sitting at the edge of the pan is used to clean off the griddle then handed to you along with the piping hot bhaji. Man, that is good stuff. It's a battle to keep from eating up all the bread before finishing the bhaji. It's not a clean snack, but it's good. I had hoped to visit two famous pav bhaji stands, Cannon Pav Bhaji across the street from the train terminal, and Sardar Pav Bhaji in Tardeo, but both closed before we could give them a try. Something for next time I guess.

We also didn't get to try Mumbai famous bhel puri while we were there, but it turns out all these famous Mumbai snacks are easily found across India, so we were able to give it a try later in the trip.

In stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of Mumbai is the serene and tropical state of Kerala. We spent a couple days there as part of a wedding party, but on our last day we were able to spend a day in Kochi, one of the largest cities in the state.



The primary tourist area of town is Fort Kochi which is a peninsula that is easily reached by ferry. Fort Kochi is famous for its seafood restaurants, particularly those by the Chinese Fishing Nets where you buy your fish from the sellers by the water then take the fish to be cooked at one of the nearby restaurants. We were excited to sample some of the fresh seafood, but a quick walk around the restaurants left us underwhelmed by the quality of the preparations. So instead we had lunch at the well regarded restaurant at the Fort House Hotel. The restaurant is located by the water with beautiful views and nice shade from palm trees.



We were excited to try the famous Keralan fish curry and this rendition was outstanding. The fish was delicate and provided an excellent canvas for the unique and complex curry. I picked up the nutty richness (and reddish hue) of palm oil right away which gave the curry a different texture than the typical ghee curries we had throughout India. I also detected a unique sourness which I mistakenly attributed to tomatoes. After some research, I learned that Keralan fish curries are made with a local fruit called kadampuli. The depth of flavor and vivid spiciness made for a memorable fish curry that I'd like to try an recreate at home.



We also ordered the spicy prawns that are a typical Keralan dish. They are prepared with kadampuli and thin shreds of coconut that give the prawns a pleasant crunch. Once again the spiciness was assertive but complemented the fresh and juicy seafood really well. It's too bad we didn't have more time to spend in Kerala because the little bit of the cuisine we were able to eat was exciting and quite a bit different from the Indian cuisine I've been exposed to in the US. I'd gladly recommend Fort House to someone visiting Fort Kochi, though I am a little curious as to how the fish from the fresh seafood vendors would have turned out.

Fort House Hotel
2/6A Calvathy Road
Fort Kochi