Fresh water fishing in Mumbai

“All Bengalis love fish. And are die hard fans of Saurav Ganguly”

The second part of the above Mumbai urban legend applies to me. The first part doesn’t. I guess I had too much fish while growing up to ‘love’ it. I don’t mind fish but that’s about it.

Buying fish is a completely different issue though. I enjoy buying fish! And I am talking of buying fish in smelly, wet local fish markets and not from sanitised freezers of modern malls.

Sounds hard to believe? Why would one go through an unpleasant, stinking experience for something one is not too fond of?

Well, as Freud says it all goes back to one’s childhood. I used to help my Mom with her weekly shopping from my mid school days onwards. As I grew older she would occasionally entrust me with the responsibility of buying fish too. She pointed her regular fish guys to me. And gave me strict instructions to buy fish from them.

I then moved to Mumbai and fish shopping was a thing of the past as I lived as a paying guest in a vegetarian house. I went out in search of fish here only after I moved into a rented house and had my own kitchen.

I found out that the fish markets in Mumbai are a different kettle of fish (couldn’t resist this) from those I was used to in Calcutta. You have men selling fish in Calcutta. Here women sell fish. In Calcutta fish is sold by the kilo with very little haggling. In Mumbai fish is normally sold by pieces or plate fulls and with some fairly wild haggling. And the key difference is that fresh water fish rules the markets of Calcutta while sea fish lords Mumbai.

These were more than enough differences to unsettle the Bengali Bahdralok (gentleman) in me.

Then I discovered a few guys at places like Pali Naka at Bandra and Mahim markets who stocked fresh water fish and sell it by the kilo. I began to feel at home and life was beautiful. Buying fish became a way of connecting with my roots which is very important for an immigrant. It didn’t matter if I didn’t like fish too much as my Parsi wife more than made up with her pisciphyllia (does such a word exist?)

Over the years I heard about ways of identifying good fish ‘the skin should glisten’, ‘the fish should should spring back if you press the flesh’, ‘lift the ears and see if the blood looks fresh’. Let me assure you that none of these work. If the fish seller wants to take you for a ride, he will. I normally square with the fish seller and put myself in his hands. And have rarely got a rotten (pun intended) deal.

With time the Pali Naka guy moved away and Mahim wasn’t really practical plus the fish there wasn’t too good. That’s when I discovered the fish market at Khar which is quite mammoth. While Khar was a typical Mumbai fish market, it did have a few ladies who sold fresh water fish and by the kilo! I tried out a few of them with mixed results.

Then I chanced upon Pushpa (barely visible behind a cutomer in the picture) and her mother (in the dark sari in the picture below) at one corner of the market. As they say, when it comes to fish it is all about finding the right woman. And I did! Pushpa and her mom sell some of the best fish that we have bought. The quality is consistent and has NEVER been bad. And their prices are reasonable and lower than what some of the ladies in the centre of the market ask for. I have bought some very good rui, eelish, paabda and parshe from there over the past few months and not once have I had cause to complain.

Are they good? Don’t just go by words. My mother raved about their fish when she came from Calcutta. And she is quite picky about fish and holds my fish buying ability in low esteem. I have often sent fish from here to my in laws which are followed by text messages which say YUMMY! from them. And in my last visit, I met a gentleman called Buddhadev (in the picture above) who was buying fish there. He runs a Bengali restaurant called ‘Taste of Calcutta’ in far of Kandivli and comes all the way here to buy fish. That says something to me.

Here are some beauties from Pushpa and her mom's portfolio:


Tiger prawns (Rs 350/kg) - chingri malai curry


Rohu/ katla - Rs 150- 180 / kilo for cut pieces, Rs 80 - 100/ kilo for the whole fish - kaalia, fish fry, jhol, doi maach

Parshe (known as boi amongst Parsis): Rs 80/ kilo, paabda Rs 160/ kilo - mustard curry, jhol

Fish head: mudi ghonto, maacher mudo diye daal

Notes: Pushpa's phone number is 9819611625. She and her mom sit in the corner of this fish market at Khar beside the egg sellers. Their timings are 9.30 - 1 PM and 6.30 - 8.30 PM and they don't sit on Sunday and Monday evenings. Khar market is close to Khar station and in between Bandra and Santa Cruz.

She knows me as 'Dada from Pali Naka'.

Casserole chicken - cracking the Da Vinci Code

This was one of the first dishes that I rustled up when I began cooking. Like my Maximum Chicken (chicken inspired by Mumbai) it is based on a theme of ingredients, rather than a recipe per se. In this case the them is continental. What I like about this is that you can use a microwave (don't need an oven) and ingredients likely to be lying around at home, to make an exotic, continental tasting dish. This dish is one of Kainaz's favourites and I would recommend it as option from daily Indian recipes. The dish requires a cooking time of about 25 minutes which require your involvement through most parts.



Ingredients:

• 500 g chopped chicken (boneless, or on the bone)


• 3 tea spoons of mayonnaise (I use the one my mom in law makes for us. You can buy it easily in most stores and use the rest as a sandwich filler)


• 1 cube of cheese/ 2 tea spoons of cheese spread (I use Britannia's slim cheese)


• 1 tea spoon each of oregano and red chilly flakes (you get these sachets when you order pizzas or can buy them) and a tea spoon of crushed pepper and salt


• 2/3 chopped green or red bird chillies (the latter look more dramatic)


• 0.5 chopped onion + 0.5 chopped tomato + 0.5 chopped capsicum/ bell pepper


• 2 tea spoons chopped fresh basil (optional, but recommended. a recent addition to the recipe)


• 1 tea spoon butter (optional)


• 2 sliced potatoes (parboiled for three minutes and poked with a fork)

Recipe

Stage 1

• Put the chicken on an open microwave dish. the dish should be a bit deep and yet flat so that most of the meat is exposed


• Add the potato, mayo, butter, herbs (oregano, pepper powder, chilly flakes, salt), onion and tomato and gently mix


• Switch on the micro on high flame for 6 minutes

Stage 2

• Carefully take the dish out of the micro (use cloth mits, hand towels)


• Gently add in the basil, chillies, cheese (chopped and put on top), capsicum. Put some more crushed pepper on top


• Put it back in the micro and put it on combi (cook+grill) for six minutes and just grill for four minutes


• If you don't have a grill mode then just put it on 'cook' for six more minutes. Grill helps to brown the dish a bit

You can play around with this and add chopped boiled egg whites, chopped cold cuts or chopped mushrooms in stage 2.

The end result is a fairly cheesy and creamy continental dish which is quite different from the usual Indian fare.

This dish is best had with crisp toast or soft dinner rolls.

Maximum Chicken NV...curry meets curd

I had recently written about a dish which I cooked and had named 'Maximum Chicken'. This was named after Suketu Mehta's grpahic book on Mumbai, 'Maximum City'. I had used ingredients common to local cuisine in Mumbai - whole mustard seeds, curry leaves, East Indian Masala AND coconut milk - hence the name.



A reader wrote in asking whether one could make it without coconut milk as she didn't like the taste of coconut too much. I guess there would be many such people as coconut has a fairly distinctive taste. I, in turn, don't like coconut based sweets. Plus coconut milk in excess is linked with weight gain and high cholesterol.


I gave this riddle some thought and soon came up with a solution which works quite well.


I took out coconut milk, the favoured curry base of the Western and Southern coast of India, and substituted it with beaten curd/ yogurt. Curd is the favoured curry base of North India! Hence 'NV" or 'Northern Version'. I have tried this twice so far and it has been quite a success. And the good thing is that curd is a lighter and healthier base than coconut milk to start with. The dish dips into the cooking traditions of different parts of India - curry leaves, East Indian Masala and mustard seeds from the coast and curd from the North

I made this dish in a pressure pan and not in a sauce pan unlike the coconut milk version but I guess both would work.

Here's a quick summary of this fairly easy dish:

Ingredients:

• 1 tea spoon cooking oil
• 1 tea spoon mustard seeds
• 3 tea spoons of chopped curry leaves
• 0.5 a chopped onion/ shallot
• 1 chopped tomato
• 2 tea spoons East India Masala
• 1 tea spoon sugar
• 1 tea spoon salt
• 1 tea spoon ketchup
• 100 g whisked curd (I use Nesvita, probiotic curd)
• 1/2 a tea cup of water (avoidable if using a sauce pan)
• 6 chicken drum sticks, slashed for the masala to come in/ 600-700 g chicken

Recipe

Stage 1

• Heat the oil in a pressure pan
• Add the whole mustard seeds till they crackle
• Add the onion and stir it with a ladle till the onion becomes translucent and reddish
• Add the tomato and stir till the tomato becomes a bit soft
• Add the chicken + East Indian masala + sugar + salt + ketchup
• Stir till the chicken skin crinkles
• Add the curd and the water

Stage 2

• Close the pressure pan and put the flame of the gas on high
• Wait for the pan to give 4 whistles
• Reduce the flame to simmer and let it cook for ten minutes

Stage 3

• Switch off the gas and open the pressure cooker after it cools down
• Put it on a high flame without the lid till the sauce begins to boil (bubble) and let it dry till it becomes a thickish paste

This is best had with roti or paratha. I had it with steamed rice too. It went well but just remember that there is not too much gravy in this dish.

The dish would take about 25 minutes to prepare with about fifteen minutes of active involvement.

Maximum Chicken: a 20 minute chicken curry from Mumbai

I am more of an instinctive cook. I have made the odd dish using recipes. But recipes bore me after a point. I find it to be too much of a drag to go through the details and then cook a dish. I prefer conceptualising what I want to make and then go by my instincts or folow some basic directions. my attempts have turned out well in most cases even if I say so. I also look for short cuts while cooking and I don't always find them in recipe books.

Yesterday I felt like trying out something new in chicken curries and I turned to ingredients such as coconut milk, whole mustard seeds, curry leaves and East Indian Masala, a recipe unique to the East Indian Community of Mumbai (you can see the recipe in the Link).

These ingredients are quite different from those used in my native Bengali cooking.

I have named this dish after Suketu Mehta's book on Mumbai, 'Maximum City' since I used a lot of local ingredients. Somehow Slumdog Chicken was beginning to sound a bit too much like Old Mac Donald's farm to work as a name. I didn't have any recipe in mind but I must say that I was influenced by memories of recent episodes of Floyd's India and Hairy Bikers which were based in South India.

So here goes the recipe of this fairly easy to cook and tasty dish.

Ingredients:

• 1 tea spoon whole mustard seeds
• 1 chopped onion/ shallot
• 1 chopped tomato
• 6 chicken drum sticks, slashed with a knife for the masala to go in
• 3 tea spoons of curry leaves
• 2 tea spoons of East Indian Masala: you get this in Catholic meat shops in places like Bandra at Mumbai. Try a mix of a tea spoon of red chilly powder and a tea spoon of garam masala powder if you can't get hold of the East Indian Masala
• 2, 3 red/ green chillies
• 1 tea spoon sugar
• 1 tea spoon salt
• 1/2 a fresh lime
• 1 tea spoon cooking oil
• 200 ml of coconut milk (I use Dabur's Home Made tetra packs)
• 1/3 cup of water
• a non stick sauce pan

Recipe:

• Phase 1: 5 minutes
• Heat a tea spoon of oil in the pan
• Put in the mustard seeds and wait till the oil splatters in about thirty seconds
• Add the chilly and lightly fry them
• Add the onions and fry them till they become translucent
• Then add the curry leaves and tomato and stir till the onions become soft

• Phase 2: 5 minutes
• Add the chicken pieces
• And the East Indian Masala
• And the salt
• And squeeze the lime on top and stir it till the chicken skin begins to crinkle

• Phase 3: ten minutes
• Add the coconut milk
• And the water
• And the sugar
• Let it come to a boil (first time chefs note that the liquid will turn creamish and begin to froth in a couple of minutes)
• Reduce the flame to simmer, cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for about ten minutes

You will know the dish is done if you can poke the chicken easily with a fork. The end gravy will be dark brown in colour. There will be a film of oil on the top which is the natural oil of the chicken. We used only one tea spoon of oil, remember?

I would recommend having this with hot, steamed rice

Raindrops and roses and hot Goan sausages

I have occassionally referred to Goan sausages in my posts.

Well, Goan Sausages are different from any respectable sausage in the West. They are the Scarlett O Haras of the sausage world. Sour as hell, fairly spicy, oily and often are made from pork raised in questionable hygienic conditions. Chances are that you will be hooked into this amazingly, exotic and sinful dish if you were ever to try it. The dish is as saucy and sharp as it gets and I wouldn't even venture to try it without bread, specifically Goan pao. to temper the taste.

The most common form of having Goan sausages is to simply fry it and eat it. You won't get it in most parts of India except Goa of course and Christian parts of Mumbai such as Bandra (meat shops such as Marks, Judes, Joseph's Chicken are good bets). Its quite simple to make and you can try get hold of a pack and make it yourself.

We got some from Infantaria at Goa recently. Here's how Kainaz makes it.

She first par boils some potato cubes (about six minutes in the microwave). Potatoes are a very important part of the 'recipe' as it helps break the sharp taste of the sausages.

The Goan sausage come in a plasticky skin which she slits. She then throws the skin away. A pungent, sour smell of vinegar hits you the moment the skin is slit. The skin is actually the dried intestine of a pig cured with lemon leaves to get rid of the smell (or so says a Bengali friend of mine from deep inside a village in Goa)

Kainaz then takes the pickled meat out and chops it into tiny bits. (You have to really decimate it. I tried making it once with cube like pieces. The result? Under cooked!)

Check out the lovely little pieces of white fat in the interspersed with the meat in the picture below. Rich pork, full of fat, just what Anthony Bourdain would order and just what your doctor would ask you to stay clear off. Well, you only live once.

She then puts the meat on a warm sauce pan and stirs it softly. As the fat begins to melt and enough oil to give the Opec a run for its money comes out. She then adds about one chopped onion/ shallot and stirs this.

The onions begins to get translucent as it cooks. Kainaz then she adds the cubed potatoes and some salt to it and then cooks this till the onions become crisp. The dish is ready to eat.

She doesn't add green chilies but adding sliced green chillies could help you make a Goan sausage chilly fry!

A fantstic dish which as I said is best enjoyed with Goan bread or pao. Just look at the rich colours. Is this a work of art or not?

A Goan take on this dish is to make something called Goan sausage pulao where they make an Indian pulao of sharp Goan sausage bits. You get this only in Goa though. I have even had Goan sausage fried rice at Infantaria. Here they add Goan sausage to Chinese fried rice! How's that for six degrees?

A Facebook friend of mine, a Bengali lady married to a Catholic family in a Goan village, was a bit shocked when she read the recipe here.

She said that Goan sausages had to be cooked a lot more as these pigs live in Goan farms and could have tapeworms. I won't tell you why as they could put you off. But think human garbage disposal, think pigs who eat everything... you get the idea. Though I like to believe that the newer sausage makers rear their pigs in cleaner environs.

This is what she has to say about the authentic way of preparing Goan sausages:

"About home made sausages.

sausage chilli fry :Boil the damn thing (without cutting open the outer cover) for at least 40 minutes (the difference from Kainaz's way). Then remove the cover, chop it etc and stir fry with onion green chillies.

The traditional way a Catholic household would cook sausages is :

- one pack that is 200 gms + 2 potatoes + 2 onions dice big cubes.

- put everything in a saucepan

- add one cup of water- high flame till it starts boiling- dont break open the sausages.- boil for 40 minutes. if need be add a little water in between. It should have a little gravy once ready.

- the gravy turns thickish because of the potatoes and the pork fat

- to be eaten with pulao. the pulao should have general (read as ample) amount of pickled green olives. The pulao typically has a lot of vegetables i.e cauliflower, tomatoes, french beans and carrots, basically to kill the spice and to supplement your vegetable requirement as saussage pulao is not served with any other side dish of vegetables."

Navroze Mubarak and kilos of good wishes: Irani new year at the Elphinstone Club

21st March was the Irani New Year, commonly known as Navroze. The Iranis are Indians who had immigrated from Persia centuries back to avoid religious persecution. Interestingly, Navroze, is still celebrated in Central Asia in places like Turkey (where its a holiday) and Kyrghistan as the onset of spring.

Parsis are what Asterix would call first cousins twice removed (re Asterix in Britain) of the Iranis. They too had come to India centuries back from Persia. Both pray to the same prophet from what I understand. They are two sects or groups of the Zoroastrian religion.


From what I understand from an ariticle in the Times of India , Navroze is technically an Irani festival as it is their new year. It coincides with the Summer Solstice and festivals such as Vasant Panchami according to my Mama in Law.

But this is a blog about food and not religious anthropology.

And Parsis, who generally love to eat, drink and enjoy life celebrate Navroze too. The actual Parsi New Year comes in August though. So Navroze is NOT the Parsi New year.

My in laws are Parsis and we celebrate both new years together. This year Kainaz, my parents in law, uncle and aunt in law and I headed to Elphinstone Club for dinner on Navroze. Elphinstone Club is located close to the Victoria Terminus at South Mumbai. Near the old cinema district which has the refurbished Sterling and the derelict New Empire and New Exelcior cinemas.


The foundation of the building, according a plaque, was laid on the 22nd of October. Our wedding date. In 1899, just a hundred and one years before we got married! Now, its a fairly ordinary six story building where the club occupies the top two floors. My in laws used some Parsi connections to get us table reservations though we were not club members.


Dinner was served on the terrace which and was quite a unique experience. There was a nice, pleasant breeze which made it unexpectedly cool up there. Quite different from the sweltering heat of Mumbai.


The terrace was full of tables of large groups of Parsi/ Irani families fully into the spirit of the auspicious day. Loud laughter, exchange of pleasantries, the odd Gujarati swear word which become more common as the night progressed, big hugs, air kisses, hearty appetites, kids in colourful dresses, shimmery tops, grandmas in their finery and grandpas high on large bottles of whisky which people smuggled and put on their tables (works out cheaper that way) were all more Parsi than Little Zizou (the new Sooni Taraporewala film on Parsis) if such a thing was possible.


I think I was the only non Parsi there except the waiters and the maids looking after the kids. A bit like what I experienced when I went to see Little Zizou in the Tata (a Parsi industrial group) owned Sterling theatre a few days back.



The meal was breathtaking. We ordered from the A La Carte menu and we had some of the best Parsi food that we have ever had. Forgive the pictures though as my new E91 has decided that it won't take food photographs as it is a business phone!




The starters were fantastic. We had lacy brain cutlets. Entire goat brains fried in an egg batter. The batter has a lacy look, hence the name. The soft, pliant, white brain with its subtle masala were amongst the best that we have had in a long time and we parceled some to take home.






This was followed by chicken farchas. This is chicken, marinated in masalas and deep fried in an egg based butter. The Parsi version of KFC. I have never enjoyed farchas in the past as I found them to be too excessively fried and consequently stiff and tough. The farcha at Elphinstone was completely different and was the king of farchas. It was extremely tender and juicy and the marinade was wonderful.






No Parsi festive dinner is complete without the legendary patrani machhi. This dish is tailor made for this fish loving race and consists of pomfret, marinated in a coconut and coriander based chutney and steamed in a banana leaf. This is different from the Bengali, machher paturi, which is fish steamed in mustard in banana leaves and looks yellow versus the green of patrani. I have had patrani at weddings and restaurants and can safely say that the one at Elphinstone was one of the best that I have had as the fish was fresh and juicy and the marinade was very well flavoured. It met the stamp of approval of all on the table.






Dhansak (a meat and lentil dish served with caramelised rice) is a dish which most non Parsis strongly associate with Parsis. However, you will never get dhansak in a festive occassion as it is a funeral dish. In festive occasions such as Navroze this is substituted with pulao daal. This is a lightly flavoured pulao with some dry fruits, meat, fried onions, sliced boiled eggs, fried potatoes and little round meat kebabs and was served with dhansak daal. The daal at Elphinstone is quite close to what Kainaz's mamma (granny) used to make and was quite nice. The rice in the pulao could have been firmer. But the mutton in the pulao was one of the most tender and succulent cuts of mutton that I have had in a while.






You think we ate a lot? Wait, there was more. This was a multi starrer. So we had another Parsi legendary dish... Sali chicken. Sali chicken is a poor cousin of the sali boti (the latter is made with mutton cubes instead of chicken). It is a slightly sweet dish and is sweeted with a dry fruit called jardaloo, a type of fig. You put potato straws (sali) in this and have it with rotis. My pa in law quite liked it though Kainaz and my mom in law were a bit disappointed. I thought it was fine.






This post can run into pages as what I described was not all we ate. The rotis were nice as were the vegetarian dishes (jeera alu, veg pulao daal) that we had ordered for Kainaz's mama were pretty good. We finished our meal with the very sweet, Parsi custard.



How good was the food? I ate all this despite a mild stomach ache which I had from the afternoon.


How happy were we? I guess the picture says it all.

Good morning Bandra, Crepe Station

A good breakfast is key to a good weekend for me. After trying out various options, we have figured out that Candies at Mc Ronnel is our favourite.

I felt like something different last weekend. More like a hot breakfast. So we headed to Crepe Station at the Carter Road food lane.

Crepe Station had first opened at Carter Road five years back. Kainaz and I went there once in its early days. I remember us going to the tiny sit in section upstairs where we tried out some sweet crepes. Crepes were fairly new to Bombay then. They are not too popular even now. Crepe Station soon moved on to waffles (Kainaz loves the Nutella waffles here), breakfast fares, continental lunches and even local dishes such as parathas and poha!

Crepe Station grew in size, in range, in number of outlets and eventually shifted a couple of outlets down the road from its original place at Carter Road, Bandra.

The new place at Bandra has a slightly bigger sit out. And, if you contort yourself, you can even get the odd glimpse of the sea in the morning. They have a small air conditioned section too.

The place was reasonably crowded last Sunday morning. The crowd was typical Bandra - young couples, the odd family with kids, a few foreigners and a couple of grandmas.

Service was sluggish. We waited for more than twenty minutes for our breakfast after placing the order(I came prepared and had a cookie at home), about ten minutes for some ice cubes which we wanted for or fruit juice and about seven minutes after they said that we will get our food in two minutes.

We kept looking at the kitchen, saw people come out with an order and then lost hope as we reaslised that it was for someone else.

The food came eventually. And it was absolutely worth the wait!

We had fried chicken sausages (Rs 90, 2 USD) which were fantastic. The sausages were juice, left a delightfully creamy after taste and were topped with cracked whole pepper which really livened them up.

We also tried Spanish Omelets (Rs 160, 3 USD). This was a regular omelet lightly stuffed with bits of potato and olives. The omelets were fried just right. AND it had the right amount of salt. A lot of places, especially Just Around The Corner, serve unsalted omelets. The Spanish Omelet was served of crisp, ho,t brown bread and butter. The brown bread was surprisingly tasty.

We also had a watermelon juice (Rs 40, 400 ml) and grape juice (Rs 25, 200 ml) which were fine.

I quite enjoyed the breakfast and the open sit out (I was facing the restaurant front while K faced the dusty road). It is not a cheap option though as breakfast two, with dishes shared came to about Rs 350 (7 USD). Breakfast at Candies (two coffees with free petite fours and a sandwich) cost us about Rs 150 (3 USD).

Kainaz was comparing Crepe Station (CS) with Candies while we waited for our food. This was her score:

Smiling faces: Candies : yes CS: No

Long wait for breakfast: Candies yes CS: No

Free jelly slice: Candies Yes CS: No

She was notably calm and quiet once the food arrived!

Beijing to Baga, Pagoda, Goa

This brings me to the last of our new discoveries at Baga this year, the Pagoda restaurant.

Pagoda is one of the two Chinese restaurants facing each other on the stretch just after the Tito's turning and the Bharat Bar, as you walk towards Calangute.

Kainaz and I had never been to a Chinese restaurant so far at Goa as we would head straight for the Goan joints.

Pagoda was a nice place to celebrate my brother's birthday especially as he is fond of Chinese food. And he is a generous host. As Confucious would say, "a great meal begins with a great host".

The food was quite well flavoured and subtle. Slightly different from the heavy, spiced tastes of Bombay Chinese. Closer to the Chinese food in Calcutta. In fact the steward who was reasonably well informed about the menu was from Calcutta!

We started off our dinner with some fried wantons which were fairly nice and showed promise of a good dinner ahead.

We had a crab starter too which was served in the shell and had a mild batter coating. Breaking into this revealed a very well flavoured shredded crab with the odd burst of green. This was quite a tasty dish though I must confess that I don't remember the name. The crab was as fresh as it gets.

The board at Pagoda and the restaurant facing it promised the famous 'Peking Duck'. We went in for a duck in plum sauce which turned out to be a great choice. The duck meat was served as thin, roasted, slivers and were quite slippery and yummy. The sauce was quite different too. It had a hint of sweetness without being too sweet.

We ordered a dry chilly garlic fish which was quite nice as were the fried rice and the hakka noodles. The rice and noodles were quite firm and separate the way I like it.

My brother finished of his dinner treat to us be ordering darsan and ice cream for dessert. This was nice and crisp and yet sticky without being too sweet.

All in all Pagoda was a nice experience. The prices were quite reasonable with most dishes costing within Rs 150 (3 USD) each and were cheaper than Bombay prices for similar dishes. The ambience was what one would associate with Chinese restaurants here with an overarching red theme with dragons, bamboo strips, lanterns and Chinese script peppered all over. This was an open air restaurant.

Worth checking out if you are a bit tired of Goan food. Beats me why though.

Holi: the colours of food

Today is Holi, the festival colours. The best thing about Holi this time is that it is on a Wednesday and there is nothing like a mid week holiday!

I think I last played Holi while I was in school. It was good fun then. Holi in the East doesn't have any food associations unlike the intoxicating drink, Bhaang, the cooling milk and crushed dry fruit drink, thandai, the laddoos and so on in the North. But I do remember playing Holi in our building in Calcutta once when the building committee had got gulab jamuns for all. Our hands were full of colour so the building aunties had to pop the sweets into our mouths.

I didn't really venture out in Holi after I got into college and definitely not after I began to work. I do vaguely remember being smeared with dry colour, aabir, in college the day before Holi. Another Holi memory after I began work was as a bachelor at Mumbai when a friend's sister and brother in law generously hosted some of us who were living alone over the weekend and stuffed us with great food and ever flowing drinks.

Like I said, I have not played holi with colours for years, but come to think of it, there is more to colour than the colours which one smears people with.

Here are some of the colours we played with today:

Breakfast:

• the crinkled red skin of fried chicken sausages, ribbed in the middle
• the bright yellow of sunny side ups
• cappuccino brown (Nishant, Tanuja, thanks for the amazing coffee machine)
• the soothing yellow of butter melting on a pan

Lunch:

• creamy, off white, yellowish alu posto
• the orange of mooshoori daal and its metamorphosis into yellow ochre
• rui fry with its marinade of fiery red chilly powder, the calming light brown of jeera powder and the cheerful yellow of turmeric powder
• virgin white of lovely steamed, rice

Evening:

• Lively red of jelly slices at which came with the coffee at Candies

Dinner:

• Dark, solid brown of Goan sausages
• Bursts of green chilly
• Solid brown and electric pink of chocolate and strawberry mousse from Regal at Pali Naka, Bandra. Allegedly sugar and fat free. 'Allegedly' because they taste too damn good. (yet to try the strawberry one though)

Hmmm, that's quite a colourful Holi, isn't it?

Happy Holi :)

Two hundred and fifty not out

I happened to look at the dashboard on my Blogger profile and saw that I have completed 250 posts on Finely Chopped! Those who follow cricket that's quite a significant number for a batsman to notch up.

Phew! Not bad even if I say so.

I had no idea about what I would write when I started. In fact I had started the site as a place to air my grievances on food and restaurants. It was my first blog. I had never thought that I will take to it the way I did - snatching time whenever possible from the daily chores at home or during lunch break at work or by fighting sleep late into the night. Typing away on food, restaurants, recipes, rants, raves, people, holidays. At times making Kainaz wait while I took snaps of what we ate. Baring an important part of our lives to all.

And I really enjoyed every moment of it. I loved writing the posts. I loved seeing your comments. Comments from those whom I know. And from those whom I didn't know earlier. I discovered the Statscounter and got goosebumps each time I saw the metre go up - Hello lurker! And then there are those of you who write in on mail about the posts or text me or tell me when you meet me. And the ultimate high was seeing the follower space get populated. Thanks for all your support. That's what keeps me going.

I have enabled comment moderation but have never got a nasty comment. I guess food makes everyone happy!

One more cricketing number before I close - I added my posts on my travel blog (40) and my recent general topics blog (12) and saw that I have crossed the coveted triple century across my three blogs!

I can't stop beaming. As they say, 'so long and thanks for all the fish'.

Red hot, O Pescador, Baga, Goa

Kainaz and I have made around five trips to Baga, Goa, by now. We have hit our rhythm there - eat, sleep, stroll, eat, shop (Kainaz mainly), eat, drink, sleep...and identified our haunts too - Infantaria, Brittos, Love Shack (not for long though if the loo gets even more decrepit and the food any sparser) and recently, Lila's Cafe for breakfast.

This was the first trip to Baga for my brother and Mom though. So they wanted to explore the place a bit more. That's how we landed up at a few more places this time.

One was a garden restaurant called O' Pescador. This was in the stretch between Baga and Calangute just before the Subway shop.

The place looked quite nice at night with candle lights and tiny bulbs in the trees which gave it a magical feel. The mosquitoes were a drag though.

We decided to put the 'Pescador' tag to test and ordered a lot of sea food.

We had a squid ambotic which was red, spicy and fiery. The squids were pretty good too - fresh, juicy and not rubbery or chewy at all.

We ordered a fish vindaloo which tasted as fiery as it looked. It was quite an interesting take on vidaloo which one normally associates with pork and a slightly more sour taste than what we had here. Come to think of it, I am yet to come across two different places whose vindaloo tastes the same. The taste normally vary in a sour to spice continuum with varying levels of oil and redness.

We also had a prawn balchao. Balchao is a Goan prawn dish which can be had as a pickle or as a thick masala dish. This tends to be on the sweeter side (a jaggery base perhaps?) and the prawns tend to be cooked more than in other dishes and therefore are firmer and tighter than normal.

We wanted to have pao (coarse Goan baked bread) with the vindaloo, balchao and the ambotic. The steward told us that they don't serve pao as it was 'slow moving' and pushed on their naan. Slow moving?! Yah right. Or is it because naans are more high value? I must admit that the naans were bloody good but the fact is that Goan food needs to be paired with Goan pao or steamed rice! You can't bank on the gullibility of people for business all the time.

We also had a Goan sausage pulao. This is the quintessential Indian pulao uniquely flavoured in this case with sharp, spicy, sour, pungent Goan sausages. They had made the dish pretty well.

The place wasn't too expensive. The Goan dishes cost Rs 80 - 100 (around 2 USD) each if I remember right.

The candle light setting was fairly romantic if you overlooked the mosquitoes.

The food was nice and authentic too. As my little brother sagely said, the experience taught us that no matter where you eat, the food is always good at Goa!

He also said a few days later that the food in Goa is always good, but Infantaria is best!

Note: we didn't have to strip for our meal (see the pic of the menu below)

And the Feastguru in the best restaurant review section goes to...

I would like to thank Feastguru (click here for the link) for being the first site to publish my reviews and occassionally arrange for them. My grandmom, Didu, for being the first person to entice me to Bengali food with her luchi alur dom when I first came to India as a spoilt brat. And to my wife, Kainaz, for patiently waiting (most of the times) while I click photos of what's on the table.

Here's the review http://www.feastguru.com/contest/36-restaurant-review-contest/691-my-grandmom-would-approve-of-this.html

(Yes, you read it first on finelychopped)

Kung Fu Crabs - Mahesh Lunch Home

Photo credit: Google Image search http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_63mUyNce2ag/Sao65IJE0TI/AAAAAAAACOs/i9gOXwCx3-U/s1600-h/crab.jpg

Mahesh Lunch Home formed a part of the famous trinity of sea food joints at Mumbai, along with Apoorva and Trsihna, when I came to Mumbai ten years back.

These restaurants were in the fort area of South Mumbai. It was a favoured haunt of ours in the early days and I used to go there with friends and then with Kainaz when we were dating. Our favourite dish was the crab in butter pepper garlic. Followed by the prawn gassi. The fare is Mangolorean from the Southern coast of India.

Our Mahesh visits reduced after we got married and moved to the suburbs. Mahesh opened a branch at Juhu, close to J W Mariott and Amitabh Bachchan's house, a few years back. We tried going there once but it was too crowded and we left without going in.

We didn't attempt to go there after that given the crowds and the fact that we are lazy, snobbish, Bandra'ites. Then we went there last Thursday as we were returning after watching this fantastic, edgy, Hindi Film called DevD.

We reached at 1115 at night and found that the restaurant was quite crowded. The crowd was mixed as you had a few of the swish set interspersed with some swarthy businessmen types. The ambience was a bit seedy - dark and gloomy lighting, cream coloured tapestry, candles which had burnt out - not the place to come to if you were planning to pop the question.

It's another story however if you love food as the events which unfolded showed.

Let me start with the Bengali (!) steward, Abhijit Dutta, who took our order. My biggest grouse while eating out is that people who took the orders seem to be quite clueless on the dishes which are on offer. Nor do they have a point of view on the menu. No such issues with young, bespectacled, Abhijit.



He first tried to get us excited about having the 'biggest crab' in the restaurant and promptly came with a huge, live, crab. The crab was jiving and gesticulating with its claws. I shrunk against the wall and timidly asked the price. I don't know what was more scary - the jumping claws or the price of Rs 1000 (20 USD). The same was repeated for the medium crab Rs 750 (15 USD) and fiesty claws. He finally came with a 'small' crab which was more in our league - Rs 450 (9 USD) and claws kept to itself.

As we took our first bite into our favourite butter pepper garlic crab, ten minutes later, we wondered how we could have stayed away from Mahesh all this while. The dish was as wonderful as we remembered it. The recipe is simple - crab in a base of finely chopped garlic, deep fried in butter and pepper with red spices. (I have made it at home years back and my gut led to results which were quite close to the original result). It was good to see that they have maintained the taste of the original restaurant in their branch at the suburbs.
We had it in the shell. As Abhijit said, crab tastes much better in the shell. The break it and get it so it is quite easy to eat, though again not recommended if you are about to pop the question. Messy fingers and garlic breath are not what Cupid would order. They have a deshelled version too.

You can also have prawns, squids or mussels in butter, pepper, garlic if jousting with crabs is not your idea of a hearty meal.
I copied the picture from the web (owe this to an anonymous blogger) which shows a whole crab. They get to this to the table for effect if you want to and then take it away, and break it for you if you think you are not up to taking on the whole crab without help.
The crab meat was fresh and combined wonderfully with the buttered garlic base. This is definitely one of the most memorable dishes that I have ever had.
Abhijit said that the barbecued butter pepper garlic crabs were even better. According to him it was 'more advanced'.
It was quite clear that Abhijit knew his stuff so I let him suggest our second dish. He claimed that he had figured out our tastes and suggested that we order a chameen porichatu (Rs 500, 10 USD). We went with it and weren't disappointed. The dish had about 8 large jumbo prawns with the tail. The prawns had a very thin batter coating and came in a fiery red, dry masala with green chillies, deep fried onions and mustard seeds. It was quite a nice dish which had a wonderful blend of fresh Sumolike prawns, with a fierce red chilly base and a faint sweet, ketchupy, undertone. It went very well with the soft neer dosas.
The only problem was that we, or at least I, were quite full after a long day and had to pack half the prawn dish.
In hindsight a medium crab with dosas would have been enough between the two of us.
Head to Mahesh if you love food. It is a classic when it comes to sea food. It is expensive. A meal for two will not cost less than Rs 1000 (20). That too if you order skimpily. But I can guarantee that you will have a memorable meal. They have a few Chinese and continental dishes but I would advise you to stick the original Manglaorean fare. Check the prices of anything you order as the prices would defer by size of the catch. And, as I said, the decor is nothing to write home about. But it is hygienic and air conditioned.
And, if you go to the Juhu outlet, ask for Abhijit Dutta and let him navigate you through their oceans of delight.