Bheja Masala.... deconstructing the iconic Mumbai dish

I was looking for a team to support in the IPL this year as there is no team from Calcutta this time. The Mumbai Indians seems a natural choice as I have lived here for more than ten years.

So I thought I will write about a few Mumbaiya food specialities. I wrote about a couple of Maharashtrian snacks a few days back.

Today I will write about an iconic dish of Mumbai, bheja fry.

What is bheja fry? 'Bheja' means 'brains'. Goat's brains in the context of the dish.

Idiomatically, 'bheja fry' in local parlance is an equivalent of 'chewing one's head'. We have the Muslim community of Mumbai to thank for this seductive, soft, melt in your mouth, dish.

You would typically get this in most Muslim restaurants such as Tawa and Lucky at Bandra, possibly Bade Miya, the kebab cart at Colaba and of course at the Mohammad Ali Road stalls during Ramzan.

Parsis are fond of bheja too though their favoured forms are brain cutlets and curries.

I went to the Khar market last Sunday where I picked up some bheja or brains from the mutton seller at the inner corner of the mutton section. His mutton is very good too.

I came back and made a fairly authentic bheja fry last Sunday. Without a recipe!

I recreated this from what I remembered of the taste and look and feel of bheja masalas that I have had in the distant past, an eight year old memory of a guy making bheja masala in a cart called Guru Da Dhaba at Khar and Anthony Bourdain's Mumbai episode where he went ga ga over the various organs and entrails that he had at Mohammed Ali Road.

And I must say that the final result was quite as authentic. Kainaz gave it her thumbs up too.

Ingredients:

• 2 goat brains or bhejas
• 1/2 tea spoon of whole jeera (cummin)
• masala mix: 1 tea spoon each of coriander/ dhania powder and garam masala. 1/2 tea spoon each of red chilly powder and jeea/ cummin powder
• 1 tea spoon oil
• 1 tea spoon ginger paste
• 1/2 a finely chopped onion/ shallot
• 1 finely chopped tomato
• 3 split green chillies
• a sprig of coriander leaves
• salt
  
  Recipe:

• Boil the brains in a pan of water for about ten minutes. The mutton seller advised this

• Heat the oil in a non stick pan
• Put the coriander seeds and let them splutter. Add a split green chilly to this
• Add the onion and toss them with a ladle till they are translucent
• Add ginger past and stir
• Then add the tomato and stir till the tomatoes become soft and come out of the skin
• Add the bheja/ brains
• Add the masala powder and the salt
• Slowly smash the brains, which are quite squishy and white by now, and mix the masala and onions and tomato into it. A bit like a scrambled egg
• Add the green chillies and let this cook for five minutes. Stir occasionally
• Add the coriander leaves, push it in the brain and you are done and can switch off the gas

There, your bheja masala is ready, straight from Mumbai.

Notes:

• The dish becomes resturant like if you add four table spoons of oil instead of one tea spoon
• This is best enjoyed with pao or coarse bread
• The mutton seller recommended that I buy 2 brains for two people. In retrospect I felt you need two each if you are making out a meal of this
• Brains at Khar market cost Rs 30 a piece
• You need to have the stomach to buy brains. They scoop it out of the severed head of a goat and give it to you. Just kidding, you can buy brains of the plate
• The following pictures show the cooking process and are not for the faint hearted

Brains beautiful brains

Translucent onions and ginger paste

Mash tomatoes as they go soft

Last Step - mash the bheja with the spices and onions and tomatoes

Rule Britannia

Kainaz and I rushed to Britannia, the legendary restaurant at Ballad Esate in South Mumbai, as we heard rumours about its shutting down.

We ordered cutlets, chicken dhansaak, raspberry, caramel custard, rotlis and then realised that we needn't have gone overboard and ordered everything on the menu.

We found out that Britannia is not shutting down. Not for the moment at least.


So for those who are interested, Britannia is still alive and buzzing. It is still open only in afternoons and not on Sundays. The mutton cutlets (Rs 150 for 2 versus Rs 110 earlier) are still as soft as Cupid's cheeks and still redolent with lovely pieces of fat. The dhansak is still as sleep inducing. The dhansak rice is still enough to feed a teenage elephant. The trademark beri pulao and mutton dhansak are still to be seen most tables. The caramel custard is still a chilled oasis within the heat and dust of Mumbai.

And most importantly the eighty seven year old, genial owner , Mr Boman Kohinoor, is still there ambling from table to table, politely asking you if you are ready to order, taking your order down meticulously and then, if the order meets his approval, giving his thumbs up by saying 'good boy', 'good girl'.




Britannia is a quaint restaurant as you would expect an Irani restaurant to be. But what creates the magic is the owner's personal and sincere interest in this. You can sense his passion when you you speak to Mr Irani. And that's why the restaurant is always full despite the rising prices, the peeling paint and the lack of air conditioning. None of this matters if you love food. For this is a place run by a man whose heart is in the right place.

So Britannia still lives.

Mumbai is not an easy city to run a business in. Costs are high. Lucre and reality often take precedence over heritage. There is little governmental support . We recently had the Municipal Commissioner lament about the fact that he has to maintain lovely, landmark heritage buildings such as CST and Crawford Market. Why suffer for what someone's father built was what he said. History be damned

Britannia occupies a prime locality in a city where real estate costs the earth and the moon. I don't know how long the family will be able to hold its own before Britannia turns the way of the grand movie theatres which have given way to malls and multiplexes and the quaint Irani Cafes which have become part of faceless fast food chains.

So go and enjoy your sali boti and berry pulao while you can. After all, as they say at Britannia, "there is no love greater than the love of eating".

And don't forget to wash it down with a chilled Raspberry drink.

Swadisht aahe... Maharashtrian snacks

Think Mumbai and think snacks and the first thing which will come to your mind is likely to be vada pao.

This spicy potato chop in a bun is iconic stuff, almost a logo for Mumbai. The rare vegetarian snack which even had Anthony Bourdain go weak in his knees. And that's no mean task.

But there's to more to local snacks than vada pao. I would know. I spent most of my working life at Mumbai at Dadar and now, the exotic sounding, Chinchpokli. Both are Maharashtrian dominated localities of Mumbai. These were once the mill lands of Mumbai. The mills have gone defunct and have given way to plush office complexes and malls. These are a bit like swank oases in the middle of dusty, desolate, dug up roads.

There are no eating joints of note close to where I work. Barring a place called Sardar.

Sardar is a vegetarian, Maharashtrian place which serves a medley of Maharshtrian snacks as well as South Indian stuff and now, as they proudly proclaim, ice tea and garlic bread! It is an economical, spartan operation typical of Indian cities. Tables and benches, often shared during rush hour... sit, eat and go. Nothing fancy, no air conditioning. The fast off take and the busy cleaning boys are your biggest hope to good hygiene levels.

Sardar won in the 'best missal pao' contest of local tabloid, Mumbai Mirror, a couple of years back. A certificate on their wall proudly announces this.

Missal pao has been a favourite of mine ever since I've moved in to Mumbai. I first had it in my office canteen for breakfast ten years back. Missal is a gram flour based deep fried fritter, also known as farsan by Gujaratis. This is mixed with a chick pea curry which is slightly tangy and mildly spicy. The result is a very interesting blend of crisp, crunchy bites of the missal interspersed with the mushy, oily bites of the chick pea curry. You normally squeeze lime into it, add chopped onion (only if you are sure that you won't get lucky later in the day) and have it with pao, the local soft bread.

I stepped into Sardar a few days back and had missal pao for lunch.

I followed this with a summer favourite called aamras. Aamraas is a big local favourite which is a nectar like dish made with mango pulp, milk and sugar. This can't be made with any mango! It has to be made with a strain of mango called Alfanso. Everyone here is very proud of Alfanso or hafoos as it is called in Marathi. Alfonsos are grown in the Ratanagiri district of Maharastra. These very sweet mangoes are the only mangoes which locals think are worth having.

Aamraas has to be had chilled. There are very few things which can beat the summer heat like a nice chilled aamraas can. I can't think of any.

A classic combination is to have aamraas with puris (fried rotis made with a mix of wheat flour and flour).

This trip to sardar was completely unplanned but it happened to be Kainaz's granny's birthday. Granny passed away last October. She used to love aamraas and it was as if she willed me to go and have it from upstairs!

Note: this filling and varied meal of missal pao, aamras and puri cost me a princely sum of Rs 52 or 1 USD!

Shubho Nobo Borsho - Surviving the Bengali New Year at Oh Calcutta, Tardeo

Yesterday, 15th April, was Poila Boishakh or the Bengali New Year.

As the saying goes, for Bengalis it is ‘Baro maashe tero parbon’ (13 festivals in twelve months) or an unending series of festivities – Durga Pujo, Kali Pujo, Saraswati Pujo, Dol (Holi), Christmas & Gregorian New Year(!), Lokhhi Pujo and of course Bengali New Year.

Amazingly, while a number of these are Hindu religious festivals, the underlying theme is often that of food!

For people like me, who are part of the Bengali diaspora, this is often the biggest connect with our roots. Let me state my case just in case you thought I was exaggerating. I asked a few fellow Bengalis at work about their New Year plans. All of them answered with a vague, ‘don’t know, some good food probably’. Or, if you go to the Durga Puja at Bandra, you will see many many more people in the food stalls than at the puja where the deity is kept and the prayers happen.

Oh Calcutta, the Bengali restaurant at Tardeo, has been Kainaz's and my favoured haunt for Bengali New Year at Mumbai. It is the only good Bengali restaurant in South Mumbai. A number of Bengali eateries have opened in the suburbs of Andheri and Kandivli. But none in downtown or at Bandra where we stay.

In fact that's my only grouse against my beloved Bandra. No Bengali restaurants or Roll Shops. Why? Aren't we loyal to our biryani? Don't we wince when Ganguly wipes a tear in press conference after being dumped yet again? Don't we bleed when you prick a pin through us? You get the point.

Kainaz and I know the drill by now but here’s what to expect at the Oh Calcutta Poila Boisakh dinner

- Lots of people – remember it is the only big restaurant in South Mumbai right up to Bandra, and Bengali’s will go ONLY to Bengali restaurants on Bengali New year
- A long wait - Going on an empty stomach is not recommended. In our first year Kainaz and I even contemplated going to the nearby MacDonald for a bite while we waited. This year we were fortified ourselves with coffee and a lovely cookie based pudding at Costa Coffee before dinner
- Frayed tempers – Bengalis, unlike the Rajputs or Sikhs, are not famous for their martial instincts…but make us wait for our dinner and you will see a whole new face of the Bengali Bhadralok (gentleman)
- Buffet spread – they have a special buffet on the new year… around Rs 600 (12 USD) with a good range of Bengali dishes. This time they had kosha chicken, fish fry, mochar chop, kacha lonka mutton, rui in mustard curry, a prawn curry, luchi, rice, pulao, 5 types of mishti (sweets) and other stuff. So why did we give this a miss? They lay the buffet in a spare room which doesn’t have the nice ambience of the main restaurant. It is more like an attic. The waiting period was very long as most people head for this. I am not a big fan of buffets as you are spoilt for choices and can’t concentrate on your favourite things. The food often gets cold and congealed in the trays.
- A la carte – the regular menu is served in the main restaurant. This had a comparative less waiting period. We managed it in less than 30 minutes (went at 9.40 PM and got the table at 10.10 PM) which was a new world record and really impressed Kainaz. I guess years of loyalty to Oh Calcutta and a few blog posts worked in my favour. We had a Chitol (a much sought after fish for Bengalis) maacher kaalia and rice and luchi and kosha manghso. The food was up to their usual high standards despite the crowd and pressure. Damages to the two of us with a Pepsi and rasgulla came to the same as two buffet meals(Rs 1400/ 30 USD for two with no alcohol ). We got to have a lot of what we were particularly fond of. And in the main restaurant, where the setting is far more special and classy. And the food was brought hot to the table unlike in the buffet.
- Calm under fire – I think the staff managed it fairly well despite the petulant crowds. Perhaps those who waited longer might have a different take on this. My Pepsi was flat and there was no fizz when they got it to the table. They changed it when I pointed it out and got a bottle and opened it in front of me
- The crowd – we saw some very typical table groups. 1.Parents and their son who ate in complete silence (we are not a very demonstrative race in comparison to the hugging and kissing Parsis) 2. A mixed group of Bengali and non Bengali friends. The two Bengalis at the table animatedly took over the table, ordered for everyone, had violent debates on Bengali grammar (we are a literary race). Their non Bengali friends and everyone else let a sigh of relief when they stepped out for a smoke (show me a Bengali who doesn’t smoke or wear glasses and I will show you a tiger at Sunderbans) 3. A lot of people of like us who were eating with a blissful smile 4. And the odd Parsi (!) couple from the nearby Parsi neighbourhoods

Well, The Bengali New Year is over and we are back to the English calendar. Not that we need an excuse to eat.

As far as Oh Calcutta and nobo borsho? As they say, ‘aashchhe bochhor aabar hobe’ (once gain next year).

Notes:
- they serve the New year buffet for lunch too. I reckon that the crowds are less

- notun jama or new clothes are key to a good Bengali New year

French Oaf... French Loaf, Turner Road, Bandra

I owe it to Kainaz to write this post. In fact the title was her idea.

There is a new shop called The French Loaf which has opened at Turner Road in between Pot Pourri and Birdys.

Avoid it!

It all started when I saw the signage of the new shop coming up and felt like trying out the place.

Your mind begins to wonder when you see a name like The French Loaf written quite aesthetically on a cheerful looking board.

That's the power of advertising - copy and art. And it was ironic that an advertising practitioner like Kainaz and a once dabbler in advertising, if you can call planning advertising, like myself, fell for it.

Like I said, we were both intrigued by the promises of a name like 'French Loaf'. We had these visions of an esoteric bakery from the land of Mary Antoinnette. We were tempted by the promise of rare, ethereal tastes. Of baking brilliance and of culinary highs.

So we went there on Sunday evening.

We were welocmed by a nicely designed board displaying the shop's name. Posters with clever lines and nice layouts on the grass front of the shop... expectations rose.

Then we went into to this fairly tiny shop.

The first thing which hit me were the price of the breads. Sixty five Rupees (1.15 USD) for a loaf of brown bread! They had a buy one get one offer (Clever line 1 - something with breads and double take).

The offer didn't make sense as the loaf was quite big and we would never be able to finish two of them in time. In fact a lady came, bought a loaf and didn't take the free one saying it would not be of use. Only a family like that in the film satte pe satta with Amitabh Bachchan and his ravenous brothers would find this useful. And you don't have too many of those in Bandra with its singletons, happily unmarrieds, DINKS and nuclear families. Know your customer dude!

Selling it at half the price - Rs 35 - would be more reasonable.

We then saw a range of fairly small and ordinary looking pastries at about Rs 70 (1.2 USD) each! None of the pastries called out to us. Very, very pedestrian looking. Definitely not the type to command the price that they had set.

Which left us with the savouries. These too looked fairly dry, flaky and skeletal.

I didn't want to walk out without buying anything as it was a new shop. So I asked for a 'chicken frank foccacia' - Rs 70 (1.2 USD).

The girl at the counter asked us to wait outside while they heated the bread. In fact those manning the shop didn't seem very polished or aware of what was an offer. This was not in sync with an upscale suburb like Bandra. And with the premium positioning, look and pricing of the shop.

'Outside' was two tables, uncleaned, on the searing heat, dust and grime of the Turner Road footpath. That's where we were banished to from the air conditioning inside.

They took an inexplicable ten minutes to heat the ready made foccacia. While we stewed in the heat. I don't know what was the hurry to chase us away from the air conditioned interiors especially if they were going to take that long to reheat what we had ordered. Plus they seemed to have forgotten about us as I had to remind them about our order. Not that they had the sort of crowd which the Candies of the world have.

And how was the seventy Rupee foccacio? The less said the better. Should I just that it was a rip off. Or should I say the bread was stiff and didn't have the soft, herbed heart of focaccio bread? Just a meagre sprinkle of rosemary and that's about it. A bite and you miss it cheese crust. Or should I say cheese dust? And the frank? It was a one inch slice of sausage cut into the thinnest of rings possible.

Kainaz was quite put off as she felt that her evening was spoil. In the spirit of Easter, I tried to tell her to forgive them because they didn't know what they were doing. Not that I could.

And we weren't alone in our pain. There was a couple sitting beside us in the heat who seemed to be quite frustrated. The guy finally went in to give a piece of his mind after they kept getting his order of tea without milk wrong.

Note: I must admit that I haven't tried all their stuff so do let me know if you had an experience to the contrary

A Cake box of memories...Flurys Calcutta

I had referred too Flurys, the confectionery in Calcutta, on Facebook a few days back. Someone w wrote back saying how this reminded her of her visits to Calcutta as a kid.

Flurys, which claims to offer ‘five generations of fine confection’, has that sort of effect on people. I understand that it was run by a Swiss family. But I think it has been taken over and refurbished recently.

Today it’s a swanky confectionery at Calcutta’s hip, Park Street. It has quite a few franchise outlets across the city. It is probably one more cake shop in a city which has the newer and equally evocative, Cookie Jar, and a host of other confectioneries. But Flurys still evokes cake loads of memories for those of us who have grown up in the pre-liberalisation era in India.

Interestingly my first memories of Flurys are those of its ice creams. I had just come into Calcutta as a fairly spoilt eight year old. I was frustrated by the lack of options in ice creams here compared to England or even Iran. All you got then were orange and pineapple sticks and vanilla, strawberry, chocolate and two in one cups from Kwality. Gone were the rocket lollies that I used to love.

In the midst of that banality was the Flurys ice cream shop near the Lake which had a chocolate chip ice cream which I used to love. Twenty seven years later I still remember the little bites of chocolate chip which I used to look forward to. But there was a bigger secret to why I used to like this. The ice cream used to come in a small brown, plastic cup with a little handle. I used to wash the cup, after the ice cream was over, and use it to mix my water colours.Packaging in India in the early eighties was very, very basic so this was quite novel.

My father passed away soon after that and we moved into a Spartan world far removed from the world of Flurys and Park Street for many years as my mother brought us up on her college teacher’s salary.

Flurys stopped making ice cream and their ice cream shops were confined to history.

My next encounter with Flurys was more than a decade later when I was at college. I got a fairly decent score in my board exams. Our neighbour, 'Jethu' (Bengali term for father’s elder brother, often affectionately used for elders one knew) called me over to his house to congratulate me. He gave me a then (1996) princely sum of hundred Rupees with specific instructions to go and celebrate at Flurys.

We went to the Flurys restaurant at Park Street. I was wondering what all the fuss was about. It looked like a fairly dank and dreary place, with old waiters in archaic liveried uniforms and a very limited range of some omelets, ham sandwiches and such. I wasn’t impressed, exposed as I recently was to the Cookie Jars, Upper Crusts, Kathleens and other swish confectioneries of Calcutta.

I think this was towards the last days of the old managment of Flurys, before labour trouble shut it down for a while. Flurys barely featured in my college days and initial working days in Calcutta. I moved out to Mumbai for good in 1998.

My next tryst with Flurys was when I went to Calcutta with Kainaz just after we got married in 2001. We had taken the family out to Barbecue, the incongruously named Chinese restaurant at Park Street. We crossed over to Music World, the newly opened music shop, and saw the big, bright Flurys!

Flurys had re-opened at the same place where the old Flurys used to be. It looked all modern with a big glass front, bright lights, cheerful pinks and the usual suspects of modern cake shops – cheesecakes, black forest, tortes, chocolate truffles and mousses.

What Flurys also had were a range of their original recipes such as the legendary rum ball or their ‘cubed’ pastries – chocolate, strawberry, pineapple. The cubed pastries are very different from the fare one gets at modern cake shops. They are the purest and simplest forms of pastries. The sort we have grown up on. Butter, cream, sponge and a primitive icing. The way cakes were meant to be. Pastries which make the new ones seem like pale, synthetic copies. And the prices are at 25 (half a dollar) Rs or so which are unheard of for pastries in modern shops.

And the rum ball? It makes the heart of a person I know, who studied in Calcutta, and is not much of a foodie in my opinion, melt in nostalgia. These are the tastes we grew up on.

They also serve a range of sandwiches, savouries such as patties, lovely breads, cookies, chocolates and cheese straws. They serve a few continental dishes and coffee and tea in the main restaurant.

But no chocolate chip ice creams in brown plastic cups!

They do make the softest, mushiest, straight out at a fairy tale, lemon tart ever.

Notes:

• The main Flurys shop is at Park Street opposite Park Hotel
• You pay a higher charge if you have the pastries and other stuff from the counter served to you at the tables
• You get the counter, takeaway prices if you have them at the few bar stools which are there
• Flurys counters are there at most Spencers outlets including those at Netaji Nagar and South City Malls

Break a leg... the anti chicken leg conspiracy

I learnt pretty early in life that things that grown up say are good for you - spinach, milk, vegetables, liver, apples, spinach ! - do not taste good.

Then as I grew older I found that things that taste good - red meat, prawns, egg yolks, chocolates, fish head, soft drinks - are not good for you! Between cholesterol and extra kilos, this list covers it all.

This just about leaves you with fish and chicken, the hot favourites of the dietary and cardiac worlds. And I am not thinking of crossing over to greener pastures right now.

There is a small problem. I don't like fish too much. Specially the poached, grilled or boiled version. And frying apparently takes you back to square one.

Which leaves one with chicken. There is enough and more that one can do with chicken without frying it.

Problem solved? Not quite. When it comes to chicken I love the legs. And, I don't think much of the breasts. I find the breasts a bit too chewy and dry for my taste. Now I can see evangelists jumping up and extolling the virtue of fat free breast cuts over the fat filled legs. I think I can live with that. A man deserves his wild moments.

So what's the problem then? Here's the thing. Most continental restaurants in Mumbai do not serve leg pieces. You won't face that in Chinese or Indian restaurants. But continental places are stubborn. I once asked the reason for this when I was reviewing a restaurant. The manager told me that this was because leg pieces had bones which were messy to eat.

Hole in the argument 1: Why do they assume that we can't find our way around that with a knife and fork. There is a friend of mine whose blood boils when they show English soaps on TV with English sub titles. He feels this this is an affront to his intelligence. Same here with respect to this argument.

Hole in the argument 2: You can get boneless cuts from legs too. We had some lovely East Indian Steaks at a resort called Manoribel near Mumbai. They made these with leg pieces on my request. I often buy boneless leg cuts from Marks to make dishes at home. Chinese restaurants give leg pieces on request in their side dishes (albeit chopped)

Hole in the argument 3: Candies serves roast chicken with leg pieces. See their classic roasts in the picture below. I recently saw that Salt Water Cafe has a braised leg of chicken on their menu. So there are people who serve continental dishes on the bone.

I really wish that contintental places would be more customer friendly and give the customer the option of choosing the cut they want. Most places charge upwards of Rs 250 (5 USD). So a dish to one's preference is not much to ask for.

Till then I will stick to ordering pork.

But seriously, wouldn't it make more business sense to have a customer with a long life?

Note: the picture on the tandoori at the top of the post is from Khaane Khaas, the most customer friendly restaurant that I have come across

Mixed marriage ... Lebanese meets the tandoor: Maroosh

Maroosh is a small, three to four table restaurant. It has two branches. One at Phoenix Mills and one at Carter Road Bandra.

We went to the Phoenix Mills one recently for the first time. This is a small joint with some fairly tempting kebabs and a shwarma/ dolma stick on display. We tried a chicken shwarma (Rs 100, 2 USD) which was quite filling. In fact it had a bit too much chicken for me. A nice and filling snack.

Encouraged by the shwarma we went to the Carter road one for dinner once we returned to Bandra. There we found that they had an Indian range in addition to the Lebanese stuff.

I tried the chicken biryani which I quite liked. The rice was nice and dry (I had specified that I didn’t want masala). The chicken pieces were tender and I loved the bites of caramelised fried onions in the biriyani.

Kainaz tried the hummus and pita bread which was really good. The hummus was creamy and delightfully well flavoured. One of the best that we have had. The pita bread was quite good too.

Since then we have ordered home a few times.

Once we had friends over including a Bengali. We Bengalis are quite picky about our biriyanis. In this case my friend gave the biriyani a big thumbs up as I did a few days back.

We ordered two types of kebabs – chicken malai kebabs and kalimiri (pepper) kebabs. Both were pretty good extremely succulent and delicate.

We ordered shwarmas (mushroom) for a vegetarian friend and it worked for him too.

The chicken curry (lahori) was extremely oily and red though and I wouldn’t particularly recommend it.

We ordered a hummus and pita bread once again when we had a friend over. That was a slightly bad idea for a starter as the pita bread goes dry when you keep it out for a while. Not the stuff to munch your evening away with. You are better of having the hummus with lavash. Lavash are crackers and don’t go stiff when kept in the open.

On the whole I would recommend them for their:

- hummus and pita bread
- biriyani
- kebabs

It’s a fairly inexpensive place with most dishes priced in the range of Rs 100 – 150 ( 2 – 3 USD). Not a fancy place to sit down – open air, 3,4 bench like seats but worth considering if you want a good and inexpensive eat.

Ordering home works fairly well and once they even delivered a single order of hummus and pita bread.

Champagne stories...Salt Water Cafe, Bandra

At times it is a tough call between being vain and sharing good news. If you have followed my blog for a while and seen liberal sprinkling of my pictures and noticed that I disclose my name then you would have guessed that I am not a very modest person to start with.

Well let’s just say that something good has happened at work which might lead to a mind blowing trip, possibly for both of us. So it’s been celebration time this week with me being up there in the clouds for most of this week. I’d promised to take Kainaz somewhere special for this.

I took her to Salt Water Café, the new restaurant at Bandra. This is where the old Jashan restaurant used to be, in between Reclamation and Mount Mary.

Salt Water Café, an offshoot of Salt Water Grill, lived up to our brief of a special place. The place was buzzing on a Friday night and it is a smart idea to book a table and go. The décor was nice. Wooden tables and benches, very Italian café. I don't know why its called 'Salt Water' though as it is not a sea food place.

We decided to have something different and ordered a meat platter and a cheese board.

Here the person taking our order, a gentleman in specs and in a khaki jacket, took over. He was the one who suggested that we have both at the same time. He said the meats were salty and the cheese would give it a break of taste. We had earlier planned to have the cheese first. He was right. He also said that these platters, with the bread that comes along, would be enough for us. He was right. He also suggested a nice South African, semi dry, red Sangiovese (?) to go with the food. This was a good recommendation too and the wine was chilled just right.

I like to see people with a point of view and people who know their stuff in a restaurant. This is rare in Mumbai. So I really appreciated this.

The food was mind blowing. There were three types of excellent cold cuts in the meat platter. The ham was so thin and fresh. As was the salami with little pebbles of fat. Ethereal. And salty like the maitre de said.

There were quite a few types of cheese, a slightly bitter creamy one, neutral slices, salty cheddar and one pasty one. Should have asked the names. These came with little slices of apple and black grapes and nicely complemented the cold cuts. We had this with the fresh complementary bread which they served in little cloth sacks and replenished twice when we asked for more.

Lovely cheese, great meats, fantastic bread…as Swiss as it gets. Those in the know will know what I am referring to. I think the treat lived up to the occassion.Kainaz seemed to really love the food and neither of us looked up once we started on the food.

The platters ranged between Rs 400 – 500 (USD 8 – 10). The main courses were largely cheaper with pastas and stuff in the range of Rs 250 – 300 (USD 5 – 6). The food looked quite aesthetic and we would probably try it the next time we are here. They had interesting meats too like smoked salmon, rump of steaks and duck. They also had a seared chicken leg! I think they heard my complaint about restaurants which only serve chicken breasts, and not legs, in continental dishes.

The meal which started so well had to end well. This time a waiter recommended a plum baked cheese cake which I had my eyes on too. This was a little bundle of delight and was exquisitely flavoured.

We also had a ‘flourless chocolate fudge’ which was heavenly mix of brownie like base, soaked in fudge with a sudden coffee after taste. Mind blowing.

I think they have a good thing going here and I do look forward to my next visit here… celebration or otherwise.


Notes:
- They serve breakfast from 9AM to 11.30 AM and coffee and snacks between 3 PM and 7 PM.
- Alcohol ranges from Rs 100 (Indian spirits) to about Rs 450 (9 USD) for a glass of imported wine.
- desserts range from Rs 100 to Rs 150 (2-3 USD)
- they apply service charge and VAT on all prices
- bread is complementary

Breakfast at Candies ... a modern day fairy tale

A good, lazy breakfast is a very important part of our weekends. We normally prefer to go out and have breakfast. Earlier we used to flit between Candies at Reclamation and Just Around the Corner. Then Candies opened close to our house a couple of Christmases back. It has been our favoured place for breakfast for a while. We now go there close to once a day and twice to thrice a day on weekends.

We love the hot coffee there. Kainaz likes her’s in a take away cup with a lid and a straw. The folks at Candies have got used to this by now. And she loves the fact that the coffee is always hot here.

I have shifted from Cappuccino to Nescafe as I prefer a watery coffee.


But the biggest draw for me are the petite fours (tiny sugary pastries) which come with the coffee. We normally have the packaged sandwiches over there – egg, tuna salad, ham and cheese, chicken jungle or plain chicken. A fellow foodie pointed out that these are a bit chilled at times. So I get them grilled which the folks at Candies do to perfection.

The other nice thing about mornings at Candies is that the mad lunch hour and evening rush is not there and the mood is quite languorous. And we occasionally bump into our friends T and N who are Candies addicts too.

Paradise? Almost, but not quite. There are times when I yearn for something different like fried eggs, omelettes and cold cuts with toast for breakfast. You get these at Crepe Station or JATC but not at Candies. The fare at Crepe Station or JATC is more expensive plus they don’t have the cosiness and big, warm smiles of Candies. And the service at these places suck on weekend mornings and often spoils one's mood.

So I did try frying eggs and salami at home on a couple of weekends and whipped up coffee in our cappuccino machine. Breakfast in our new place was quite an idyllic picture specially with the tree with balmy, leafy branches outside our window.

There was a slight problem. Kainaz threw a bit of a fit as she wanted to go to Candies! To her the weekend did not seem right if we didn’t start the day there.

That’s how matters stood last Saturday as we got into another day of sorting things in our new place. The evening was quite a tiresome one as we tore our hair over the misadventures of our carpenter and the key maker. So we headed to Candies for coffee to unwind.

It was Earth Hour and Candies looked like magial with candles all over and the lights switched off. And then I spotted the poster – “All Day Breakfast At Candies”. Omelettes, cereal, juices, sausages and baked beans. Could this be true? First our favourite joint opens close to our house. And now they would serve the one thing we missed there. Now isn’t that the stuff fairy tales are made of?

We had guests coming over for lunch the next day but Kainaz and I were determined to have the hot breakfast at Candies. It was the first day of their new menu and I think we were the second people to get the breakfast. The folks at the counter seemed a bit unsure when we asked for breakfast but then they called the kitchen to place our order. And then, after a slightly long wait, our order arrived.

Egg white omelettes with cheese and mushrooms. Very nice and tasted as good as home made omelettes. Fried just right with the perfect blends of cheese (not too cheesy, not invisible) and mushrooms. And they had got the salt right unlike a lot of other places which charge a lot more and give you salt less eggs. The omelettes came with a soft Candies bread roll and butter. All of this for a princely sum of Rs 50 (1 USD)! Kainaz had a side order of 2 fried chicken sausages while I had a portion of baked beans which nicely balanced the omelettes. The side order cost Rs 25 (0.50 USD). Juices, though on the menu, were not available so we had our favourite coffees. They have fired eggs and cold cerel too.

A nice hot breakfast, on a weekend at our favourite eating joint. Life couldn’t get better. We look forward to going back again. Would be interesting to see if the breakfast comes any faster now.

Note: While its described as an 'all day breakfast', my sources tell me that you get it within 8.30 AM till about 4 PM

T&N went for the breakfast today, a week after it started, and were happy to get teir brekfast in ten minutes