[nukkad] Food For Tummy :) (Long One)

["Maverick" <>]

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Tip of the day:  Remember, this "nukkad" is international.
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An outsiders look about our dear city's Tummy Refill centers 


A Bombay Mosaic From Around India

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/05/travel/05TAB.html?pagewanted=2

POSSIBLY because Bombay is India's largest, most cosmopolitan city, it's
not easy for a pair of clueless tourists to drop in and scope out a
local cuisine. The capital of Maharashtra state on India's west coast,
this city of nearly 12 million people draws its food from many Indian
regions and cultures and has countless foreign restaurants as well.

My companion, Franco, and I started and ended our first trip to India in
January in Bombay, a vacation planned around a conference in New Delhi.
Without the language or friends, our experience was bound to be limited.
But though we cautiously eschewed the much-loved street food, we also
ignored the five-star hotel dining rooms, though many are said to be
excellent, in search of a more typical experience. In the end we tried
five very different restaurants, from medium-elegant to quite casual,
each representing a different element in the wonderfully varied
gastronomic mosaic of Bombay: northern Indian, seafood, Gujarati
vegetarian, Parsi and Goan.

Khyber Restaurant

For our first dinner in India, we sought out one of Bombay's best
restaurants, whose name and cuisine evoke the Northwest Frontier. Part
of the reputation of the restaurant, Khyber, is for its décor, intended
to evoke a haveli, or mansion of northern India. The ceilings are low
and beamed, but the downstairs dining room, where we sat, was quite
sleek and modern, with a broad marble staircase to the upper floor.
(More than 200 diners can be accommodated in the intelligently
subdivided dining areas.)

The kindly headwaiter helped us navigate the long menu, which includes
seafood, vegetarian dishes and even Goan curries as well as the main
attraction, northern meat-based kebabs and tandooris. Our reshmi kebab
was supreme of chicken marinated in yogurt with mild spices and cooked
on a skewer — neither spicy nor bland, but tender and full of flavor.
Mutton rara was tender lamb chunks in a quantity of slightly spicy red
gravy served in a copper pot called a hundi. A friendly waiter
instructed us on scooping up the lamb with our flat paisley-shaped naan
bread, but generously suggested we revert to the fork when we'd had our
fun.

Beer or soft drinks are the usual accompaniments but, intrigued by a
short list of Indian wines, all from Maharashtra state, we tasted Sula
Vineyards Chenin Blanc 2001 ($22) and found it wan but drinkable.
Dessert was kulfi, a pleasant, and ubiquitous, ice cream based on
pistachio and condensed milk (which gives a slight butterscotch taste),
and gajar halwa, a rich buttery pudding made, in winter only, from Delhi
red carrots.

Trishna Restaurant and Bar

If there was one place where we needed a local companion to lean on, it
was this well-respected seafood restaurant whose ambience is difficult
to nail down — sort of retro, with vaguely marine motifs painted on
mirrored panels.

The menu is half Chinese; the Indian part consists of generic nouns
(lobster, crab, prawns, pomfret) and incomprehensible adjectives
(hariyaki). Nor were prices listed. After some stressful attempts to
discuss the possibilities with an authoritarian waiter who spoke little
English, we weren't sure who chose our dinner, but by the time we were
elbow deep in a gigantic, scrumptious crab swimming in butter and
garlic, we didn't care. Before that we tried excellent grilled giant
prawns (shrimp) tinged emerald with mint (that was the hariyaki) and
pomfret (butterfish) Hyderabadi tikka, rolls of white fish encrusted in
a great deal of coarse black pepper, ruinous to the palate but quite
tasty on its own. From the short list, we drank Chantilli Chardonnay
($14), also from Maharashtra, which gained some flavor from exposure to
oak.

Samrat

We were the only foreigners at this popular establishment near
Churchgate Station, a leading exponent of the vegetarian cuisine of the
Hindus of Gujarat, bordering Maharashtra on the northwest. Touches of
elegance (a doorman, mirrored walls, a large bas-relief mural)
contrasted with lighting and table settings that evoked a delicatessen.
No alcohol; buttermilk is the customary drink. The extensive menu
offered several dishes marked "Jain" or "can be made Jain," referring to
the Jain religion, which shuns foods grown under the ground such as
onions, potatoes and garlic. We took the path of least resistance, an
ecumenical or, at least, varied Gujarati thali, an all-you-can-eat
buffet on a plate.

It arrived with dispatch: a large metal plate containing several small
metal bowls called katoris, some of them empty. There was also a cluster
of tiny pods, dried and spiced but not hot; a sort of samosa — the
savory pastry turnover — and two flat breads, a chapati and a pakhri.
Waiters circulate with second helpings until you call a truce. The
desserts (which come at the same time as the rest of the thali) are
shrikhand, a yellow pudding of curds and sugar that tastes like honey,
and gulab jamun, spheres of curd in sugar syrup.

Gujarati food tends to sweetness, and some of the main dishes were
pleasantly sweet, such as a soupy yellow dal (lentils) containing whole
cloves. The dishes were based on lentils, peas and beans, yogurt
(notably an aromatic concoction called kadhi), potatoes and cauliflower,
with some fried items too, including one announced as "buttered toast,"
which was fried bread folded around potatoes and coriander, rather good
but quite heavy.

Britannia and Company

The cuisine of the Parsis, who migrated in the ninth century from Iran
to Maharashtra and Gujarat, incorporates both Persian and local
influences. It has no taboos, only favorites, though beef is avoided out
of respect for Hindu practice. This Parsi institution, opposite the New
Custom House, consists of a dusty-looking room open to the sidewalk,
with décor provided by a number of electric fans, but the motto on the
menu, "There is no love greater than the love of eating," told us we had
come to the right place.

The clientele seemed to be workers from the neighborhood, an upscale
business district, and the place, founded in 1924 by the present owner's
grandfather, was quite clean and efficient. The laconic menu (daily
specials are on a board), set between the checked tablecloth and glass
tabletop, offered an assortment of Parsi specialties, notably chicken,
mutton or vegetable dhansak, a spicy stew, and such "light meals" as
fish patra, a whole pomfret with green chutney (I later learned) wrapped
in banana leaves and steamed, and "chicken Irish stew," as well as
snacks such as sandwiches. Here, finally, we met Bombay duck, a long,
slim, slightly mushy local white fish (local name: bhombil or bhoomla).
It was deep fried and colored an ominous red, but not too hot and quite
palatable.

More interesting was the dhansak, tender boneless chicken (a more
authentic version is made with lamb), cooked and served in rich,
flavorful dal thickened with pumpkin. It's served with a tasty rice
fried in ghee (clarified butter) with a little lamb kebab on top. For
dessert we had an excellent homemade caramel custard and a sweet yogurt.
Only soft drinks and mineral water are served.

Goa Portuguesa

The state of Goa, south of Bombay, on India's Malabar coast, is a former
Portuguese colony; its cuisine encompasses Portuguese dishes, such as
caldo verde (vegetable soup) but is also characterized by strong flavors
(fiery vindaloo is Goan) and tropical notes, such as lots of coconut. It
also makes exuberant use of many New World ingredients such as cashews
that first entered India through the port of Goa.

This splendid Goan restaurant is about 10 miles from the heart of
tourist Bombay, halfway to the airport, and our midweek dinner there on
the way to our night flight made a delicious and diverting farewell to
the city. There was hardly anyone in the brightly lighted dining room
with a tropical theme (a second room, with bar, is entered through a
passageway). But a roving guitarist in flowered shirt and straw hat, and
a television set, suggested that a busier night might be a three-ring
circus. We were coddled by a pleasant staff in loose shirts and sarongs.
The menu (or menus, including a children's menu, a South Indian menu and
a Goan menu, which we stuck to) is a long page-turner. There is also a
wide choice of exotic cocktails and the same handful of Indian wines
we'd met elsewhere.

Goan food can be fiery, but our pomfret curry, in a rich, red
coconut-based gravy, served with lots of rice, was mild and flavorful.
We each had two magnificent tiger prawns, rubbed in spices, grilled and
beautifully moist. The three sauces presented with them (garlic butter,
a Portuguese brown sauce and a Goan masala) seemed like gilding the
lily. But cashew coconut suke, in which soft strips of coconut are
delicately spiced and sautéed with tomatoes and green onions, was
outstanding.

A moist dark jaggery cake tasted deliciously of raw sugar (jaggery), and
the Goan classic sweet, bibinca, was a wonderful sticky multilayer cake
made with coconut and banana.

This was a restaurant to return to again and again, we decided, to savor
its layers of flavor. Like the bibinca. Like Bombay itself.   











Prices, at 50 Indian rupees to the dollar, are for a meal for two,
without drinks except where noted. With the exception of Goa Portuguesa,
the restaurants are all in downtown Bombay. For additional restaurants
and tips on getting around, look for an excellent guidebook, "Bombay
Indian Travel Guide," by Farah Baria, a local journalist, published by
Kamlesh Shah in Bombay.

Khyber Restaurant, 145, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Fort; (91-22) 2673227 or
2673228, fax (91-22) 2673122. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Meal for
two with a bottle of Indian wine, about $55. Reservations are
recommended.

Trishna Restaurant and Bar, Birla Mansion, Sai Baba Marg, Kala Ghoda,
Fort; (91-22) 2614991 or 2703213. Lunch and dinner served daily. Meal
for two with a bottle of Indian wine about $60. Reservations
recommended.

Samrat, Prem Court, J. Tata Road, Churchgate; (91-22) 2820022 or
2820942, fax (91-22) 2825811. Lunch and dinner served daily. Meal for
two, $7. Reservations recommended, especially on weekends.

Britannia and Company Restaurant, Wakefield House, 11 Sprott Road, 16,
Ballar Estate (Pier); (91-22) 2615264. Open for lunch, snacks and drinks
Monday through Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., but lunch only 12:30 to
2:30 p.m. Closed Sunday. No reservations or credit cards. Meal for two
about $4.50.

Goa Portuguesa, Kataria Road (Shivaji Park), near Hinduja Hospital and
opposite post office, Mahin; (91-22) 4440202 or 4440707. Lunch and
dinner. Meal for two with a bottle of Indian wine, about $46.
Reservations are recommended.


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