Meals Galore

Well coming suspiciously close to my last post about Vegetable Sets I did end up getting one from Manis the last week. The concept was pretty good with 1 a decent potato curry (dry), A very very competent avial, A ok Sambar (with small madras onions yummy!!) and a kickass pulinji. For a price point of 60 bucks it was insanely great value. Frankly the food was by no means very good but given the choice of having Udupified south Indian this was far better value.

And a few random thoughts - Why do we not get peeled Madras Onions here ? The SPencers and the ilk in Chennai and Bangalore seem to have them but no sign here. Madras Onions are so intensely flavorsome that they must be amongs the top 10 veggies of all time.

Vegetable Set and Match

Back in the days when Sion, Matunga, Wadala and Sion Koliwada were South indian ghettos (as opposed to the Gujju Ghettos that they are now. Soon I'll need a permit to eat non veg I tell you... Down boy)  there were three great bastions of meals in Matunga. You had South Indian Concerns, Society Mess and Mysore Concerns. And for all those who pipe up and say Udipi Rama Nayak @ Matunga station - Shaddup always was, is and will be a gujjufied Udipi meals place. There was a synchronicity to their meals across the week. Thursday was Potato Curry and Onion Sambhar at Society and Friday was the same @ Concerns.  Families used to select their meals on the menu...

And the glorious concept of vegetable set where you got only the veggies and made the rice at home ahhh that was bliss. Anyway that was then and now Concerns has stopped with the food, Mysore Concerns is now a Country Liquor bar and what was Society is now taken over by Mani of Podar college fame. Mani's is now the only place in Matunga where you can get a "meals" ala South India.

Down Kalbadevi Road

Thanks to some friends I did a trip down old memory lane. In the past few years (Almost a decade plus actually) thanks to not being in Mumbai and not being in fort I missed going for Gujju thali. Gujju thali was a longstanding tradition in my slightly penurious state at that point. The best way to get a completely fulfilling meal and then take a nice double decker bus home on the upper deck dozing away. Anyways Friends Union Joshi Club was revisited. Nothing much had changed. Prices of course had gone upwards but the food was still awesomely great. There was a garlic chutney which was worth the price of the meal by itself. Its one of the few places which offers both the non sweet dal and kadi as well as the sweet ones. The Chapatis and Rotlis and Khichdi was excellent and the chaas was just so chaas.....

Happy New Year

Greetings and salutations to you in the new year. May the best meal you ate last year be the worst meal you eat this year. (Nice but not mine unfortunately. Paraphrasing something that Sandy says). Anyway new year, new challenges and all that. Unfortunately this new year has been somewhat dry. A combination of me feeling under the weather, people traveling and other stuff has meant that the new year has so far yielded nada. Anyway suffice to say that the highlights of the past weeks have been boti kababs at Ayub, Gulab jamuns from a shop off Mohammad Ali road, Malpuas from ditto and the rediscovery of Guru Kripa. Three quick trips there made me wonder. The Gulab Jamuns are still divine (Hint for the unwary is that they taste better after being stored for one day. Don't ask me why but I can't stand sugary sweet Gulabos). The samosas are as crunchy as ever, the sev puri still kicks ass and the gol puris (weird cross between gol gappas and pani puris) are awesome. Taking a recovering punjabi with me there ensured some good karma points. Never seen someone so enthusiastic about the chole and apparently the chana bhatura there is more authentic than any other place....