Our office in the garment district was around the corner from a Kathi roll place, one of my partners and I started avoiding the block it was on, cause it was so hard to not eat three for lunch.
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I love that place. I could eat 2 easy, then 1.5, now it’s 1 plus 1 for insurance / later 
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Aaaand I’m back!
And it’s STill monsoon-y.
The drink of champions to kick off — sugarcane juice with ginger and lemon. I paid $10 for this in San Diego at a Viet grocery store. $1 today. (My nephew will be spanked if he refuses to drink it here again but makes me buy it for him there.)
And the king of Bombay snacks — Batatawada! Perfect monsoon evening eating.
Not pictured because we inhaled them so fast — Sev Puri.
I packed up cheese sandwiches and chicken junglee sandwiches for “later”.
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I’ve never heard of batatawada - they look and sounds incredible.
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Wot?! I feel like I talk way to much about them
Highly recommend! They’re probably available frozen these days at any Indian store, but you can easily make them at home.
Check out the Maharashtrian Cusisine of the Month thread too.
ETA: @LulusMom1 I know you don’t like deep frying at home, so you could skip the coating and form the mixture into pan-fried patties, or use as a sandwich filling (even better toasted)
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Another day, another batatawada (or two )
Ganpati (the festival celebrating the elephant-headed god of the same name) may be the biggest festival of the year for Mumbai (and Maharashtra), and it started yesterday (well, today was day 1 but the idols arrived yesterday) and goes for 8 days.
Visiting mode means snacks at each stop.
Today’s eats were South Indian plus at the first stop (mini millet idlis, Szechuan cheese dosas, dahi wadas, dhoklas, a cheese board, and assorted sweets) and my great-aunt’s specialty of batatawadas (and tea) at the second stop.
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Then we picked up North Indian favorites for dinner — butter chicken, chicken malai kabab, paneer bhurji (ie scramble), rumali (handkerchief) roti, and naan. So, so good
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I have (sneakily) trained my favorite and most frequent source of sandwiches to make my favorite childhood sandwich, the famous (in my circle anyway 
) Chicken Junglee.
It originated at one fast food spot in the 80s, and was oft copied but no one ever did it quite like them. Too much mayo, too little onion, no green chilli, cabbage added to ruin everything, and so on.
Ingredients: chicken, mayo, red onion, green chilli, and cilantro, sandwiched into very soft white sandwich bread with the edges cut off (naturally).
So now I give my sandwich order with all the additions, and whaddya know — Chicken Junglee time again!
(Others thought it was light on mayo, but I can’t stand mayo-wet sandwiches, so it was perfect for me)
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I keep coming back to the idea that you lead food tours/write books a la Katie Parla. Or, at the very least, an HO food tour!!
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That’s quite a vote of confidence, thank you 
Someday maybe.
Meanwhile I was just thinking that I should write up my HK notes while they’re fresh for my friends to share with their visitors to come.
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Another day of Ganpati visiting — with more featured eats
Chaat night at one spot — complete with a pani puri wala doling them out piece by piece! Now THIS was the pani puri of my childhood.
There are BIG BIG BIG differences in pani puri around India.
Two major factors — (1) water (“pani”) (2) filling
Bombay is my (the?) OG - two types of water, one spicy / tangy, one sweet, and the guy mixes to request for every bite (first dip in sweet, second in spicy).
In Kolkata (puchka / phuchka / fushka / fuchka) the filling is seasoned potatoes - and no sweet / tangy water, only spicy.
In Delhi (gol gappa) - no filling, there is a bit of boondi in the water - also no balance to the water.
In Bombay you often get a mix of boiled potato, moong beans, and red channa.
But the “real deal” Bombay filling is Ragda — stewed white peas, served hot, in contrast with the cold mix of waters.
So in addition to the textures (soft, crunchy, liquidy), and flavors (sweet, spicy, tangy), you also get a temperature differential in your mouth as the puri explodes in there 
Also why Pani Puri and Ragda Pattice (the stewed white peas served over potato patties( stalls used to be adjacent or run by the same guy.
Well, THIS GUY had the RAGDA! (And the guy on our street corner when I was young —who always ratted me out to my mom, btw — “mummy said only 1 plate this week, okay? ” RAT!).
We stuffed our faces 1 puri at a time till I counted 6 puris to a plate, even though we didn’t actually need to stop (I just wanted to make sure I had room for other chaat ).
Then on to Dahi Batata Puri (same puri, but potato stuffing, yogurt and chutneys instead of the water).
And finally a tiny round of Sev Puri which is my Achilles.
I did not eat dahi vada, papdi chaat, or samosa chaat, nor any sweets, in case you’re wondering.
After everyone was done eating, we made fun of how bad Delhi and Kolkata “chaat” is — and recounted our disastrous personal first encounters with non-Bombay chaat. That was a lot of fun, because I thought it was just me about Delhi chaat
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I didn’t take any pics at the next stop even though there were even more things served there, all homemade — we were too busy chatting.
Menu there: homemade spring rolls, mini mexican pizzas, avocado dip, crostini, crackers and hummus, dhoklas, khandvi, samosas, sweets, fruit
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I remembered during my last trip to Delhi, we tried vodka-filled golgappas at Indian Accent.
An interesting piece by Vir Sanghvi, one of my all-time food heroes, on pani puri/golgappa:
https://www.virsanghvi.com/Article-Details.aspx?key=940
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Vir’s is a very Bombay view of chaat
(The boozy pani puris originated in the west, for sure – I remember pani puri vodka shots in the 90s. But yuck and no!)
One of the more creative uses I’ve come across of a pani puri shell (ie the puri) was at an Israeli restaurant in nyc who stuffed it with creme fraiche and salmon crudo – very fancy dahi puri!
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I think the puri shells can be used as a vessel for almost anything! These were puris filled with chili crab, served at a wine bar here in Penang.
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I’ve been remiss about reporting recent eats, because there were too many and too little time.
But ROYAL CHINA gets another shout-out for dim sum and (mostly) Cantonese. I like the one in London too, but this one has my heart (and tummy).
We have eaten at / from there a few times in the past weeks, the most memorable of which was a dim sum lunch where we ate nothing else and sampled a lot more of the menu than we usually do (bec: favorites).
Cheung fun:
– Wild mushroom & asparagus
– Char siu pork
– Prawn
Fried:
– Vegetable spring roll (crowned global favorite by nephew, as Shun Lee NYC is now a sad shadow of its former self – previously tied 
)
– Peking duck spring roll
Steamed dumplings:
– Crystal vegetable dumpling
– Crystal duck dumpling
– Edamame and asparagus dumpling with truffle “caviar”
– Spicy prawn har gow
– Prawn & water chestnut spinach roll
– Siu mai
– Peking duck dumpling
– Pork dumpling
Plated:
– Mock meat xlb in soy-ginger sauce
– Seafood dumpling in chilli oil
– Spare ribs in black bean sauce
Pan-Asian:
– Curried Chilean sea bass dumpling
– Singapore black pepper chicken dumpling
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SUKH SAGAR / South Indian
Chhole bhatura (I was scolded for not telling people I was going to take a pic because “now the bhatura is deflated and what’s the point”) — really good chhole / chickpeas, quite different from North Indian renditions
Butter Idli (note one idli is gone, the other has been spread with butter, and there is still a ridiculous lump of butter left)
Onion chilli uttapam — well-made, with the onions slightly caramelized. The extra butter went onto this.
Ghee podi masala dosa — the inside of the dosa is spread with podi aka spiced lentil powder that’s like a dry chutney. Different than a mysore dosa, which is spread with a spice paste
Paneer, corn, and cheese balls — some gratuitous fried junk 
Not pictured: cold coffees, strong, sweet, and milky.
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Absolutely LOVE South Indian breakfast foods. Over here in Penang, Little India is gearing up for the 4-day Pongal harvest festival next week, Mon, Jan 13, 2025 – Thu, Jan 16, 2025.
I usually go for the Pongal rice served in many of the restaurants then.
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I made the mistake of being born in the wrong breakfast food culture: growing up I hated eggs and bacon, toast, yogurt, cereal etc only occaisionlly interested waffles or pancakes. It was such a strong dislike that I would avoid eating until lunch.
What I didn’t know is that there was this whole world of breakfast dishes that I should have been eating: pongal, gra pao moo, roti canai and congee.
It would avoided a lot of arguments with parents over needing to “eat a good breakfast before school”….
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In my last job (the British American Tobacco), I have 3 Brazilian colleagues and none of them would eat anything savoury for breakfast. Brazilians will take cheeses, breads and fruits, but never sausages, eggs or bacon.
Whenever we went to India for business, usually 3 weeks at a time, I’ll go for different Indian breakfast options each morning: dosa, idli, upma, bhatura, etc. My Brazilian colleagues would stick to their cheeses and toasts, and would never, ever touch any local Indian breakfast option. I always thought - what a waste! 
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That’s so interesting! We are fans of eating a relatively large hot savoury meal for breakfast. Dosa and idli are firm favourites. And we loved the fact in Vietnam there huge bowls of beef pho being dished out as part of the hotel buffet breakfast. And great banh mi available everywhere from early morning. Breakfasts all over Asia rule!
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Having grown up in a savory breakfast culture, I have zero appetite for sweet breakfasts. Any savory choices will always win over pancakes, waffles, and pastries for me!
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