Mumbai is really the city of chaats, that rich collection of street-side savoury snacks that one finds all over India. And the one snack that defines Mumbai has to be the vada pav, essentially a spiced potato croquette sandwiched between two halves of a soft bun, slathered with a mint-based chutney, and a sweet-sour tamarind chutney.
Hungry Mumbaikars would grab a bagful of vada pavs on their way to work, or on the way home, from any of a number of vendors who tend to line the outside of railway stations.
We stopped by the magnificent Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus yesterday evening to marvel at its ornate Victorian architecture.
Of course, whilst at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, one should never miss getting some vada pavs from one of several vendors there. One can always tell which are the best ones as they’d be practically inundated by customers.
The busiest ones would have dozens upon dozens of the hot, freshly deep-fried potato croquettes ready to be sandwiched, slathered with the chutney sauces, and handed over to the hungry customers.
Railway station vada pav is a delight unto itself. My favorite vada pavs were the ones bought at the little snack & newspaper station right on the railway platform as an always-starving stufent .
Vada pav isn’t chaat, though. And the abomination of tamarind chutney is a recent one . The spicy dry red garlic chutney is all that’s needed, and all that used to be offered back in the day. Don’t need chutney if you’re just eating a batatavada, but if you pay the minor upcharge for the pav to make it a meal, the addition of the red chutney adds some heat to balance the blandness of the bread.
One of my dad’s favorite snacks. He’d go for an evening walk for “health” purposes and return with piping hot vadas (“she was frying them fresh and hot - how could I say no? ).
You may enjoy the Maharashtrian food thread from a while back — discussion of batatavadas and vada pav among other Bombay snacks.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
3
A dry spicy chutney is all a local vegetarian place adds to its vada pav.
It’s possible that Aaram was selling other types of snacks before turning their business over to vada pav, which became their claim-to-fame nowadays.
Amazing how taste preferences evolved over the years - nowadays, it’s almost inconceivable to have vada pav without its requisite tamarind and mint chutney.
We have the same instances happening to our street food in Singapore: once, fried carrot cake refers to daikon-rice cakes stir-fried with some egg for added richness, but it evolved into something like an egg frittata nowadays, with perhaps more egg than daikon-rice cakes.
I think it depends on who and where. I spent a while in Mumbai this year, and ate many, many batatavadas and vada pavs, and not a single one came with either of those. Not the ones I bought on the street, not the ones from old stalls (that one can order delivery from these days), not even the ones from our club. Just red (garlic) chutney.
Outside Mumbai and across the diaspora, the other chutneys may be offered because people who aren’t familiar with the original dish want “all” the chutneys, or restaurants just serve them that way. I have a feeling that the (Mumbai) chains that “blew up” the vada pav on a broader stage (like Jumbo King) as the Mumbai Burger might have had something to do with the extra sauces being offered as an option locally, and others may have matched to “compete”. No one had really felt the need to advertise or press themselves as “oldest” or “best” until then, at least in my recollection.
When we make batatavadas at home, we sometimes serve green (cilantro, not mint) chutney, but home vadas are different (thinner coating, less spicy).
(To your radish cake comparison, purist dim sum eaters in their origin place probably don’t douse their dumplings with all the sauces I do )
You’re right - it’s cilantro, not mint. I mixed the two up. During my last trip to Mumbai, on a business trip, my office colleagues did a takeout of vada pav for tea-break (as we were in Bandra) and it came like this:
I was staying at the Leela Hotel, and I actually ordered some for dinner. Even the Leela serves street food nowadays!
Yes, you can get a Frankie / kathi roll at the Taj these days (ask me how I know)
On the chutney front, our club will dole out as much green and sweet chutney as you want, but they ration the red chutney (only for vadas and vada pav, lol – they make fantastic vadas, as good as the best street ones).
One of the very first places we went back to when we returned to Mumbai (after 2 weeks in other parts of India) was Aram Vada Pav!
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus was just 10 minutes’ walk from our hotel, so it was just a short jaunt for some sustenance we’d been dreaming about for the past fortnight.
Next time, do visit Aram the restaurant next door (manu posted above). Our favorite items include the misal and puri bhaji. At their vada pav counter, u also get pakoras or samosas, both of which are worth a try also
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. The spicy dry red garlic chutney is all that’s needed, and all that used to be offered back in the day. Don’t need chutney if you’re just eating a batatavada, but if you pay the minor upcharge for the pav to make it a meal, the addition of the red chutney adds some heat to balance the blandness of the bread.
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