A la Carte - Mumbai Ishtyle

Food is a very important part of life for most of us Indians, often our conversations and life revolve around food. One of the the reason being, the diversity of India and variety in cuisines. Each state has its own cuisine and further each communities have different customizations to that cuisine.

Apart from the yummy 'ghar ka khana' most big towns have awesome roadside eatries which should not be missed. Me being a pakka 'Mumbaikar' have enjoyed eating at these stalls.

Mid-Day (popular Mumbai daily) recently carried a great tid-bit on these roadside food items (which promted me to post on this topic), very nice read for all the Mumbaikars.

You can read it here or here's how it goes.

THESE are some peculiar twists to food items. Very unique, very Mumbai, these hybrid food items are available on city roads and smaller restaurants. They have a unique flavour that says: khao, piyo, mazaa karo, Mumbai ishtyle. What we like about them is:

How the sandwich wallahs sprinkle sandwiches with slivers of crisp sev to offset the softness of the bread with some crunch.
How the corn sellers sell the kernels without the cob, and baste it with a dollop of butter.
How the diet vada pav has brown bread, but inexplicably a fried vada sandwiched between it.
How the enterprising bhel wallah fries noodles puts masala and coriander on it and passes it off as Chinese bhel.
How we have an American Sev Puri, where some westernised topping on the puri gives it that Amreecan flavour.
How Pav Bhaji vendors sell only a masala pav option with so much butter that if the bread was wrung out the butter would form a puddle in the plate.
How some Udipis sell a Maruti dosa, which is as big as the front of a Maruti car, or how they pass the hat around with a topi dosa.
How the fruit platewallah embellishes the plate by sticking a slice of cucumber on one of the fruits.
How fruit juices go by the name of Ganga-Jamuna, Maara Maari and believe it or not, even Bunty Aur Babli.
How the milk at Energee booths has two pieces of cashew and a quarter sliver of almond and calls itself masala milk.

These roadside restaurants become meeting places for couples, friends where sometimes lot of quality time is spent. The ones near school and colleges are extremely busy where the regular goers use their influence to get their order faster.

Some of the famous joints (Kisan's Dosa, Health Juice Center) in my locality even have a community dedicated to them on orkut (each one having 100+ members). As I saw these communities on orkut a smile came on my face that's when I travelled 8k miles in 5 seconds, I remembered my evening walk to Kisan's Dosa and the world best 'Apricot Orange' and 'Orange Blossom' at Health Juice Center.

Anytime you're in Mumbai don't forget to try one of these places, also I'm ready to try new places on my next visit. Any suggestions ?