It was a dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence in Mum­bai this time around – we played tourists to the hilt. When you live in a city, I think you tend to miss a lot of things – fine details you don’t really notice as you rush about your daily work. Like that lovely Church behind Fort where I worked for a year or so – why had I never seen it? The beau­ti­ful old her­itage build­ings in Kalaghoda and Fort – never looked at them closely before. I had lit­tle time to stand and stare back then.

The trip was a lot about food – vis­it­ing a few of my old time favourites and check­ing out some new ones. I think we packed in much more than we intended.

So while thou­sands gath­ered to run the SCMM, we started off on our gas­tron­omy adven­ture. After TFN, I had decided to rest my well-exercised mus­cles for a month so that meant no phys­i­cal activ­ity. By Sun­day evening we were clutch­ing our tum­mies and nearly reel­ing out in pain – well, nearly.

Fish was top most on my agenda so a visit to Mahesh Lunch Home was first. I for­got one impor­tant detail though – the queues on Sat­ur­day (do all cooks go on leave on this day?). We waited for well up to 40 min­utes to get a table but we were deter­mined to get our share of fish. Thank­fully, the stars aligned and we were ush­ered in. Fish, prawns and crab fol­lowed in quick suc­ces­sion – all demol­ished rather quickly.

There’s an inter­est­ing store I’d been mean­ing to visit for a while called Tribal Route. And after some hunt­ing around and nearly call­ing them for the 10th time we found them in a non-descript cor­ner of Aram Nagar off Versova Road. Browsed around look­ing at some kitschy, funky stuff includ­ing fur­ni­ture, jew­ellery, knick knacks and such like.

The Barista on Versova Road was one I passed sev­eral times before – this time we stopped and had cof­fee with Lyn and Arpita, catch­ing up on the years gone by. And how they’ve flown… From there the scene of action shifted to Pop Tate’s – another favourite of mine. At one time, I would single-handedly demol­ish a siz­zler – not any­more I real­ized. Thai curry rice it was instead. The drink sadly was very watered down (if you’re Pop Tate him­self and lis­ten­ing!) – that’s quite a pity since I used to like their cocktails…

On Sun­day, we woke up late. Watched a bit of the run on tele­vi­sion – run­ners toil­ing it out in the hot sun – and promptly went back to relax­ing. For lunch we headed towards Out of the Blue – this nice cosy place in Ban­dra. Cosy yes, but crowded too. (The cooks are off on Sun­day too!).

We had a cou­ple of nice drinks – San­gria and Long Island – thank­fully not as watered down. And a nice Lebanese plat­ter. The desert was sin­ful – drunked prunes with ice cream and choco­late sauce – but again it was pol­ished off with­out much trouble.

Jehangir Art Gallery had a cou­ple of exhi­bi­tions going on and we strolled in to look at some of the exhibits. Samovar was closed so we had to miss their samosas and parathas. We headed out to the Fort area instead. It looked deserted and empty with a few boys play­ing galli cricket. We went look­ing for chai and found an old bak­ery – the owner con­vinced us that he made the best rum cake and we were easy prey. We found tea at Mocambo Café where a few other din­ers were still nurs­ing their after­noon beer. We set­tled for chilli cheese toast.

It was a pleas­ant evening as the sun came down and we headed towards Marine Drive – with the lights com­ing on this part of town takes on a rather beau­ti­ful look. And as usual there were crowds. It was like a mini fair on Marine Drive as we crossed fam­i­lies, romanc­ing cou­ples, kids, walk­ers, run­ners and the occa­sional dog.

We walked to the left most tip of Marine Drive near the Tri­dent and whiled away some time there – the crowds extended till there. In fact, some of them were nearly into the sea – the rocks at the edge pro­vid­ing a good view­point. Jazz by the Bay was on my check­list but the wait­ing time was 40 min­utes so we headed to the rel­a­tively quiet Kam­ling instead for some Chi­nese food – soup, dim­sums, noo­dles and fish.

After din­ner, clutch­ing stom­achs, we took the late night train from Church­gate sta­tion – we were the only peo­ple in the com­part­ment when we started – but it soon got crowded as we reached the far suburbs.

This time around, I enjoyed Mum­bai a lit­tle more. It’s bet­ter as a tourist I think — and the fact that I didn’t have the local train in mind con­stantly really helped mat­ters! And besides I had com­pany — the hus­band was only too will­ing to par­take in the food adventures…

As a mat­ter of fact the food fest didn’t stop there. We came back to Ban­ga­lore and con­tin­ued with a Korean din­ner and a Ben­gali meal there­after. Ah… the food adven­tures con­tinue… and I’m not complaining!

More food pic­tures:
Album: Yeh Hai Mumbai!