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!