Turning Parsi: Blame Adi for getting me hooked on to Parsi food, with that heavy lunch at Jimmy Boy! I fell - hook, line, sinker and stomach! So it was that I went scouting closer to home (At Bombay, Colaba!) which offered Parsi cuisine, at rates which wouldn’t make me feel guilty at eating out alone! Not that there was any alternative! At 11 pm, there weren’t many guys I could hope to wake up with a "Hey Lets Eat Some Parsi Grub" and get away! Like in the wise books, where they say "When the student is ready, the teacher appears", when I was sufficiently hungry, a senior appeared. At the million dollar question, he asked "You mean, other than Paradise?" I hadn’t known this place!.
Location: So, he told me! Paradise is located on Colaba Causeway. When you move on the road from Regal Theatre to Sassoon Dock, there is just one petrol pump which falls on your right. "Hello?", I thought! "Did you think when I said ’Tank Up’", I meant it literally? I was looking for an eating joint and this bloke was telling me about a bloody fuel pump, probably owned by a Parsi. Anticipating an attack, he quickly added.."Just at that junction, on your left, is Paradise. It is owned by a Parsi couple who live in Cusrow Baugh, and they prepare the khaana themselves. It’s a cool place, a no-shosha kind of place"! Whew! I didn’t care about the coolness ratio, but boy, was I hungry! The fact that that very morning I had read Sudipto’s take on turning veg added fuel to the ’fire in my belly’! So, off I vroomed. Finding the place was a breeze.
Once There..: The place had a door with thick glass - not really transparent, but with some hazy stuff on it like stained glass in single colour. The entrance was probably 3 feet wide, quite small for a restaurant. But then, I had come to eat, not to learn Carpentry! I walked in, to see a thin, grand old man seated at a small counter, just within. I felt guilty immediately. I don’t know whether it was the late hours, the blank look on his face or the hunger doing it to me! Gingerly, I asked "Is it Open?", , not to the oldie, but a waiter nearby! I have always been scared of old men like that! "Baitth jao, beta", crooned the old man from behind. Ah, reprieve, at last! I perched myself at the farthest end, if one could find one in a small, cramped AC restaurant with 5 tables on each side of a narrow aisle! The whole place seemed to have ’small dimensions’ as a caption!
Requesting: With that headmaster at the door, there was no Ordering! I requested around with my eyes, for a free waiter. There was! Only later did I realize that there was only that one waiter- again, a wiry man of about 50 who could have passed off as a twin of the one at the helm of affairs! I requested for the Menu. A leather bound book was given, and the guy disappeared. So much for courtesy, hospitality etc! I run through the pages, and decided to settle on Today’s Recommendation, a safe bet when in doubt, and, when the quality of one’s Gujju is absolutely suspect, despite 6 years of being married to a speaker of that foren lingo! Sali Murgi, it said. Now, that took me again to Sudipto and the debate on "Cow v/s Chic Hugging"! Whatever could that be? Now, a Commercial Break, as you read on (Courtesy: Wikipedia, aur kya!) all about Parsi cuisine and my Sali..I mean, the Murghi’s...no, the curry.., well, just read yaar!
..." Parsi cuisine is a blend of veg Gujju & non-veg Iranian cuisines.The basic feature of a Parsi lunch is rice, eaten with lentils or a curry. Curry is made with coconut & ras without, with curry usually being thicker than ras. Dinner would be a meat dish, often accompanied by potatoes or other vegetable curry. Kachubar (onion-cucumber salad) accompanies most meals. Popular Parsi dishes include:
Chicken farcha (fried chicken), patra ni machhi (steamed fish wrapped in banana leaf), dhansak (lamb or chicken in lentil gravy) sali murghi (spicy chicken with fine potato crisps), saas ni machhi (yellow rice with pomfret fish fillets in white gravy), jardaloo sali boti (boneless mutton in an onion and tomato gravy with apricots and potato strips) & tamota ni russ chaval (mutton cutlets with white rice and tomato gravy)".
Story Continues: So, now you know what Sali Murgi is, but back then, I didn’t. Neither did I know what (if at all) it was to be eaten with. The bum of a waiter had to add to my misery, by asking "And?"
So, humbly, minus the wiki info, I requested for his recommendation! "Rotis", he said, with a smile, "Maybe 2?" Two? I wanted to ask! Did I look like a LKG student? The counter-man looked me-wards just then. Quietly, I said "Make it 3!" Again, the man disappeared. It was all feeling like a Harry Potter film. So, I waited, looking around. I saw..
..a Parsi family, Mia, Beewi on one side, 3 kids on the other, waiting too. All 3 kids were heavily into video games on their gizmo mobiles. I put my ’basic instrument’ deep into my jeans pocket.
...on one wall, three colour caricatures, of nude man and dame, half hidden by bushes, engaging in some sort of seductive ’Catch Me If You Can’!
...on the other wall, three sketches of some funny characters which reminded me of Fido & Mallika in that Sprite ad.
Enter the Khaana: Hot, spicy and thick gravy, with potato matchsticks all around, concealing two huge chunks of chicken. The rotis were the largest phulkas I have ever eaten. If you can believe a roti can melt in your mouth, this is it. It wasn’t paper thin, but fluffy and dry, but with a life all to itself. It needs to be tried to feel (not taste!) the effect! The gravy and roti effect was only to accelerate the demolition. The taste seemed familiar, of the gravy. It only exposes my linguistic capabilities in Gujarati, that I realized we had eaten the same dish, but with Zardaloo (Apricot) too, at Jimmy Boy (that’s next to the RBI on Shahid Bhagat Singh Road, FYI!). The whole of 2 rotis was devoured in just 4 mins. And, there was one more roti to go. I saw the mysterious gleam in the eyes of the waiter, something like "I told you, ne!" But I did finish off the 3rd, though not without some stretching when he wasn’t looking! I licked my taste buds clean and waited for the bill. That was until the oldie appeared again, this time balancing two glass trays on his hands. "Dessert, sir?" "Well, yes, & order a crane too, to lift me out", I wanted to tell him. Head said "No’, stomach said ’No’; what came out was a Yessy nod! Chocolate mousse, it had to be. When you sin, ’Make it large’! Spoon after spoon tried in vain to let the stuff stay on the tongue for some seconds, but the mousse agreed not! Needs to be tried, to know true addiction!
Paisa Time: INR 270 is what it cost me. Expensive, or not, it is a great eating joint. So, when you are in the vicinity of Colaba next, with non-veg thoughts doing ’things’ to your internals, you know where to head.
And, when you are here, just remember, Never Order. Request!
That is, unless, the wiry old man isn’t there near the door!