Taverns and tea rooms

Taverns and tea rooms

As a child in a mofussil town like Jamnagar, I never saw an inside of a restaurant because there were none. Curiously, the term mofussil was coined by the East India company to describe India outside the main cities of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. 

Our favorite food joints were all handcarts or shops dispensing freshly made foods to be carried home. Lots of this still happens and old residents of Jamnagar such as I prefer food from these carts. There were tea rooms but not the kind you have in Ritz, London. These were hole-in-the-wall places dispensing half a glass of water and a half cup of tea called 'cutting chai' which you had to partake standing outside. I love their tea and often visit these places when I am visiting Jamnagar. Cutting chai is now an institution across the country. The 80 ml concoction dished out of a small cart on the sidewalk is lethal in strength equivalent to 60 ml of Scotch. 

In the early unemployed phase of my life, I was asked to join for lunch at fancy restaurants in Ahmedabad. I got so nervous by the ambiance of table cloth, cutlery, and dim lights that I could not begin to eat. The interviewer was an earthy Punjabi jat who gauged my discomfort and began to eat by hands that settled my nerves. 

In my MBA days, I used to cycle down to a place called the Collegian restaurant in Elisbridge in Ahmedabad. It was 12 km cycling each way but was made worth by a meal of paratha-aloo subzi dispensed in Rs. 3.50. 

Mumbai is what really took me in and introduced me to the range of restaurants that were quaint and full of grace reflecting Bombay of that period. So in the vicinity of Churchgate where I lived, I had options like Satkar (puri-aloo), Samrat (Thali), Samovar (paratha-omelet), Kemling (Chinese), Gaylord (Indian), Talk of the Town (high-end tea room) just to name few. 

Sky Room is the only restaurant in Calcutta that has left a lasting impression on me. Nirulas in Delhi was a must for our family on weekends and we gorged there on pizza and ice cream for years. Machan coffee shop at Taj Man Singh and Dashaprakash at the Ambassador hotel for its southern flavors reminds us fondly of the Delhi food scene. 

Few restaurants that have impressed me overseas; Banaras at Mayfair and Quilon at Taj St James Court, London to name a few. They were chic, stylish, and presented great food. I liked all the Indian restaurants in Teheran and one fine dining place called Hemingway at Caracas in Venezuela. I also like Indian food places in Hoston and Mountainview, California. 

Today's Mumbai offers mind-boggling varieties of restaurants, tea rooms, cafes, and bars. Our simple taste in food and drinks does not induce us to visit all of them. My wife and I have a few select taverns and tea places we visit and these are not many. The three most frequently visited are the Bagels Shop, Bandra, Kalpana, Worli, Sharda Bhavan at Matunga, and Sea Lounge at Taj, Colaba. We do not mind repetition and monotony. 

Life is after all that, is it not!