bhelpuri
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Posts posted by bhelpuri
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Swati Snacks, the most interesting restaurant in Bombay,
Yes, yes, YES.
I'm so glad someone agrees with me, ever since I ate there a couple of times a couple of months ago, I've been raving unstoppably about the food at Swati.
Been going there for years, like most young South Bombayites, but I had not been since the renovation which has left it all stainless-steel and spotless. Or since the menu ramped up to the point where you can cheerfully skip the sev puris. Or, frankly, since it became unbesmirchably clean.
Everything I ate there in those two visits was superb, perfectly made, totally traditional but so unusual as to appear artful and innovative. There was a mild curry, made with ripe guava. There was another, made with kokum, which was served with a perfect jowar khichidi. There were ragada pattice, crispy and totally un-greasy, which a restaurant in NY could make its reputation on. And there was the sugar-cane juice, served with a promise that it was 100% clean and would result in no stomach ailments.
The word is overused, but I will use it, Swati was a bit of a revelation to me, even though I've been going there for at least 20 years.
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Thank you, Vikram.
I didn't know that Penguin had a book on Hyderabadi food, and several of the other books you mention are also new to me. I'll see what can be gathered up, and check back with you if there are any problems.
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I think it'll be hard to beat Tea and Sympathy across the river.
However, a year or so ago, I happened to be at Ridgewood station and was surprised to find quite a proper little tea shop there right opposite. Can't remember if they had pasties, but they prpbably do - I certainly remember that they had scones and all kinds of particular pleasures for English expats (Flake chocolates, Ambrosia Rice Pudding, Marmite).
perhaps a Ridgewood resident on these boards will be able to give you exact details.
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here is an old thread in the Mexico section which referred to similarities between the two cuisines and the chickoo
Enjoyable thread, Episure, thank you. I wish I'd run into it (and this site) back in September when the topic was raised. This stuff (roughly "food history") is like, well, like laddoos to a small hungry child to me.
I'll have lots to add about the Turkey, the Mexican-Indian connection including la China Poblana, and even about the possible evidence for a pre-Columbian trans-Pacific traffic.
All at the appropriate time, of course.
But I wonder if any of the remarkably avid food/culture people here are familiar with the small but heated flap that is raging since photos of this twelfth-century temple carving were unveiled?
The question is - is that maize in the carving's hand? If it is, obviously we need to completely rethink our accounts of global dispersals of various New World/Old World foods. We're not there yet, and the evidence points to this not being maize, but the questions raised haven't been answered satisfactorily yet.
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I really enjoy reading your posts. Can you tell me a bit about what makes this book stand out in your mind. i have not seen it.
Thank you.
This site has become addictive, I think I will stick around.
The Rushdie cookbook makes great reading, first. I used to have it on my shelves, and turned to it in moments of craving, salivating, long before I actually tried to reproduce its recommendations,
But when it comes to making the dishes, it first (totally authentically/believably) goes into the role that various ingredients and dishes play in Indian cuisine, and then painstakingly and minutely details the steps required to make your uncompromising food in the West.
So, it really is a perfect cookbook, though if it were updated it would include photos.
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As for the chicku/oo, I find it hard to get past the evidence (offered by Octavio Paz, and others) that this is part of a direct loanword from the original Nahuatl!
In the Yucatan, in that indigenous language, the fruit is called 'chicozapota'. In general Hindi usage it is the first half of the word used, in Malayali it is the second. Direct transference! The oo/u business is vastly secondary.
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new cookbook Jamva Chaloji-2
Vikram,
1) I've a relative coming out here from Bombay a couple of weeks from now. Where can I get her to pick up both of these Dalal cookbooks? She lives in "thee suburbs", is the best bet to call Danai or Lotus and order them?
Also, since cookbooks have been raised, are there any other must-have food books that you can recommend from the Bombay bookshops right now? I have a bunch of the Penguins (including the Parsi one) and several others, but if you could rustle up a top-5/top-10 I'd be most grateful.
2) I'm also a fan of Kipling, and particularly the near-peerless 'Kim'. Actually, I'm very interested in all the accounts of the 'Great Game' (which includes that book). I wonder if you have read Hopkirk's 'Quest for Kim'. The author - whose several fine books on the 'Great Game' are also recommended - does a wonderful job of tracking the real-life events (and characters) that went into Kipling's books. If you haven't, I highly recommend it.
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How do you cook foods that are ‘exotic’ (asparagus, leeks, etc) with an Indian flavour?
Ismail Merchant has a recipe for Asparagus in one of his cookbooks. Not that it's particularly Indian, but it veers towards it with mustard and chili powder.
If I were challenged - a la Iron Chef - to make something Indian with Asparagus or Leek, I'd make a soup, possibly a cool soup, and flavour it with cumin and other spices. Otherwise, these things are simply better and easier tasted in the western context.
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Is the cafe Newport unpopular on this board for some reason? I never see it mentioned, even in lists of Jersey City "upmarket" places to eat.
We like it, a great deal, and celebrate some of our special events there - the fact that it's a cavernous and quiet room (with an unbeatable view of downtown) helps, The food is stellar, an Italian repertoire prepared with care and the best ingredients (I'm salivating slightly at the thought of the carpaccio), the service is solidly professional. The owner, to boot, is your old style genial and effusive host.
Yes, in the summer when the patio's open it is actually impossible to beat. You sit overlooking the marina, listen to the quiet grind of boats straining at their hawsers, and watch the ducks glide on as the sunset reflects pink and orange and maroon in the glass canyons across the water.
But it's an all season occasion restaurant for us. Highly recommended.
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is Piccininni new? i've never heard of it. what type of stuff do they carry? might be worth a stop.
I don't know if it's new, it's been there as long as I've been going into Hoboken regularly - about four years.
Sells your whole range of imported goods, fresh bread, all the sausages and other cured meats, and then the fresh and smoked mozzarella. For some reason, don't ask me why because I don't know, Hoboken's two-three good Italian grocery stores really pride themselves on the fresh 'mooz' and the quality is uniformly very high, certainly not beatable across the river.
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Scott,
I don't get to that area very often, but the next time I do, some kebab meat will be involved. And the chicken/lamb is a great lead as well. Do they have good ground lamb?Well, I went to the Indian strip on Newark this afternoon, and amused myself by scouting it out for someone who speaks no Hindi, and just wants to take advantage of the packed little area's groceries, restaurants, and butchers. And hairstylists, you don't by any chance want a $8 haircut at the loving hands of a transplanted Nepali aspiring film actress do you? If so, I know just the person.
Anyway, here are some photos of a little of what's new/fresh/really good in the groceries this weekend -
and my favorite -
and here's some of what I ate (incredibly cheaply) for lunch -
and here's the new menu/list at the halal place, I made enquiries for you and Mohammed Wasim is ready to gently guide neophytes !
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Hope that whets your appetite. When I manage to make some time - perhaps late this evening - I'll post considerably more on the attractions of this Jersey City locality.
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s hoboken really very italian anymore? i never considered it a destination spot for italian food. aside from 4 or 5 delis, a cheesesteak place, leo's, and my old landlord, i can't think of much italian in hoboken. obviously that wasn't the case 50 years ago.
It is true that Hoboken does not feature stores selling 'Kiss me, I'm Italian' bumper stickers and '100% Goomba' t-shirts, or at least I haven't discovered them.
And, honestly, I wouldn't particularly recommend an Italian restaurant there.
However, it does have a couple of really good - at good as anything across the river - salumerias/Italian delis. There is Piccininni, for one, and Vito's has outstanding fresh 'mooz'. Even better, there are at least two very solid Italian butchers, Trulio's and the very popular Joe's Prime Meats. There is also a good fishmonger - Apicella - which beats everything in the vicinity, short of Newark's Ironbound. So, in terms of finding Italian ingredients, it's quite primo.
And then there are the many Italian restaurants, most of which I have not tried. We cook that kind of food at home 2-3 times a week at home, and nothing in that town has jumped out at me, so if we actually eat out in Hoboken it's generally at the (decent) Malaysian restaurant on Washington or at the (good) nuevo Latino Zafra.
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as far as you know "parsee" is an archaic spelling, and that you agree too that it is probably being used to evoke the raj in some way
There's no doubt about it.
is it a non-coded, non-loaded choice? if not, how might it be coded or loaded to different people?I think the only code here is Raj-nostalgia, it's exactly like calling a restaurant 'The Gymkhana' or 'Bengal Lancer' .
as for the general nomenclature question, i don't think zoroastrian always =parsi; whether people are known as (or call themselves) zoroastrians, parsis or iranis has to do i think with when and where they arrived. but you're probably referring to indian parsis who immigrate and then stop calling themselves parsis? that might be, though this is entirely speculation, because the word "parsi" denotes person from persia--a marker of ethnic separation from the people they arrived among. like irani for later arrivals; i'm told this distinction between "parsi" and "irani" is important to many parsis in bombay, even if the larger population thinks they're all the same. once they're no longer in india or among indians the context for calling themselves parsis may no longer exist. but again this is speculationYou're quite right that the Zoroastrians in India strenuously divide themselves into the ranks of Parsis and Iranis, and in fact (since this is a food site) the food of the two sub-communities does have its differences. It's also true that 'Pars' and 'Parsi' are somewhat loaded words without taking into account the Indian Zoroastrian context - they are interchangeable (and often audibly indistinguishable) to Fars/Farsi.
But what I'm referring to is a linguistically unsubtle reclamation of Zoroastrian Persian-ness (to the cost of Indian-ness) that has historically taken place in the Parsi communities overseas. You can't really blame anyone - and you ask a valid question at the end of your post - but this tends to be a case where the very very ancient roots are the main signifier and the 1000 odd years of "being Indian" are portrayed externally as a minor complication. There are some similarities here (with fewer national/identity implications, of course) to the older Jewish communities of India, which as you no doubt know moved almost entirely en masse to Israel in the 50's and pretty completely subsumed their many-centuries-old Indian-ness to a perceived common Jewish/Israeli identity. But (as you start to probe in that last question) there is a bit of a swing back in the other direction now - at least from what I am hearing.
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Balmagowry,
Love that quote, I wonder why Kipling was being so mean to the poor Pars(ee) bakers.
There is also a Pars(ee) in Moby Dick, a sinister mystic with the unlikely Islamic name of Fedallah. Again the poor non-Indian-Zoroastrian (?) gets an undeserved bad rap.
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That's why you'll see many people indeed gorging themselves on quite good buffet fare, and a couple of tables feasting their brains out on special things brought in for them as if they =were= in Chinatown. Considering what the state of Chinese food is in Jersey City and Hoboken - sugary sweet and sad - it's worth the effort for many of us. Hope this helps.
It does help, and you have certainly persuaded me to give it another try. By the way, when we order Chinese food delivered at home we use D&J Garden (on Grove St) and it's quite passable.
A couple of questions.
We went at 1:45 today (Sat), is that a bad time? Is there a strategy to arriving to take advantage of the freshest, most varied, food?
You mention these 'special orders'. What do I need to do to take advantage of them, and what else do they have besides the crabs? Also, I assume they're extra (the buffet is inarguably cheap), how much?
Thanks in advance.
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Hmm, I somehow missed a post from scott123 a couple of days ago.
I have only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Middle Eastern cuisine. Eventually I plan on delving into it much deeper, and when I do, knowing a good halal butcher should come in handy.This is why I was a bit curious about the halal butcher. Actually, I generally find them superior places for chicken and lamb too - if you're not bothered about buying organic. Nowadays (we have kids) I only go for the things I listed earlier, but you should try buying chicken or lamb at a halal store sometime - they trim it wonderfully and exactly to your liking. And that spiced chicken mince I mentioned earlier - kebabs in two minutes - cannot be beat.
Secondly, I have just started cooking food from the general region quite regularly thanks to a really great cookbook. It's not Arab, true, but I have a feeling that you will really like it. Al Huda will supply most of the ingredients you need. It's pictured below.
If you do get it, I'll be happy to share some of my experiences (with photos) of learning a new cuisine largely via this volume.
Finally, the tip for Las Palmas is excellent! A bit of snooping has revealed that it's a prized center of Cuban community affairs. It's an odd thing, this area has more Cubans than any other part of the USA save the Miami area, but with the exception of the old locality in Elizabeth I really don't know any neighborhood that could be called Cuban. I know that El Bambi, the shockingly well-supplied baby-gear store on Bergenline is also owned by Cubans so I'm wondering if West New York is one place to explore. Enquiries will be made!
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Markk,
I went to Kowloon Banquet for lunch today. It's decent value, that's for sure (there were shrimp, no crabs, no lobster), but very very standard Chinese-American-vaguely-Cantonese restaurant fare. This did not stop me from gorging myself to the upper limits, but the rest of our party was deeply unimpressed. We will most likely head to the city and Chinatown- as per usual - when we start jonesing for Chinese food.
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There isn't anything new, novel or innovative in a London Indian restaurant seeking to evoke Raj-era atmosphere. In this case, Parsee, it's partly achieved using an unused and archaic spelling instead of "Parsi'.
The last decade in London has seen many Indian restaurants in the luxury category, with splashy launches and celebrity chefs and clientele, and all of the accompanying hoopla.
But before that, there were only two Indian restaurants which slotted themselves in that general category -The Bombay Brasserie and Chutney Mary - and both heavily leaned on the same theme, nostalgic menus wrapped up with the promise of 'burrah sahib' treatment. If you ask me, the latter's name could be interpreted as far more provocative and offensive than the restaurant in question.
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This use of the word 'Parsee' seems to me to be harmless, it's like writing Nagpur as Nagpore to rustle up an idea of time and place. It's quite a step away from (as Mongo points out) writing 'Hindoo' for Hindu, even if Parsis themselves don't use it any more.
Actually, the odd thing is that Parsis outside India pretty much don't call themselves Parsis or at least that is not how they present themselves to the world. No, they become (again) Zoroastrians and every community organization points to that religious identification rather than any context which would imply the several-thousand-year Indian connection. That's a bit irritating, (again, only if you ask me) because the lengthy history in India is played down and the truly ancient Persian roots are implicitly played up in this lexical choice.
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you noted that you're a transplated mumbaikar
Persih the thought!
I'm a Bombayite, and will brook no contradictions.
Anyway, don't get me wrong, I dont actually like Delhi. Or at least I really didn't on my annual trips to stay with relatives all through the 70's and 80's. It's only when I took my then-girlfriend there around 10 years ago that I woke up to the fact that it is a kind of real shopping wonderland (for certain things, of course). And since then, though my trips have slowed to roughly one every two years, I've kind of sussed out how to make the most of my time in the city.
It does have a couple or three really outstanding restaurants, but food-wise (and everything-else-wise) I frankly can't get terribly excited about Delhi. It will give Akiko a fine seven days, and can be a very good introduction to what India has to offer, but given the choice I'd happily never go there again.
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on edit - Oh yes, I love White Mughals. Dalrymple consistently provides all us with really valuable, pretty unique, writing. Have you read this superb recent piece chiding Sir Naipaul?
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By far the best Indian cookbook I have is the little paperback put out some years ago by Sameen Rushdie (yes, Salman's sister).
Never understood why it hasn't been reprinted and gained a much bigger audience.
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what's your opinion of the restaurants there though?
They're completely unremarkable.
However, two foreign visitors to the city could do considerably worse than spend a few late evening hours sitting in that rooftop restaurant, over beers and kebebs (and parathas), contemplating the crumbling-but-impressive lit-up tomb in the distance, and experiencing that particular Delhi open-air pleasure of feeling the day's lingering heat dissipate in the face of cool night breezes.
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On edit, here's what a random Internet travel guide has to say about the place I'm talking about.
12 Haus Khaz Village, New Delhi
Tel: (011) 685 3857. Fax: (011) 652 2226.
Price: Rs650. Beer: Rs175.
Top of the Village
A rooftop restaurant open to the skies in Haus Khaz Village, Top of the Village commands a magnificent view over the remains of Shah Feroz’s tomb and madrasa. At night, the ruins are floodlit and make a memorable backdrop to dinner. It is worth going there for the view alone, although the food – Mughal specialities, including particularly good paneer dishes – is more than acceptable.
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Also, since I just remembered it, the last couple of people I directed to the outlets run by this designer really went ga-ga over the unique, hand-embroidered, silks. There are a bunch of Delhi outlets, though the only one I can recommend is at the Hauz Khas "village" (but don't tell Mongo when you go, and love it).
You can get clothes, like this for example-
and accessories like this -
and so on (including a few home furnishings).
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get over it. i'm not quite the caricature you want me to be. and don't take things so personally. it is possible for us to disagree.
But of course, and please don't take my comments too personally either.
I'm rather busy today, and won't have time until much later for detailed comments. However, let me respond to some of Akiko's questions. I feel quite involved with her trip now...
.....a very honest looking British husbandYes, well, they said the same thing about Clive, didn't they.
Anyway, you shouldn't worry too much about being ripped off. This is partly why I highly recommend buying stuff at places like Santushti and Khazana and Cottage Industries in Delhi - everything is fixed price. You might be paying a small premium, but that is pretty immaterial in the larger scheme of things.
It is also why I recommend the Surana's jewellery in Jaipur. The quality and workmanship is spectacular, and they are very reliable. You might get 2-3% off their prices (at the most) by bargaining and paying cash, but that's it. There is also Tanishq, a chain of jewellery stores run by multinational Tata/Titan (with several luxe branches in Delhi) which goes a step further and issues unimpeachable authentication certificates for the gold, platinum and diamond jewellery on sale. No bargaining, you pay the day's prices as set by the world marketplace, and by Western reckoning the goods are still very reasonable. Remember that India is by the far the world's largest consumer of gold, and even illiterate-looking salesmen know to the penny what the exact international cost of the materials are that have gone into your purchases. What's cheap, and delightful, in India is the work, the craftsmanship.
Finally, Delhi is a drive-around city, as Mongo confirms. You don't need a driver to wander around Chandni Chowk because you're very close to it (at the Imperial) and thus can make this a trip on foot. But in any case, the convention with a driver is to ask him to wait in a particular spot - you then walk around wherever it is you want to go and return. Alternately, you may want to get a driver who speaks decent English (by requesting one at your hotel) and ask him to walk around with you, this precaution is recommended in certain areas (if you're otherwise alone) like the very interesting but unbelievably congested Jama Masjid locality.
By the way, you may want to take a trip to Sarojini Nagar - if it's bargains you're after - where all the surplus (and slightly flawed rejects) from the export clothing houses are sold, pretty much all the brand names you're familiar with, at a tenth of the High Street prices.
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are you suggesting one is dirtier or less safe for foreigners?
Pretty much, yes. The Nizammudin offshoot is visibly cleaner, and the kitchen isn't open to visits from 60 billion flies recently seated on the open-air butchers and goat markets around Jama Masjid.
my wife, who is american, and who took not one shot before her first visit to india ate biryani and korma from the matka pir folks, who all but cook in a drain near pragati maidan, and she didn't have one contrary digestive episodeShe was lucky, and obviously furnished with a strong stomach. Plus, she had the added bonus of a personal guide who could point out what to eat and what to avoid. People do get dysentery, and many kinds of ugly bacillae, in Delhi. My presumption is that first-time visitors want to avoid them, even while sampling some of the breathtaking range of food available.
as for getting a tummy upset--it will be hard to avoid this in the first few days even if you eat only at the 5-stars. my advice would be to take it easy the first few days--let your stomach adjust to the local bugs and then go for itOn the contrary, it is eminently possible to spend the seven days that Akiko has in India without a tummy upset, and sample some of the range we all know exists in Delhi. You just have to be pretty hard-core about avoiding foolhardiness. It is for these reasons that I recommend (highly) eating at places like Teahouse and Dhaba, you get a better-than-average sample and you are pretty much guaranteed not to be wedded ( short-term if you're lucky) to the porcelain goddess.
the classic indian chinese menu of the 60s, 70s and 80s is on the way out as globalized yuppies invoke their own snobbish rhetoric of authenticityNice flourish, but I'm afraid I don't buy it at all. For anyone who is used to eating at decent Chinese Chinese, American Chinese or even British Chinese restaurants, there is nothing "classic' about the usual Indian Chinese chili-laden, lumpy, floury dishes. People bred on it may hanker for it, but it is only in a handful of actually Chinese-run Indian-Chinese restaurants that the food ever distinguished itself - and became something new and wonderful. There are still a few of those, but in Delhi I think the most palatable approximation is available in the Five Star hotels where you can order those "classic" I-C dishes and get a very good sense of what they can be like.
(claridge's itself, and all its restaurants, is a good example of a particular type of delhi classism at work, as is the imperial--but this may not be the place to get into itNo, please get into it.
Where should they stay as an alternative to the very decent, somewhat atmospheric, Raj-era-nostalgic, Imperial? Not authentic enough? The Hyatt is better? The exposure to malarial anopheles mosquitoes is inadequate? Running water is plutocratic and a yuppie abomination?
My enquiring, idle, mind wants to know.
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Episure,
In rough shorthand, I'm a transplanted Bombayite who has lived in the West (mostly around NY, some years in France and England) from my teens (over 20 years). I've been posting about my current locality in the New Jersey folder, here.
Foodwise, no special or professional qualifications, just a gaping maw which I stuff endlessly with whatever looks interesting. And, a long-time interest in History which includes a lot that has to do with food.
Best Indian Food Movies
in Food Media & Arts
Posted
Actually, this discussion has reminded me that there are still a number of un-mined areas for Indian cinema.
I'd love to see a desi-style, street-food-y, Mumbai-based, Tampopo.
Maybe a character who aspires to be a miyan, or perhaps better still a top bhelpuri-wallah. And a mysterious expert with a dark past (played by lambu) puts him through the paces - Karate Kid meets Chowpatty.
Or something.