I’m in danger of falling way behind on my Bombay food reports. Those of you who follow me on Instagram are aware of most of my food-related activity: from fish markets to takeout to restaurants to street food. On the blog, however, I’ve only posted a report on our lunch at Soam more than a week ago. This is because the program I’m leading here has kept me insanely busy. This is all my own fault as I’ve over-scheduled us more than a little; it’s all been fun and interesting but the pace has also been intense. The program activities themselves, unsurprisingly, involve food. Here now is a brief look at the second meal we ate out together, just a few days after our welcome lunch at Soam. It features one of the cuisines I most love eating when in Bombay: Malvani.

Malvan is a region in southern, coastal Maharashtra—some describe it as overlapping with the Konkan but it is in fact a discrete sub-region. I can tell you that its cuisine is excellent. It features a lot of seafood, yes, but also a number of meat dishes—from mutton and chicken to all kinds of offal. We ate from all these categories at our lunch, which was at one of Bombay’s revered Malvani restaurants, Shri Datta Boarding House in Lalbaug. Despite the name, this is not a boarding house, just a restaurant. And unlike some of the city’s other storied seafood restaurants, they have no branches. It’s a family-owned restaurant and if you want to eat at it, you come to Lalbaug. I can tell you after our meal there that you do want to eat at it.

We’d spent the hour before lunch learning about spices used in the city’s cuisines at the nearby Ashok Khamkar Masala shop. The session was led by my old friend Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal. Rushina held court at Khamkar Masala and we then walked around the neighbourhood. Among other things, we saw the shop’s signature Malvani masala being made to measure, we visited the local fish market, and we then ate a thali at Datta Boarding that featured both some of that seafood as well as Malvani spices and flavours.

The restaurant comprises two dining rooms. The original, larger but also darker, is a little deeper inside the building. This used to be an un-air-conditioned dining room. The second dining room, which is accessed by a separate entrance right off the street, was added as an air-conditioned innovation; it’s bright and a little tight with a row of six seater booths separated from a row of four-seater booths by a narrow walkway. Now, however, both dining rooms are air-conditioned. If you go at prime Indian lunch time (starting at 1 and peaking closer to 2), you’ll find both rooms crammed and people waiting outside. Accordingly, we went at 12 and had the entire second dining room blocked off for us.

As we were a large group, a special thali had been ordered for everyone—this so that we could be fed efficiently so the room could be freed up for the regular lunch crowd coming after us. This thali featured a very tasty masala prawn fry, a fish curry with Malvani masala, mutton curry, a thicker chicken sukka and a thin chicken gravy. All were eaten with rice as well as excellent vade (in the puri family but made with ground corn) and rice bhakri (in the chapati family but made with rice flour).

At our table we added on some extra dishes. Datta Boarding is known for their vajri (or goat intestines)—indeed you can get a thali there centered on vajri. We got a small order of that to try; and the owner insisted we also try a small order of their bheja (brains, goat again) and a quintessential Malvani dish made with dried shrimp and onions. I’m very glad we got all these dishes because as good as everything on the thali was, these were even better. The bheja, in particular, was outstanding. The boys also ate most of an order prawn rava fry (different from the prawn fry on the thali). And, of course, the thali featured solkadi as well—the ambrosiac drink of coconut milk flavoured with kokum and spices. Oh yes, they also very kindly gave us all a bit of battered bombil fry. The students had seen bombil or (Bombay duck) on sale at the fish market and had wanted to try it.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu, and what we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down for thoughts on the meal as a whole and to see what’s coming next.

We were being looked after by one of the owners and so were very well taken care of. He discussed the food with us and answered all our questions. He was particularly happy to see how much we enjoyed the offal. I can’t tell you how much the meal cost because it was all previously paid for out of our food outings package but if you look at the pictures of the menu you’ll be able to tell that this is a very reasonably priced restaurant. Most of their thalis (with your choice of fish/seafood/meat to anchor it) cost less than Rs. 400, or less than $5. If you’re in Bombay, I’d highly recommend a visit.

Alright, my next Bombay report will likely involve meals eaten separately from the program. Maybe this weekend. Check back then if you’re interested or follow along on Instagram.