As I think I’ve mentioned before, the program I’m leading in Bombay is kicking my ass. We’ve been on the go pretty much every day and most evenings are taken up with checking and double-checking all the upcoming reservations. Not to mention, try corralling 22 undergraduates and you’ll beg to be allowed to herd cats. Actually, I kid. The students have been very game, very easy to deal with. But between all the activities and the fish market shopping and the cooking and the eating, I’ve not had much time to post detailed write-ups on the blog. Now, however, I’m at risk of falling behind quite severely with the dining out reports and so here’s a quick look at one of the highlights of our second week in the city: a Parsi wedding feast (or lagan nu bhonu). And none of us even had to get married to get the feast. Indeed, we skipped the wedding part altogether and went straight to the feast.

I don’t mean that there was an actual wedding component to the evening that we were gauche enough to skip. No, this was a version of a traditional Parsi wedding feast served to us minus the wedding. Normally, to eat this food you have to be invited to an actual Parsi wedding. January is wedding season all over India and there are actually lots of Parsi weddings happening—especially down in the extreme south of the city where we are putting up, in Colaba. The food writer, and currently our neighbour, Meher Mirza keeps telling us that we should crash one of those. Now in my misspent youth I did crash many a wedding in Delhi for the food but I did not set a bad example for my students. No, our wedding feast was laid on for us at the Ratan Tata Institute, one of many food outings organized for us by an old food forum friend who has in the intervening years become a rather big noise in the Indian food world: Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal.

The Ratan Tata Institute, a non-profit charitable institution that employs underprivileged women—originally only Parsis, now more broadly, I believe—has a number of outlets across the city that sell Parsi baked goods and snacks and sweets and savouries. Our evening was at the big branch in Babulnath, which has an event space past the store proper. We went in through the store and I picked up a few things (I recommend their mini nankhatais and Palmiers) but these were for later. We were there for more serious eating.

The evening began with a talk by Rushina on the history of spices and their use in the foods of the various communities of Bombay. This was more of an introduction to the entire program of food outings she’s prepared for us and not just to this event. That kicked off, after she got done, with a cooking demonstration. The RTI’s chef and another cook from their kitchen showed us the preparation of chicken dhansak and the kababs that go with it. In the interests of time, it was not quite a from-scratch demonstration: a few things had been pre-cooked to speed things up. It was still interesting though and the dhansak they made tasted very good. That dhansak was not, however, part of the wedding feast. While dhansak is one of the iconic Parsi dishes it’s not associated with auspicious events like weddings; you are more likely to encounter it at funerals.

So, what did we eat? It was an extensive menu. The tables were spread with banana leaves and everything began showing up in quick order. The meal began with house-made achaar and sariya (or papad made with sago). Next up were a bowl of topli paneer and bharoochi akuri on toast. I was very excited to eat the topli paneer, even though it wasn’t the “real thing”, having been coagulated with vegetarian rennet rather than the classic chicken gizzards. The “real thing” is only available at large weddings I was told (hmm maybe I should crash one after all); that said this version was very good as well (if not quite as good as the version we ate at Meher’s house some days later): the texture was close to that of soft tofu and the flavour approaching very fresh mozzarella. The akuri was another highlight, the creamy scrambled eggs, topped with sauteed cashews and served on crisp toast.

Up next were two incarnations of chicken. First in the form of farchas, fried to a crunchy crisp and then as jardaloo chicken, which sees the chicken cooked with apricots. The apricots were more sweet than tart—I would probably have preferred more acid in there. I certainly preferred it topped with the salli or crisp potato matchsticks. This was eaten with rotli. The chicken courses were followed by the iconic patra ni machhi, which sees fish, usually pomfret, coated in a thick paste of coconut, cilantro, mint, chillies etc. and cooked in a banana leaf parcel. While the menu we were given listed pomfret for our meal as well, the actual fish that was served was bhetki or barramundi. Very tasty anyway. The savoury courses were rounded off by the RTI’s special mutton cocktail pulao. I’d meant to ask what the “cocktail” portion of the name refers to but forgot to do so: it looked and tasted like a good mutton pulao.

And so to dessert. First up was a tart-sweet and very tasty sev & dahi. Despite being listed as the second dessert on the menu it was served first. I’m not sure if that’s a no-no but I thought the sweet vermicelli topped with tart yogurt served as a very good palate cleanser for the excellent lagan nu custard that closed out the meal. If not for the fact that I was close to death at this point—having eaten, for example, more than one serving of topli paneer to start the meal—I would have asked for seconds of both.

For a look at the RTI space and the food we ate, click on an image below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down for closing thoughts on the entire experience and to see what’s coming next.

I can’t tell you how much this experience costs both because it’s not a standard thing that you can walk in off the street and eat and because it was priced into a larger package of food outings we are doing in the city. I imagine you’d need a large enough group to be able to make something like it happen (we were 28, including Rushina and her crew). I’m sure the food pales compared to what is served at Parsi weddings serviced by the top caterers—and certainly compared to the food prepared in better home kitchens—but those who don’t have an invitation to either—and are not bold/shameless enough to crash a wedding—are not going to be disappointed with this meal. My students all loved it. It was their first experience of Parsi food, beyond a few Irani cafe staples. I’m sure for some of them it helped that Parsi food is milder and more approachable (from the perspective of an American palate) than some of the other iconic cuisines of Bombay, but it was very good in its own right and superior to what is served at most Parsi restaurants in the city.

Speaking of other iconic cuisines of Bombay, my next report will feature a return to one of the restaurants I really enjoyed eating at on my last visit to the city, back in December 2018: Highway Gomantak. That’ll be this weekend.