Okay let’s take a break from seafood restaurants. The weekend’s second Bombay food report (see here for yesterday’s report on Mangalorean seafood lunch in Fort) is of an entirely vegetarian restaurant, the venerable Swati Snacks. I have eaten at their Tardeo mothership on every single trip I’ve made to Bombay as an adult (since 2005) and there was no way I was not going back with the family. The only shocker is that we made only one visit. The main reasons for this are 1) that on account of my regular visits to the fish market in our neighbourhood we were cooking at home a lot; and 2) since we were eating a fair number of meals out every week as part of the program, we didn’t end up eating out so very much more on our own—and so didn’t end up making repeat visits anywhere as a family. This lunch, at any rate, was very good.

By the way, Swati Snacks was on the short list of Bombay restaurant recommendations I had given the students on my program and I am happy to report that for many of them it quickly became their favourite restaurant in the city. They were living far closer to it near Mumbai Central and visited often and also got their food delivered.

At the time of my last visit (on my December 2018 trip), Swati Snacks only had two branches other than the Tardeo mothership: one in Nariman Point and one in Ahmedabad. Since then they’ve sprouted two more: one in Juhu in Bombay and a second in Ahmedabad. I cannot tell you anything about those branches—I’ve never been to Ahmedabad and when in Bombay I see no need to go anywhere but to the Tardeo mothership. In the past all my visits have been on the weekends and I’ve either had to wait or just barely escaped having to wait. On this occasion, however, we were eating an early lunch on a weekday and the restaurant had only barely begun to fill up by the time we left a little before 1.

So, what did we get? There was no way I was not getting the panki with chutney, and after eating it at Soam at the start of the trip, the family were fans of the dish as well. And so we got both an order of the regular panki with chutney and the suva panki, which involves dill in the batter. But I’m getting ahead of myself: the proceedings began with a quartet of drinks. One of the boys got their limbu pani (limeade) and the other got the coconut punch; the missus got their sugarcane water, and I got the pudina-masala chaas (spiced buttermilk with mint). We then opened the eating by sharing an order of their pani puri: quite good as restaurant pani puri goes. To follow, the aforementioned orders of pankis and a dahi batata puri, which was also very good.

For the adults the last savoury dish was one off the seasonal specials menu on the wall: undhiyu with pudina-jowar roti (mint-millet roti), and this was a real highlight. The boys meanwhile shared an order of their vada pav, which we got with the chutneys on the side. They enjoyed it fine. To close we shared a couple of their ice creams: the strawberry and the coconut-pineapple. Both very good.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and what we ate, click on a pic below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next on the restaurant report front.

Service at Swati is always very solicitous and so it was on this occasion as well. If I had a complaint it would only be that the food always comes out so fast that if you’re not dining alone and are at a smaller table (as we were to start: we moved after a bit) you run out of space pretty quickly. And if I’m allowed a second complaint, it is that their peru/guava shaak is no longer on their menu (it wasn’t on the menu in 2018 either but, looking at that review, I don’t seem to have noticed it then, probably as I’d decided going in not to order it on that occasion). Okay, price? All of the above came to just about Rs. 3200 before tip, or just about $38. Not cheap in Bombay but not particularly expensive either.

Alright, what’s next on the restaurant report front? I’m tempted to keep powering through the Bombay reports till they’re all done—I have about 5-6 left. But having been in Seoul for a week already, I’m itching to report on a meal here as well. And so on Tuesday I’ll probably do a quick Seoul report before returning to Bombay (on the blog, not physically) later in the week. Let’s see how it goes.