Here, finally, is my last food report from our time in Bombay from early January through the first third of February. It’s the only one of my eating-centered reports that is not an account of a single meal or multiple meals eaten at the same restaurant. Instead, this is a compendium of several far more casual meals eaten on the go over the course of our time there. It’s a mix of experiences: quick bites eaten on the street, things eaten as part of food tours, things eaten quickly at casual restaurants. A few of these things were among the best things I ate in the city, but almost all speak to an experience of eating in a city like Bombay that cannot be encapsulated in regular restaurant reviews but which is quite central to not just the story of food in Bombay but to the city’s larger cultural makeup.

As you’ll see, I have a rather large slideshow below. But I’m not going to give you a whole lot of description of every single thing that is pictured there. If you have more questions about any of those things, or those places, please feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll answer to the best of my ability.

The pictures in the slideshow are arranged chronologically. The first “meal” there was eaten on my program’s first week in the city. We were in the midst of an excellent poetry walk with Saranya Subramanian centered on the poetry of Arun Kolatkar and while the students were reading one of his poems out loud on Dalal St., I nipped into Modern Cafe, the restaurant we were standing outside, and got everyone a very freshly-made vada and chutney for breakfast (the tour had begun early and so the students had not had time for breakfast first). After that I have a few pics of the legendary Yazdani bakery, where we stopped a few times on the way back from other things to buy pao and other breads. Following that is a series of pictures from a street food-centered tour we went on with an organization called No Footprints. These span the pictures from Kyani & Co. through the pictures from Tewari Brothers.

Then I have a quick look at chaat eaten in a rush with a couple of students before we had to book it to make it to a panel at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (which fortuitously took place in January this year, while we were there). This was a meal at a very old restaurant, or at least a restaurant that has its origins in a very old restaurant of the same name, Vithal’s. Bhelpuri and dahi batata puri were eaten on this occasion and were very good. Next I have another series of pictures from another No Footprints food outing, this time in Bhendi Bazar focused on Bohri Muslim food. These span the pics from Tawakkal Sweets through those from Idris Cold Drink. Finally, I have a few pictures from our farewell dinner, which included staff from Soam who, among other things, made fresh golas for everyone at the start and then jalebis at the end.

So, which of these things did I really enjoy? Well, I don’t know that I would make any strong claims for the Modern Cafe vadas being among the best in the city, but eating them piping hot on the street in the morning was great. I also liked the pani puri and sev puri at Tewari Brothers (even as I was bemused by the fact that they have someone in the store whose job appears to solely be to sit in a special area and read Hindu holy texts out loud). There were a number of things I liked on the Bohri food tour. The absolute highlight was the guava ice cream with chilli salt at Taj Ice Cream. I also very much liked the khiri kabab from Haji Tikka (khiri kabab, in case you’re wondering, is made from udders—they had a wonderful texture). The patrel “biryani” from Firoz Farsan—which doesn’t include any rice—I was more intrigued by than I liked but I was glad I tried it. The food at Surti 12 Handi was nothing so very special but I enjoyed chatting with the staff before we sat down to eat and then eating all that food communally with the students who were at the makeshift table I was at. And then I unexpectedly very much enjoyed the neon green variyali drink at Idris Cold Drink, made from saunf/fennel seeds, that ended that outing. (I will say that I was somewhat ambivalent about the food tours themselves but did enjoy most of the food we ate on them.)

Okay, if you’re interested, plunge into the slideshow below. Scroll down to see what’s coming next on the food front.

Prices? All very low but I can’t give you specifics as I didn’t save the receipts for the ones I paid for myself and the others were part of a larger package.

Alright, so that’s Bombay in the books. I still have a lot of food reports from Seoul to come, and also some from Delhi, where we’ve been for the last nine days. On Tuesday I’ll probably have the first of my fine dining reports from Seoul (we ate three such meals). I will probably not have a report on Thursday, as we’ll spend most of Wednesday in the air, returning to Minnesota. But next weekend I’ll probably have another Seoul report and a Delhi report. It’ll probably be the end of April before I get done with those cities.