A mere two days late, here is the Bombay report that I would normally have posted on Tuesday. Like last week’s report from the city (of my last two lunches at Maaslli), this too features seafood in a big way. But where Maaslli is a relatively new restaurant, this report is from a location of a much more established name: Jaihind Lunch Home. Jaihind has branches in many parts of the city. I have previously reported on a dinner I ate with a friend at their Bandra West location back in the winter of 2018. This time I ate lunch at the Parel location on two consecutive days. On both occasions I was accompanied by a few of my students. Details follow.

Jaihind is also different from Maaslli (and Chaitanya and Pradeep Gomantak and Highway Gomantak and Sarangaa) in that it does not specialize in the cuisine of one particular region or community. Instead, their capacious menu takes in most of the southwestern coast, from Malvan to Goa to coastal Karnataka. Unlike those previously-named specialists they also offer North Indian dishes on their menu. These may well be done quite well here but for the occasional visitor to Bombay—especially someone coming from or also visiting the north—it would be a bit of a waste in my opinion to try those dishes here and not the coastal specialities. At any rate, we focussed our attention only on the coastal sections of the menu.

Lunch 1

Our party of five arrived just after they opened and we had no trouble getting a table in what was still an empty restaurant. By the time we left they were completely full, with a lot of people waiting patiently outside. There are a lot of offices in the area and a lot of people to feed at lunch on a weekday.

What did we eat?

We began, of course, with a solkadi for me and fresh lime sodas for the students. Then it was on to a mini-parade of seafood. First up, bombil fry (very good), prawns koliwada (decent) and squid butter pepper garlic (excellent). The latter we mopped up with neer dosas. Three richer and spicier dishes followed: clams in Malvani masala (very good), Malvani mutton sukka (excellent) and prawns gassi (very good). These we ate with steamed rice, bhakris and vade (the Malvani fried/puffed bread made with a mix of flours).

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much the meal cost and to move on to the next day’s lunch.

The total cost of this meal was just over Rs. 4100 with tip, which is just about $43 at the current exchange rate. So just over $8/head.

Alright, on to the next day!

Lunch 2

We were once again a group of five (me + four different students). On this occasion one member of the party had shellfish allergies and this meant a different ordering strategy—or rather a more excessive ordering strategy. I didn’t want those who were shellfish-positive to miss out on some classic preps but I also didn’t want the shellfish-negative student to have only a few things to eat while the rest of us pigged out. So, what did we get?

You’ll never believe it but I had solkadhi again to start, while this group of students too drank fresh lime sodas. The solid food consumption began again with bombil fry (very good again), this time accompanied by squid fry (very good). Then two preparations of butter pepper garlic, one with crab (excellent) and for the benefit of the person with the shellfish allergy, one with surmai (this was possibly even better). For the larger dishes we stayed away from shellfish entirely. We got two chicken dishes, the chicken sukka (very good but not as good as the previous day’s mutton version) and chicken ghee roast (decent). Finally, an order of surmai pulimunchi (a chilli-tamarind gravy/sauce)—this was excellent. Bhakri and neer dosas were applied to all the savoury dishes.

To close, most of us got caramel custard, which was pretty good.

For a look at the meal, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it cost and to see what’s coming next.

Unsurprisingly, this meal was quite a bit more expensive (more dishes and some more expensive dishes). The total with tip was Rs. 5500 or $57 at the current exchange rate. So this was just above $11/head. Coming from the US this is, of course, a steal for a meal with crab etc., and it’s not very expensive by Bombay seafood restaurant standards either.

I can’t say I’d recommend Jaihind Lunch Home over Maaslli or Chaitanya, but if you have room for three seafood meals on a trip to Bombay, you should certainly give it serious consideration.

Alright, next up: last week’s projected Seoul report. If all goes well, I should have that up tomorrow.