I was recently in New York and New Jersey for a few days. I was there primarily for a few academic events connected to South Asian cinema, but also took the opportunity to meet up with some old friends. As half my commitments were in the New Brunswick area, I stayed in a hotel across the street from Newark Penn Station. I took the New Jersey transit train down to New Brunswick on both days in the mornings and then took it back up to New York Penn in the early evenings for my events/meetings there. My lunches therefore were in the vicinity of New Brunswick, and my dinners were in Manhattan. Now, of course, I was looking forward to eating a couple of good meals in New York, but, truth be told, I was more excited about the lunches in New Jersey. This because the friends I was eating with had picked out Indian restaurants for us to go eat thalis in. Here’s an account of that first meal, at Kathiyawadi Kitchen in Sayreville. Spoiler alert: It was rather excellent! And I say this as a confirmed carnivore even though it’s a vegetarian restaurant. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Gujarati Cuisine
Soam (Bombay, December 2018)
Okay, I’m back in Bombay and back at another iconic Gujarati vegetarian restaurant, and depending on who you talk to, perhaps the iconic Gujarati restaurant in the city. Soam opened about a decade and a half ago and quickly established itself as the main challenger to Swati Snacks‘ crown as the purveyor of the finest Gujarati food, traditional and contemporary. My Bombay friends—those who live there and those who visit often—are pretty evenly divided. Some say Soam, with its larger menu and size and its less spartan aesthetic, is the clear front-runner; others acknowledge that Soam is good but wonder why anyone would ever go there over Swati Snacks. As one who is not from Bombay, knows little about Gujarati food, and has not eaten enough at both restaurants (three times at Swati Snacks, just this one time at Soam), I am not qualified to have an opinion. I can, however, tell you what my lunch there on this trip was like. Continue reading
Swati Snacks (Bombay, December 2018)
Delhi has probably overtaken Bombay as the premier food city in India* but there are a number of cuisines for which Bombay is rather obviously superior. Malvani, Mangalorean and Parsi are three of these cuisines and Gujarati is another. And if you are in the city the very best place perhaps to eat Gujarati food is the venerable Swati Snacks in Tardeo. A Bombay institution that first opened in 1963, Swati Snacks is the kind of place where you can get a handle on how difficult it is to talk glibly about “traditional” food in the Indian and especially in the Gujarati context. Culture does not stand still and there’s no tastier way to confirm this truism than by taking the measure of the menu at Swati Snacks where thalipith with pitla can be had alongside bajri paneer pizza. A meal at Swati Snacks is a must for every first-time visitor to Bombay. Me, I go on every visit to the city. Continue reading
My Annoying Opinions 