Malavika’s Mumbaistan: Of Meals and Memory

Every now and then, our father would pack us into a car (or taxi) for a family treat, the heady flavours defining what it meant to be secure and happy, in this midst of loved ones. This week’s Malavika’s Mumbaistan is all about the tantalising of taste buds…

It was served in those stout, cutting-chai glass tumblers seen at railway stations and brought to you in the same ubiquitous aluminium trays, but the minute the succulent heady aroma of A One Grill’s chicken soup assailed your nostrils, your thoughts would transform from the plebian to the sublime… laced with generous hefts of pepper and served piping hot at the curbside of Linking Road, it became one of my earliest memories of delicious things imbibed. Every now and then, our father would pack us into a car (or taxi) for a family treat, the heady flavours defining what it meant to be secure and happy, in the midst of loved ones…

Take the case of Chef Ananda Solomon, widely acknowledged as the man who gave Mumbai its first taste of authentic Thai, Italian and Konkan cuisines. While during the post lib, some of the city’s brightest young men: AD Singh, Rahul Akerkar among others chucked up their gilt-edged American degrees to launch eateries and vineyards. (HT Photo)

Competing closely with this epitome of deliciousness, was a courageously adventurous attempt at homemade sweet and sour ‘Chinese vegetables’ culled from a magazine recipe and prepared with all the love and care of a mother, determined to recover her frail and anaemic daughter’s appetite, after a bout of illness…

And then, there was The Guava Stew: Tangy, fleshy fruit, left to simmer in their jus along with spices like nutmeg and clove and a hint of sugar, until they reached a golden hue and eaten with a dollop of fresh cream, (scooped fresh off the milk jug).

That was in the ‘bad old days’ of the Sixties and Seventies, when steaks were eaten sizzling and noisy at Kobe, K Rustom‘s was the go- to place for ice cream; and hot dogs were what you read Jughead would quaff in alarming quantities in comic books (unless you were lucky to have eaten one at Bombelli’s at Breach Candy…

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Those of us who happened to be in the thick of it, cannot help describing our lives in Mumbai in terms of pre-lib and post lib.

Pre-lib was Chicken A La Kiev at Gaylord’s and Lobster thermidor at Rendezvous. Post lib was when some of the city’s brightest young men: AD Singh, Sanjay Narang, Rahul Akerkar and Rajeev Samant chucked up their gilt-edged American degrees to launch eateries and vineyards. Now you could get lasagna and paella and Kerala stew in trendy stand-alone establishments where the waiters all graduated from catering colleges spoke to you with easy confidence and you could be sure the bread was multi-grain and baked on site.

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But as in all things, success led to excess. From wine tastings where the finest grapes from Bordeaux and Bourgogne were presented to you by the greatest vintners of the world and great ideas emanated out of the minds and kitchens of great men and women, things quickly went pear shaped and rivers of mediocre wine flowed through the city like a torrent and you couldn’t spend an evening out, without running into people nosing, sniffing, swirling and doing strange things to their jaws, in a bid to present their wine credentials.

Even worse is what happened to cuisine, as a new generation of chefs brought up on MasterChef and Gordon Ramsay began to allow their unbridled enthusiasm to get the better of common sense and even logic and the gastronomic journey had travelled all the way from fusion, to frisson, to fashion, to inevitable confusion as generations empowered by Paul Levy and Ann Barr’s seminal’ The Official Foodie Handbook’, discovered that food could be a calling a career your raison d’ etre or just one more way to establish your social credentials.

No longer was what you put into your mouth something deeply personal that would define moments of your life and evoke sensations and experiences often too precious to describe.

Food became a ‘thing’: To be photographed, discussed, tweeted, shared, ordered and brandished and gone were the days when a dahi-wada‘s softness at an artsy café became the flavour of the first love for you; or a berry pulao the essence of what it meant to be an up and coming executive in a city like Mumbai.

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How much of food is emotion? Who will understand its deep connection with memory?

These days eateries proliferate by the second, capture market share, popular taste and the zeitgeist and then like comets, burst through the skies only to be replaced by the next big thing.

But not all of it is ephemeral. Some legends endure.

Take the case of Chef Ananda Solomon, widely acknowledged as the man who gave Mumbai its first taste of authentic Thai, Italian and Konkan cuisines.

The story has already passed into gastronomic folklore. When Solomon was mandated by the Taj to launch India’s first authentic pizzeria cum coffee shop at The President, he is said to have travelled for months through Italy, learning its life and foods, an exercise that had resulted in the Trattoria a phenomena that drew the young and old in droves to its red checked tablecloth tables, threatening to usurp even the nocturnal attraction of the group’s own next door Shamiana; then, when the power that be decided that the city (and India) was ready for its first Thai eaterie, Solomon had managed to secrete himself into the royal kitchens of that country, learning its secrets from source (to beat the internal naysayers it is said he was compelled to grow the herbs this endeavour required, in a secret garden on site).

And when no five-star had dared to venture into the innards of bona fide ethnic Indian regional cuisine, lo and behold, Solomon came up with the Konkan Café, all sparkling copper thalis and spice from the innards of ancient coastal establishments.

But it wasn’t only the food that brought him admirers and accolades; it was Solomon’s attitude to his craft: Old school and old guard, every dish a paean to authenticity and good old fashioned taste and impressing legions of diners from the girl and boy next door to the likes of Ratan Tata and members of the Ambani family who could be spotted there on a regular basis.

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The pull of food remembered and the joy of food rediscovered cannot be overstated. Having hung up his apron at the Taj half a dozen years ago, Solomon took time off to gather his resources and come back with a new offering, Thai Naam, this time at the northern tip of the city, in Andheri.

Launched in February 2020, a month before Covid 19 upended the world and its plans, he says he spent the lockdown months honing his art and craft and back in the kitchen doing what he knows and loves best.

How many of those who flock eagerly to his tables today are people whose taste buds still tingle with the memory of a soft-shell crab in tamarind sauce, or a spicy green curry done to perfection from the glory years?

Will the fragrance of sea bass and scallop soup be overpowering enough to draw the faithful over the Sea Link and across the waters?

How much of the magnetism of what we eat is the purview of memory and emotion? After all, the flavours of a homemade Chinese sweet and sour or a curbside chicken soup in a stout glass tumbler can last a lifetime…