SINDHUDURG... JHEVAN KELE?

This article appeared originally in Mumbai Mirror, of the Times Of India group.



AUTHENTIC SINDHUDURG

An interview with Sindhudurg’s owner and master-chef, Prabhakar Desai

The journey upto Sindhudurg

Well I always loved cooking. I had started a Khaanavar in Goregaon in 1962, which I had to shut down because of the partnership did not work. Then I ventured into politics, social service and construction. I always sensed the need for food that was less oily than what restaurants normally serve. Something you can have daily. Also I wanted to provide the ood from my hometown to all. So I took up this place on a Dadar by-lane. It was supposedly inhabited by many antisocial elements then, but I that didn’t put me off. My political connections and goodwill helped me feel safe too.

You keep improvising and extending the menu, yet remain authentic. How?

You’ll be surprised at the amount of authentic items available in Malvani cuisine – both vegetarian and non-vegetarian.

How do you ensure the quality remains consistent, despite new cooks?

Well some cooks have been with me for a long time. But it’s mainly because I still prepare all the masalas myself. We have a factory in the Sindhudurg district where the Malvani atta comes from. And the essential mixing of the masalas is done according to weight, down to the milligram (it’s computerized). Then the cooks just have to apply a standardized amount to the food.

What inspired the doing up of the décor.

(laughs) Maintenance. It was all bamboo initially. Then I used wood and metal for the seating and to an extent the walls, for durability. I was in the construction line, so had my ideas as to what to do and a basic aesthetic sense. Also I started the counter outside selling Malvani take-home food items like dried fish, mangoes, coconuts and Malvani Atta, a lot of which are grown on our own farm.

The future?

I’m 69 now. So no expansion plans. I’ll leave that to my sons.

The future of Malvani cuisine?

When we started we were pioneers in the restaurant business. Now there are a lot of coastal cuisine eateries. But sadly many restaurants which tout their items as Malvani are actually offering South Indian items. Malvani cuisine is different from Gomanthak cuisine or any other coastal cuisine. This authenticity has to be maintained if it is to be survived.

UTTERLY BUTTERLY MALVANI

Adman and theatre personality Bharat Dabholkar leads Rishi majumder
through a much treaded path of discovering Sindhudurg, and
continuously laying siege…


"I first came here ages ago, when I heard of it as a new place opening
up – the first place to serve Malvani cuisine," recounts Bharat
Dabholkar, adman, playwright and theatre and film director. That first
tryst proved addictive, and he's been visiting the almost bistro like
eatery tucked into a Dadar bylane (alas! No swaying palm trees and
waves crashing on sand) since. "I've come here with advertising
colleagues, clients, people from my plays – people from every aspect
of my life basically," lists Dabholkar as he it's amidst the air
conditioned wood paneled interiors. Having his office in Worli, only
added to the number of stopovers at the restaurant. Why? "The
excellent food, and the fact that they've continued with authentic
Malvani food while creating the ambience of a mordern restaurant,"
explains the Amul man whose roots in the western coast stop at his
Goan great-grand-father. So has this place inspired ideas in a
creative mind? Or fruitful meetings maybe? "No," Dabholkar shakes his
shaven creative head candidly against the dark wood backdrop. "When
I'm eating I don't think."
Sindhudurg was inspired from the Khanavals, small Malvani joints with
fixed menus for each day of the week. "What I like is the fact that
they didn't stay small. They're competing with restaurants from every
cuisine, not just Malvani," says the adman matter-of-factly. This
would strike a chord with Dabholkar, who, through his plays competes
with "not just other plays, but television serials and cinema as well"
for viewership. "And Mumbai being the truest metropolis, means there's
a lot of competing cuisines," gauges a business sense, rare in
artists.
According to him, the joint, under master chef and owner Prabhakar
Desai, transformed itself "almost over night" to it's simplistic but
attractive, cosy and highly comfortable ambience. "They've also kept
adding dishes to the menu and added a counter outside where you can
purchase take-home Malvani delicacies," adds the guru of advertising.
"I turned 'preferably vegetarian' on the 1st of May," he confesses,
perusing the added dishes on the menu, and proceeds to order
(thankfully!) Prawns Masala, Sukya Tisrya (a kind of shell fish in dry
gravy) and a Pomfret Masala. Umm, God Only Knows maybe? "You wouldn't
want me to do this article without seafood would you?" he grins. He
explains that a man who's sampled everything from Crocodile Steak to
zebra meat can't be fanatical about such vows, but tries sticking to
them. Sipping the "best and most authentic Kokam in town", he
remembers times when he came here with colleagues to celebrate getting
a new account while heading back from work. "Or the days I used to
rehearse at Dadar Matunga Cultural Centre for my play", when he
dropped in with his troupe after every other rehearsal.
When the food arrives with two **** waiters, Dabholkar stands by his
no-thinking-while-eating catchline. He focuses solely on the curiously
spiced prawns curry and Vada (a seemingly evolved version of the Puri)
at hand pausing between quietly delighted mouthfuls grudgingly, to
answer a pressed question: "For me a food place is a place to eat and
go from. Also I hate eating at 5 stars." True, for even at parties
Dabholkar is reportedly renowned for skipping the dinner spreads to
grab a late night Paw Bhaji instead. "Infact, I was addicted to the
Paw Bhai stall near my Nariman Point office, and insisted on going
there to eat instead of ordering," he cites even as he digs into the
Tisrya. The Paw bhaji wallah knew Dabholkar make his serving in a
particular way – much in the same way that Desai is involved in the
day to day running of the restaurant, maintaining a personal equation
with many a customer - "A joint like this, on the Udupi restaurant
formula, wouldn't run unless the owner is personally involved." Hmm.
This from a man who's known for his ability to run an advertising
company through delegation as he directs a play or film alongside.
"There is one problem with this place though," Dabholkar laughs, as he
cuts through a serving of the Mouri or pomfret masala, it's lightness
contrasting sharply with it's far spicier precedents. "You end up
eating much more than you planned to." But, somehow Dabholkar's
appetite doesn't show on the muscled arms and the toned torso. "A one
hour rigorous workout daily at my personal gym," he comments, frankly
as always. "I can't diet, even if I try." The Kharbas, a Marathi sweet
dish supposedly made from the first batch of milk given by a buffalo
after her delivery, appears with an imaginary QED signed on it. "Now
you know why my caption or this place would be 'endless good food',"
wraps up the Amul man.

KOOLAR THAN THOU...

This article appeared originally in Mumbai Mirror, of the Times Of India group.

HISTORY AROUND A CORNER
This cafe has since the early 1900s hosted history it refuses to
hoist, but reeks of...

Rishi Majumder

Approach King's Circle which has been renamed Maheshwari Udyan. Look
for St Vincent's Road, which is now called Dr. B R Ambedkar Marg. And
waving a hello from a protruding street corner, with road on either
side, will be a self effacing King George the 4th which, since 1932,
has been re-christened Koolar, Since 1932. "It was an Irani joint even
before that, but my father and his brothers re-named it after they
took over," informs the raspy voice belonging to Amir Irani , one of
the current managers and owners of this family run remnant of
authenticity. The Irani's were originally Koolar Zade (hence, the
restaurant's name), till the British relegated them a more general
sir-name. Funny, how history hides behind pseudonyms.
Irani's father, one of many who "came into India on a ship or oil
tanker" worked in the restaurant for a good ten years before he and
his brothers pooled finances to buy it. "It served only Paw (bread)
and chai then, before moving on to cakes, omelettes (including the
must-try Wrestler Omelette, made of eight eggs) and keema," recounts
Irani from amidst the restaurants near antiquated dark
Burma-teak-and-multiple-mirrors interiors. "But even Hindus, who were
wary of sampling bread back then, bought our ware rather than that of
other Catholic bakeries." He claims that the fact that they had their
own religious culinary don'ts made Hindus trust them never to let non
vegetarian oils seep into their bread. Also, "the fact that we didn't
sell beef." The looming high ceiling-ed triangular eatery with a
chequered stone floor and large colonial doors thrust open on three
sides hasn't digressed any from it's initial design: "All Irani
restaurants are based on the model of the traditional Italian
drugstore cafeterias." Even the imported Thornet bent wood chairs
colloquially baptized 'welcome' chairs, because of the word being
stitched across it's seat cushion, were bought back in the 30's – "for
a pittance of 10 rupees." Amusingly, the corner location was
considered inauspicious back then. "But the sunlight that streamed in
from all sides and the fact that every passerby would bump into it,"
made it ideal for an Irani café's famed 'Mehmaan Nawaazi':
"Indiscriminately serving food to people of every caste, class and
community who were forbidden from entering other meal places." Now
however, with a New Yorker on the next corner, a Café Madras some
blocks down and a secular Constitution firmly in place, this is one
patent Koolar has had to surrender.
"But the crowds come in as much as in those days," defends the owner
of a restaurant which proudly flags it's identity at the doorstep,
with a Persian lady holding a tea cup painted on the old peeling sign
board. And while the current crop of college students and generation
next office goers may have prompted the largish star posters hung on
the walls, even these half-hearted compromises with contemporariness
are decidedly retro. And so Marilyn Monroe holding down her famed
billowing skirt in black and white, tough guy Charles Bronson staring
steely in technicolor, a French Avant Garde movie poster with leather
jacketed dude, rouged up babe and Harley Davidson and the classic
'Shit!' poster with a train crashing through the window of a building
to land on the pavement, warn you not to push the timeline. For the
timeline preserves in memoriam many distinguished knocks on the old
teak wood door. Morarji Desai who with his fellow partymen sought
shelter from a post independence riot, Buta Singh who loved the Sekanj
Been, Shashi Kapoor who's still an occasional visitor, Mithun
Chakraborthy who spent his struggler days on Koolar kheema omelette,
or even Iqbal Mirchi and Bheema Dada, feared underworld elements who
did much plotting and planning on endless cups of Irani Chai. The
current who's who patron's list includes politician Ramdas Atwal,
filmmaker Mahesh Manjrekar and Raj Thackeray, whom parcels are
delivered to at regular intervals. But even lesser known mortals have
sown their share of memory seeds. Banker Shanu Khuraana, for instance,
who's Khalsa college days in the café have raised it to the position
of his "second home" even after he started working. Or engineer Deepak
Shah, who's family the café had sheltered during the Hindu Muslim
riots, when he was a child.
But making this timeline tedious to tarry with is competition from
diverse fast-food centres mushrooming in the same area. Giving way to
concessions like the Seven Up hoardings lining the humble heritage
walls with monstrosities like 'In between hot gossips have Seven Up Ke
cold sips'. "In between profits had gone down, and we had to put these
up to survive," explains Irani, a tad defensively. Befitting. Survival
is one synonym history always hides behind.