The two distinct Cafes of Mumbai
The day I had the best South Indian food , drank chhaas in beer bottle, saw beach for the first time and met Bahubali of Bollywood in Mumbai.
It was Sunday. So we woke up with the Sunday feeling. You know that feeling when you want to do a lot of things, but at the same time don’t feel like leaving your bed. Same. We first searched for any nearby events happening and a few must-go places. To our despair, nothing was convincing. But then Massi’s friend suggested Café Madras for best South Indian food. South Indian food is one of my favorite cuisines. Actually, I have only one favorite cuisine, except Italian for pastas and pizzas, Chinese for noodles, momos and spring rolls, and……. Forget it.
Café Madras, Matunga
Anyway, this was the second time during my stay in Mumbai that someone advised me to go to a certain place for food. I Had To Go There. We dressed up, took a cab and were at Café Madras in Matunga within an hour.
I was so eager to suffice my hunger that I forgot my mobile in the cab on charging. Yes, Stupid of me! Thankfully it was not a local taxi this time, but an Ola.
The place was jam-packed. A few people were already waiting when we reached there around quarter to 2. We got our name added in the waiting list and ordered for 2 cups of filtered coffee. The coffee was refreshing to help us to wait patiently for our turn to get a seat at the busy restaurant.
As we entered I noticed, although the place is not much showy and the décor is not much of a café, the food, the service and the feel of authentic south Indian food was more than enough for me. They have limited seating, so be ready to share your tables. The prices were reasonable.
We ordered Kadi vada, idli butter Pudi, rawa masala dosa, chachh and Dahi missal. The food was fresh, hot and delicious but I’d like to give a special mention to the idli pudi. It became my favourite at instant. I am still surprised, as south Indian food being my favourite cuisine, I’ve had idli at many places but never have I ever had such an amazing, idli pudi. Not exaggerating at all. The 2 pieces of idli made everything worth – the breakfast skip, the car drive in traffic, the wait in queue outside the café, absolutely worth the south Indian delicacies. Call the presidents and spokesperson of Israel, Iran, Syria and the United States over a plate of idle pudi here. I assure you, their differences would melt with the butter on the idli.
Having our stomach filled we went to Phoenix mall to check the availability of the phone I had intended to buy. The mall was big, expensive, and still had the Christmas decorations displayed in the month of March. I can understand why – I keep sharing about the same blog posts for days until I get bored of sharing. Haha.
Sometimes you want people to notice and appreciate the efforts and the hard work you have put on a single piece of work which could have been just a dream for you. And you became courageous by shedding off your insecurity and vulnerability and displayed the same to the strangers, only to hear ‘Good Job.’
Moving on, we went to the Linking road again to buy some more fridge magnets as the DMs on my Instagram was filled with “what are you getting us, from Mumbai?” Yes, I brought around 10-15 of them. However, I could not give it to all the people I had bought it for. Just, their tough luck.
Since I am fond of cafes, restaurants, dhabas, street food eateries (basically edible food) and also because I had not been to any Beach in Mumbai yet, massi took me to Prithvi café which is at walking distance to Juhu Beach.
Prithvi Café
Speaking of dinner, probably the biggest surprise was how fun the Prithvi Café was. The café offered more than just great food. It is adjacent to Prithvi theater, and has a nice bookshop too. It was very crowded and was buzzing with people. We waited for an hour to get a table. The staff was friendly, and courteous, and took our orders at instant.
They serve Chhaas in the Beer bottles. I could not resist trying it. Hence, we ordered Paneer Butter Masala, Pesto Paneer paratha, Beer BTL Chhaas, iced tea peach and Opera Tart. The chocolate Opera tart was delicious; it was as delicious as it looked. And all of this had cost me ₹557 ONLY. Yes, such economical is the café. The food was value for money.
It is also frequented by artists and luckily I got the chance to meet Sharad Kelkar, Ritvik Dhanjani and Yatin Karyekar. Umm, actually I just saw them in front of me chatting with one other.
But I got a chance to get clicked with Sharad Kelkar. Oh! I was overwhelmed. You know those fan girl moment, when you act all calm from the outside and from the inside you are shouting “OMG, he is so tall and handsome.” Uff! He has a deep voice. I noticed, when he said ‘one minute’ to my request of a picture. And I heard ‘Rashika Sharma, samay her ladki ko Fan girl bann’ne ka ek avsar deta hai… woh kShan yahi hai.’ Hehe...
As soon as we came out of the café premises, I bumped into an old college senior of mine. What are the odds! As soon as I spotted him I yelled “BHAIYA!” at the street. I was so happy. I was very rejoiced, as if the trip was complete now. We bid adieu to each other and I and massi walked towards Juhu beach.
Juhu Beach
There is a food court at the entrance of the beach. One of my friends suggested to have Pav Bhaji, Pulao and chuski there. He stays out of India, so he would have been missing all of this for months now. Poor guy! Since we didn’t have appetite as we had dinner at the café we did not order any food; however, I took Chuski for which my friend was craving for in his new country. Surprisingly, the chuski was such big that I could not finish and had to throw it instead. I don’t do that. I seldom waste food but I was not able to eat it anymore.
The beach was dirty with filth and garbage all around flowing in and out of the sea with the waves. I’ll be honest; I was not expecting much, especially from the Mumbai beaches. If you have seen clean and white water beaches you might not like coming here but for people like me, who had never seen a beach before, would surely like it.
After walking for an hour, and having a deep life conversation with each other we headed home by taxi. C’mon, having life conversation at a beach at anytime of the hour is inevitable, especially for a person like me. If you have not had self questioning thoughts on a beach, have you even been to a beach!
If not for once you had “what am I doing to my life? What is my goal? Where am I heading?” kind of thoughts running in your mind while strolling at beach; especially at a beach like Juhu where you have minimal to appreciate the mere existence of humanity and their deeds with nature, what were you even thinking of? How I met Sharad Kelkar? (wink)
Thank you for reading. 🙂
