Chapter 8

Who's gonna eat that??

“The bhel-puri stall was a sculptured landscape with its golden pyramid of sev. The little snow mountains of mumra, hillocks of puris, and, in among their valleys, in aluminium containers, pools of green and brown and red chutneys”.
- Rohinton Mistry

Now imagine the mouth-watering treasure above encased between two slices of crisp, buttered bread. Can’t picture it, right? We couldn’t picture it either when we were putting together our initial menu for Food for Thought. But you’ll soon see how that changed.

Since we were in a commercial area surrounded by offices, we had to keep the flavor profile of our daily customers in mind. Sandwiches and salads seemed liked obvious winners. We had to think of dishes that could be prepared quickly so that our patrons didn’t get fired from their jobs for taking long lunch breaks :D

We considered three main criteria when we were constructing the menu. One, we wanted to include street food from different regions of India (with a signature FFT twist). Two, I wanted to have a couple of snacky Sindhi dishes. Three, we wanted to add a few items served in gymkhanas and clubs (because if that’s not the essence of Bombay, I don’t know what is). Most of all, everything had to be fun, quirky, bordering on crazy, but not over the top…just like us :)

Our friends and family were asked for their thoughts on what they would want to eat in a café. “Idli, dosa, bhel puri, sev puri, vada pav, kejriwal, chilli cheese toast, misal pav, pasta, something mexican, french fries etc.” The usual.

When we started trials, very soon we came to the conclusion that idli and dosa should be left to Muthu uncle and we should steer clear of them. Who wants a bookshop to smell like an udupi joint right? That’s like Café Madras serving ‘Steamed rice cakes al Tartufo oil’(Idli with truffle oil, of course).

Bombay street food was the obvious addition. But how do we give it our twist? Bhel puri tart, bhel puri nachos, plain bhel puri, all went on trials. All disapproved by our esteemed panel of judges (i.e. our friends and family members).

The judges, ie bakras, comprised mainly of my brother-in-law, Keshav and sister-in-law, Vinita as well as my friend Nandita (and her husband Rahul who I actually consider to be someone with a very keen palate). Each of them has probably gone through a lot of acidity and heartburn with my many renditions of said bhel. It helped that they all live next door to me and were forewarned that entire week of trials to stop cooking their meals at home since they had a new job (to be my guinea pigs).

Finally I decided to try the bhel in a sandwich.  Everyone thought I was a little crazy. “Who eats that?” “Who slams a chutney sandwich and bhel together into a sandwich?”

I do and I did. They all ate their words while munching through the most delicious, crunchy, spicy, tangy, sweet, crisp, buttery sandwich! To cut a long story short, the experiment passed with flying colours! A little tweaking of the green chutney recipe, the addition of sweet chutney, and we had a winner. Boy was it a winner! Our dry bhel supplier never changed since Day 1 in spite of his rapid and regular hike in the price of bhel. He’s probably moved to the Maldives and bought an island there now, based on how much bhel we bought from him over ten years.  

Soon we added a Vada Pav Sandwich to the menu. That was an easy one since we didn’t want to have too many deep fried items. So we just took the chutney and aloo filling and joined them in holy matrimony with two slices of bread. We made our own vada pav chutney, which was amazing because the recipe was concocted by one of the café cooks who happened to be Maharashtrian. Winning formula, right? The deep, dark red chutney (the exact shade of Nykaa’s Regal Ruby lipstick) was so intense and garlicky that the colour would leak through the bread while grilling the sandwich.

Some customers would reveal that they carried a toothbrush in their bags and brushed their teeth before going back to work in case they weren’t allowed back into the premises with their garlic breath post the vada pav sandwich. Oh well, the heart wants what it wants.

Never in our wildest imagination did we ever think these two sandwiches would be our bestsellers for the entire 11-year life of Food for Thought. Just like Avo toast at PLENTY, they were ordered on almost every table. They became synonymous with Food for Thought. We had many a newspaper article written about our Bhel and Vada Pav Sandwiches.

Some customers who were lawyers even suggested that we patent them since we were the first to come up with them as far as we knew. At the time the thought was hilarious. Now, maybe not.

One time a customer’s staff member came to pick up the sandwiches for takeaway and asked us if we could pack every element separately. We couldn’t understand the logic and asked him why he would want it like that (not that we would have given the order that way). He said his ‘madam wants to copy them to start it in her restaurant'. Not sure he was supposed to tell us that!

Sometimes you find magic in the unlikeliest of places.

On a side note, my kids would often visit the café after school just to take money from me so they could go to Moshe to eat their sandwiches instead. Ghar ki murgi, as they say…Can’t win ‘em all.