Crawford Market

Rajadhani is an extremely famous Gujju thali institution in Mumbai. One doesn't really need to know anything more about it :)

The place is classy, a/c, with good courteous waiters. The servers get a bit intrusive; but they are a busy lot. The standard thali has about 4 veggies, 3 daal/kadhi like liquid items, theplas, rotlas, chapatis, biscuit bhakris, various farsaan, dhokla, papad, dahi. Plain rice, khichadi with rivers of ghee follow. Winter serves Undhiyu I hear. The deserts are pre-packaged gulabjamun, shrikhand, rasagulla types; quite avoidable and nothing special. The thali itself is extremely satisfying; expect the sweetish Gujju tinge of course.

Badshah in main Crawford Market junction has been around for ages. They have great deserts, especially Faloodas, Milkshakes, Sherbets, and Juices. It is also a snack-joint and restaurant but that is nothing special.

Badshah has been an institution for Falooda in Bombay. Fresh juices and sherbets are very good too and all very cheap. Royal Falooda and Kulfi Falooda are great - some old timers will have noted a slight decline over the years - but it still rocks. It is open till about midnight and beyond.

There are apparently less than a handful of Bengali eating joints in Bombay. And it is Howrah that the Bengalis of the city come to and swear by. The Bengali folks have been coming to New Bengal Lodge for decades and Howrah is their restaurant. It is right next to crawford market opposite Police HQ and JJ School of Arts. Complete with a large model of the Howrah bridge, waiters in traditional Bong dresses and all.

We were quite inexperienced with Bengali food - we just knew that we had to try Hilsa in mustard curry. We did just that and were very happy about it. We could make out some differences between fresh water (Hilsa) and our usual sea water (pomfret etc.) fishes. We also ordered King Prawns in a simple Bengali masala gravy which also turned out nice. We had this with plain rice and aam porchho sherbet (like raw mango jal jeera). We inspected the unlimited Thalis (both veg and non-veg versions) at less than 150 each. I'll definitely be having this next time - this time we were too stuffed.

We quite liked the place. The waiters were extremely helpful and the food was delicious. The songs playing were Bengali originally but then came down to old hindi songs sung in Bengali by Asha Bhosle - so we weren't sure who had copied whom. Conversation wandered in the direction of Calcutta's pollution, trams, metro, street food and we notice that we were the only non-Bengalis in the restaurant. No matter - a good place for a taste of Bengal right here in Mumbai.