Escapades on Mohammed Ali Road and Bohri Mohalla

Ramazan feasts are like none other.

And the feast on Mohammed Ali Road is second to none. Except Bohri Mohalla if you are in search for the exotic  Khiri, Topa or Pichota.

Over the years, Mohammed Ali Road has developed a quite reputation as the Mecca for Ramazan food, and one will find people from over the world thronging the street in search of food.

So armed with insider knowledge from Kurush F Dalal (KFD), a gentleman as well versed with knowledge about things underground as he is about those over ground, we made our way to the Mecca of good non vegetarian fare.

Coming from the suburbs, the best way to reach Mohammed Ali Road is to take the harbor line local and get off at Sandhurst Station, or Masjid Bunder. A short cab ride will bring to the beginning of your food trail.

While there are loads and loads and loads of stalls, it is important to know which one you want to go to, because the choices will kill you. After scouring the length of the street, we were sufficiently convinced by one young lad to taste the food at his stall. His promise – don’t pay if you don’t like the food. And that is how we kickstarted our food trail for the night at Azad.

 

We ordered a plate of Tawa Kheema, with naan and pav.  This was served promptly within two minutes, and piping hot! The serving was good enough for two, the naans fresh and warm and pavs soft. True to his word, the kheema was full of flavors and yummy! It was actually mindblowing. 170 bucks for all this, it seemed a bit expensive, but we were forewarned that Mohammed Ali Road is a bit of a tourist trap.

Next we headed to Bohri Mohalla, the quieter of the two areas for Ramazan feasting.  After a 10 minutes brisk walk we reached Bohri Mohalla, and the atmosphere here was no less, only the crowd was thinner.

At Bar-be-Que we began with a plate of Mutton Seekh and Khiri.  The prices were out of this world! For Rs. 55 we had both the dishes, and were hungry for more!!

 

Next Stop – Taj Ice creams! We thought it would be a good idea to settle the tummy before we moved ahead to the next food stop! Taj Ice creams is a 120 year old shop, run by Mr. Icecreamwala! No I am not kidding ! That was his name! We gorged on Roasted Almond! And boy was it good or what!! Mr. Icecreamwala still uses the same 120 year old formula and operates from the same shop his forefathers had set up. Even the chair he sat on looked 120 years old! But the ice cream was creamy, fresh and left us wanting more! And for 40 bucks only!

After satiating we headed to Barah Handi for Nalli Nihari and naan…but frankly speaking neither of us enjoyed it! So we moved out as fast as we had come in. But a special mention here of the naans at Baara handi! Huge Naans, and soft! They had this huge tandoor, that was making naan by the dozens!

 

On the way back we stopped at Tawakkals – the desserts behemoth! Famous for Phirni, Malai, dry fruit and Malpuas! Needless to say we had to have everything! The Phirni was smooth, just rightly sweet and it hit the pot! I don’t particularly like malai, so we just asked for a taste. The ‘taste’ was so good we got some packed for home as well! And we got the phirni packed too ! 😀 And then there was the dry fruit – a thick mass of mawa like consistency. A bit too sweet for me though. We were so stuffed that we had to give the malpua a miss!

 

We decided to call it a night, with gastro-promises of returning next year, but little did we know that our night was far from over! Suffice to say, we had a Stiphal (custard apple) flavored ice cream at Taj again, before taking the cab back home.

The rest of the night? Well that’s a different story all together!