 |
| Mumbai toast sandwich nostalgia on a plate |
And now for some Bombay nostalgia after my Kolkata nostalgia post yesterday.
I had my first veg toast sandwich during my second visit to the city.
This was outside the Eros theatre at Churchgate in ‘96. I’d come to distribute MBA placement brochures from my B School in Calcutta to companies here. This was in a time before PDFs. I fell in love with the bold flavours and textures of the sandwich that I had, and soon the city too.
I bid goodbye to Calcutta in a couple of years and moved into Mumbai. I did not really have a plan then. At one point I even thought of trying to go abroad as that was the thing to do in the late 90s and early 2000s in market research. Then Bombay became Mumbai and slowly the city grew on me and it became my home.
I bid goodbye to Calcutta in a couple of years and moved into Mumbai. I did not really have a plan then. At one point I even thought of trying to go abroad as that was the thing to do in the late 90s and early 2000s in market research. Then Bombay became Mumbai and slowly the city grew on me and it became my home.
 |
| The hipster version of the Mumbai toast sandwich |
I had a version of my favourite Mumbai Street snack at home in Bandra today. The hipster version you could say.
I used multigrain sourdough from La Folie instead of Wibbs sandwich bread. Extra virgin olive oil instead of butter. No kaddu ketchup. My green chutney had coriander, chillies and garlic but no grated coconut (primarily because there was none at home). It had sliced onions, tomatoes and capsicum but no beet, cucumber or boiled potato. I do have half a potato leftover from my chicken curry yesterday which I will have for lunch.
I used multigrain sourdough from La Folie instead of Wibbs sandwich bread. Extra virgin olive oil instead of butter. No kaddu ketchup. My green chutney had coriander, chillies and garlic but no grated coconut (primarily because there was none at home). It had sliced onions, tomatoes and capsicum but no beet, cucumber or boiled potato. I do have half a potato leftover from my chicken curry yesterday which I will have for lunch.
The first attempt came out soggy as I had left the sandwich in the grill for too long and it had over-cooked and had too much chutney. The chutney was rather fluid in the absence of grated coconut which gives it body. But like Balbao I went back to the kitchen and came back with this beauty.
You can’t keep us 80s kids down for long. We have survived B.Subhash movies and baggy jeans.
 |
| Happy friendship day Mumbai |
I still love a fully loaded toast sandwich on the streets. It is among my favourite street food dishes in Mumbai and I always urge visitors to the city on my food walks to try it and they love it.
The dish seems to be the rage in modern Indian restaurants across the world and in expat Indian cookbooks too. You don’t call it a ‘Mumbai/ Bombay sandwich’ here of course!
The dish seems to be the rage in modern Indian restaurants across the world and in expat Indian cookbooks too. You don’t call it a ‘Mumbai/ Bombay sandwich’ here of course!
I wrote this post and shared it on Instagram and then saw all the ‘happy friendship day’ posts and then thought,’hey, it is to the city of Mumbai that I should wish #HappyFriendshipDay‘.
I could not have asked for a better home than it. A more wonderful life than the one I had here.
PS: Here’s the Kolkata post that I was talking of
A more vivid Mumbai sandwich post from me
