It’s a strange thing to say and please take it in the right spirit but the Covid 19
Pandemic has led to a windfall for Mumbai’s food lovers in many cases with new chefs, home chefs and food becoming accessible to us. Take my friend, the painfully shy, a man of few words, genius chef, Gautam Welkar, a Sophia’s College 1987 alumni. After years of running commercial kitchens, the pandemic made him sit at home. That’s when he began cooking from his home kitchen @welkars_kitchen regaling Mumbai’s gourmands with largely non vegetarian delights from Maharashtra. Today he did a menu of dishes belonging to his community, the Pathare Prabhus, one of the original settlers of Mumbai and sent me tasting portions (‘not more than a thali as I am alone’, I insisted). I was floored by the PP version of jardalu sali mutton, V tender mutton in a robust sauce which was not overly sweet. The mindblowing khanaval (small eatery) bheja masala – the best goat brains prep I’ve ever had. I’ve kept most of it for breakfast. The seafood dishes were not fiery despite the vibrant red colour of the gravies. Both prawn metkut and bombil bhujane, had a high garlic quotient which is typical of the food of the PPs & is an acquired taste. I liked the prawns. The bombil not that much because I don’t like Bombay duck in a curry format (I prefer it fried crisp) plus the garlic, but hey that’s me. The Pathare Prabhus trace their origins to Rajasthan and their food does not feature coconut much and is predominantly non veg. The most famous PP foodie is Kunal Vijayakar.
A lot of what I know about the cuisine is thanks to Bimba Nayak.
I immediately placed an order of the bheja and mutton for a friend of mine for next week knowing he would like it and then saw the said friend click like on the prawn pic I’d posted and added that too. What I always love about Gautam’s food, take the usually spicy saoji mutton which he once made earlier, is he makes it amenable to the tastes of the Mumbai audience. Great quality too. This is what we want. At least that’s what I want. I have no patience for anymore for mediocre food that taxes my system.
