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Baba Ling was amused to know that my friends and I have a 
whatsapp group called ‘For the Love of Ling’s”


‘My father asked me why I am doing this project. I told him it is to learn. My biggest learning today was seeing the 80 year old plus lady going from table to table clearing plates.’

We were in the car. Returning from Colaba. After shooting for my food show, Every Bite Matters. With me was Krishnakant Mishra, the very talented young content curator, who shoots and edits the show. 

Krishna shooting salt and pepper prawns, pan
friend noodles (the veg version turned out to 
be as good as non veg) and stewed pork at Ling’s


He was talking of Freny, the octagenarian sister of Dolly Mistry, sister in law of Polly Mistry. The show is as much about good food as it is about the people behind it. The incident he referred to was from our first port of call yesterday, Cafe Churchill.

Polly Mistry with her sister Freny at the back


Colaba’s very own bulldog 

Cafe Churchill, is 75 years old. As young, or perhaps a bit more older, than independent India. Which made me quip, #ChurchillKaAmritMahotsav after the the hashtag #azadikeamritamahotsav used by the government for the independence day celebrations this year.

‘That’s wrong at so many levels,’ said Krishna, who is used to my PJs by now.

Yesterday again. Ice tea, sausage in firecracker 
sauce, penne marinara, gooey chocolate cake.
K and my standard order from 20 years back.

Polly and Dolly Mistry have owned and run Cafe Churchill for the last 30 years. They were not restauranteurs all their lives. Polly was a ‘shippie.’ Dolly has a hospitality background though. She belonged to the second batch of IHM Dadar. After having had his fill of sailing across the seas, Polly decided to set anchor in his hometown of Mumbai. He got the opportunity to open Cafe Sunshine at Colaba. A takeout joint in the early 80s. ‘We were among the first to introduce pizzas in Mumbai and they were a rage. People from all over Cuffe Parade ordered from us.’ Their fans included a collegian from Dadar in the late 90s, who would go with her friends to her uncle’s place at Meher Dad, and who still remember the ham sandwiches from Cafe Sunshine that he would order for her. “They were the best,” she told me. The eatery had shut down by the time I married her though I had seen it before during my explorations of Colaba. 

Colaba is where I first fell in love with Mumbai before I fell in love with a girl from Mumbai whom I then married.

With Polly and Dolly Mistry, sweethearts from when they were 
in the tenth standard and big sis, Freny.

“I love food and keep looking for new ideas. That is how I introduced pizzas to Mumbai and then a few years later ice teas when we took up Churchill. I saw ice tea packs at Crawford Market and bought them. Added our own touch and served them and they became very popular.” 

I would know! K and I would order a glass when we went to Churchill for dinner when we were dating. Gandhi at the counter would open the cashier’s drawer and take out a pouch of Lipton ice tea (then imported) and give it to the waiter once we placed our order.

“Having given up my job, I wanted something which give me at least the same amount of money,” said Polly. Experimentation made him open a central kitchen in the early 80s (that’s ‘cloud kitchen’ for you dear millenials). He catered to Parsi lagans from there. “Everyone did sit down Parsi wedding dinners then. We were the first to introduce buffets.” 

I have a friend who might contest that but what’s a good story without some masala? This was in the early 1980s. 

Then came the opportunity to take over Churchill. Polly and Dolly were hesitant but a friend of their’s from Tarattoria told them of a chef whom they could hire and thus was born Cafe Churchill as we know of it today. There was no Table, Indigo or Americano back in the late 90s and standalone restaurant for ‘conti; meant Cafe Churchill back then; and the the tiny place still runs packed, the menu largely unchanged.

They got the opportunity to take over Cafe Mocambo a decade back. The Irani cafe at Fort which was owned by the same owners as Churchill; and which was named after a restaurant of the same name in Kolkata which is most famous for its fish a la Diana and devilled crabs. Polly and Dolly did a complete makeover of the place. K and I could not recognise it when we went there after the renovation. Gone was the very grey dingy cafe which my parents in law went to when they worked in Fort and where K and I would go to for chicken do piyaza on Friday afternoons when we were dating and worked in town. In its place came a very orange and young looking bistro, selling an upscale version of the Churchill food.

Now in their mid 70’s, Polly and Dolly have given up their multiple businesses and focus on Cafe Churchill. With Freny giving them her support. 

What kept them going in these tough times, I asked Polly (Dolly gets to talk when Polly is not around it seemed, I do not know if the roles are reversed at home).

“Passion. Commitment. We paid our suppliers every month even during tough covid times. We look after our staff. They have been with us for 30 years. We made sure that there was no drop in quality. We are here day in and day and put our hearts into it.”

The Calcutta influence on the Chinatown of Colaba

As a former Calcuttan, I was very snobbish about the Chinese food of my hometown when I first came to Bombay. ‘It is real Chinese,’ I would say like my comrades. Then I discovered Ling’s Pavilion in Colaba and fell in love with the Cantonese fare on offer from the restaurant run by Nini and Baba Ling, second generation owners of the enterprise started by their parents 75 years back when they set up the once legendary, and now shut, Nanking. Over the years I got increasingly disillusioned by the Chinese food iof Kolkata which gives me severe heartburn now (unless if from the Tibetan owned Blue Poppy Thakali or at the Pan Asian at ITC or at the JW Marriott). Ling’s remains my happy place.

Yesterday I met Baba Ling when we went to shoot at Ling’s Pavillion after Churchill.  I got to meet his wife Mandy too and learnt that she was born in Calcutta. “Aaapni kothai thakten,” she asked me in unaccented Bengali. 

With Baba and Mandy Ling

She lived in the ‘old Chinatown,’ and no children, that’s not Tangra. It’s Tiretti Bazar.

Are the recipes at Ling’s her’s. “No, no. Baba loves to cook. He works very hard. I like to eat,” said Mandy with a coy smile as she offered me some bhel Baba had just made her.

“I love cooking. I would watch my grandma cook. My father too. He was a very good cook. I learnt from them. And did research and experimented,” said Baba Ling. “You have had my coffee spare ribs right? And remember the melon soup,” he asked me as if I was his favourite grandchild. He and Mandy are both 75.

“His father was indeed a very good cook,” added Mandy.

Krishna and me at the Subko at Abode opposite
Ling’s with the barrista who made me a fabulous
iced cortado. Krishna had a hot chocolate.

What’s your advice to people starting out in the restaurant business today?

“Do not place your gun on another man’s shoulder and shoot.”

“You should know every part of the business. Today everyone wants to start as a boss. My brother and used to clean the floors of nanking when we started. I still go every morning to shop. Once upon a time I would go to Church, then to Crawford Market, then to Grant Road market, then to Bhaucha Dakka, then to Sassoon Docks. We have not changed our suppliers for 70 years. Even today they know that the can’t cheat Baba. I clean every prawn myself in the morning. We clear our bills everyday”… then looking at a waiter, “Roshan go and get a few salt and pepper prawns fried and serve it on table 4 from me.” There were two young gentleman there whom we had coopted in our conversation that day and Baba wanted to make his point to them.

“Taste is individual, quality is international,” Baba said and then burst out laughing.

“That’s another of my famous lines,” said Baba giggling. “People’s tastes could differ,” explained Baba. “But they should not doubt the quality of what I serve and if they do, I go and tell them ‘you do not know anything.”

Having been married to a creative professional for 20 years, I know exactly what he meant. It was passion and pride in ones work. Not arrogance. OK, not blind arrogance.

As we headed back home yesterday. One 48 and the other 31. We felt suitably refreshed and invigorated by the life’s lessons given to us by the four 75 year olds of Colaba.

Happy teacher’s day to you.

Here’s where you can watch Every Bite Matters. Please subscribe to the channel for future episodes.

Little Nimki and Baby Loaf were
miffed with our being out all Sunday

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