Bombay Canteen serves up good portions of quirk

A restaurant in Mumbai is experimenting with traditional dishes like moong daal, eggplant and lauki

Floyd Cardoz is something of a messiah for under-loved Indian ingredients. At his five-month-old restaurant in Lower Parel, the celebrity chef, who was raised in Mumbai and lives in New York, has been championing the cause of neglected vegetables, legumes and meats from the region. As it follows, Bombay Canteen’s menu includes items made with locally-sourced, seasonal produce as well as humble dishes like the Tamil roadside staple kothu roti or the Kutchi-style snack dabeli.

His fascination with the seemingly ordinary or even boring is not recent. A few years ago, he wowed judges of the US reality show Top Chef Masters with his version of upma. In a twist that would make some South Indian grandmothers flinch, he added mushrooms, kokum, coconut milk and chicken stock to it and won the contest against 11 other celebrity chefs.  Cardoz, who studied in IHM Dadar, is best known for heading contemporary Indian restaurant Tabla in New York for 12 years. While his focus at the New York restaurant (which has since shut down) was on introducing lesser-known Indian food to the American palate, at Bombay Canteen it is about revamping familiar flavours.

It is well past lunch time but Cardoz has not had the time to grab a bite. Located within the corporate office complex Kamala Mills, Bombay Canteen is still fairly full at 3.30 pm. Cardoz’s day began at 4 am at the APMC market in Vashi, Navi Mumbai. Thereafter, he and the team, including head chef Thomas Zachariah, have been experimenting new additions to the menu with ingredients including custard apple, bhindi and eggplant.

The idea is to cook with produce that is freshly bought, cooked and served. He prefers lauki, which both absorbs flavours and acts a foil, to zucchini, which has to be cooked just right or it ends up tasteless. He chooses to serve the local mandeli and bangda fish rather than basa. The restaurant sources from markets in Sassoon Docks, Grant Road and Vashi.

After gauging the demand of diners, Cardoz has brought in more vegetarian dishes. “But my biggest frustration is the love for paneer,” he says. He is pushing for grain and vegetables like moong, arbi, snake gourd, lotus root and kokum to be revived in popular imagination. He also wants to bring back homegrown methods like cooking in banana leaves or eating meat on the bone.

The current offerings include a mix of tea-time snacks, tiffin lunches and wholesome dinners. One of the popular orders is the Kejriwal toast — with cheese, eggs and chilli — a hat-tip to the snack that originated at the Willingdon Club. A must-try dessert is the gulab nut — a doughnut-shaped gulab jamun doused in rum.

Cardoz’s earliest memories in the kitchen are of snagging tamarind or pork sausages from his great grandmother’s house in Goa. He owes cosmopolitan Mumbai for exposing him to various Indian cuisines including Muslim, Sindhi and Maharashtrian. “I never turned down a dinner invitation,” he says with a grin. While he originally wanted to make a career in marine biology, the foray into hospitality came after reading Arthur Hailey’s book, Hotel. His skills in the kitchen were later sharpened at Switzerland’s Les Roches. Bombay Canteen was launched in late February in partnership with Sameer Seth and Yash Bhanage.

A picture of the Bombay Canteen

In its look, Bombay Canteen relies heavily on nostalgia. A sign outside reads: Mumbai is the city, Bombay is an emotion. It is open and airy; with large glass windows and mosaic tiles. Blown-up images of vintage recipe pages from Femina are on the walls. The menu is presented in an accounting register.

The thing that stands out about the restaurant is its spare menu and no-frills ambience. Cardoz wants to make flavours and food accessible and fun. Prices for dishes start from Rs 300-400 per serving. “There is no context to imported ingredients. We should appreciate what grows in our backyards,” observes Cardoz. “We must eat with our hands, get them dirty, and celebrate who we are.” RED SNAPPER WRAPPED IN BANANA LEAF

Method

1. Bloom the curry leaves in the coconut oil. Add the sliced onions and cook till translucent, add the ginger and garlic paste. Cook it out for a few minutes.
   Add fresh green chillies, chilli powder, turmeric powder, black pepper powder, garam masala powder and coriander powder. After cooking the spices for a few minutes, add the sliced tomatoes.
2. Now, add the coconut milk and let the flavours infuse. Season with sugar and salt, finish with lemon juice. Bring this mixture to room temperature and puree into a fine paste.
3. Season the fish with salt and pepper. Marinate each fillet of fish in about one cup of the masala and place it on the banana leaf. Spoon some more masala on top and wrap the banana leaf tightly.
4. Heat a tawa or flat pan, add a little oil and place the banana leaf wrapped fish. Cook on medium heat for about 10-12 minutes turning the fish over every two to three minutes till cooked.