Mumbai rises quite early, if it sleeps at all. And most hard-working people who wake up early want to eat. Probably a quick meal before heading out for a long day at work. While some people are lucky to have partners who make fresh sabzi roti early in the morning before they themselves charge to catch the morning local, there are some who may have to manage with a tossed egg on a frying pan, quickly cram it down with reheated stale chapatis before rushing off to work.
Some just manage with a cup of tea and a couple of slices of bread, or hunt for last night’s leftovers to warm up and bolt down. Some people may have their mother lovingly making them breakfast before bidding adieu. Everybody gets hungry in the morning and when the body demands food, even if you cannot get breakfast at home, the city provides it, at every street corner, café, roadside cart, railway station and market place.
Before the first rays of the sun appear from behind Mumbai’s dense buildings or from the sea, depending on where you live, the dark streets have already come alive with sounds. The sounds of splashing water as taxis are being washed, the panting of joggers as they sweat it out, the rustle of newspapers as they are being sundered, the hushed din of wholesale vegetable vendors as they lay out their greens, the hard bristle brooms of municipal sweepers scraping the trash, the cawing of crows as they attack a basket load of raw fish speeding atop a taxi roof, and above all, the hissing of kerosene stoves as street stalls set up for a Mumbai roadside breakfast.
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Misal Pav or Kheema Pav?
It has never ceases to amaze me how we in India and in Mumbai eat spicy, deep-fried food for breakfast. Samosas, kachoris, puris et al. One such deep-fried, dynamite breakfast is Misal Pav. It’s the daredevil combination of deep-fried farsan (sev-ganthia) and spicy, thin gravy made with moong beans, potato, onions, tomatoes, ginger-garlic, garam masala and (traditionally) coconut. The mixture is finished with a fiery red oily kat, tarri or rassa, and garnished with chopped onions and coriander. To really enjoy a Misal Pav, the misal has to be tear-inducing spicy. The eyes have to water and the nose has to drip and the mouth has to be forsaken to the smell of onions for the rest of the morning. It sounds ghastly, but it is horribly satisfying and tasty.
There are several places in Mumbai that are famous for their Misal Pav, but for me the best place to eat Misal Pav early in the morning is any suburban railway station. Gourmets may not agree, but often, the freshness of the dish, the softness of the bread and the moment itself beats everything.
Speaking of spicy breakfasts, Mumbai also eats Kheema Pav in the morning. Freshly made Kheema Pav is available in the last few Irani and chiliya cafes that once occupied most corner buildings in Mumbai. This kind of kheema is cooked in green masala, with an enthusiastic flavour of green chillies, coriander, onions and whole spices. On those rare occasions when I decide to get out of bed and actually go to a restaurant in the wee hours, I am more than indulgent. I always order the kheema, which arrives hot with a thin film of oil floating on top. To add more sin to my immoderation, I ask them to top it with a deep-fried egg sunny-side up. The edges of the egg-white burnt to a crisp, and the yolk runny and yellow. Mop up the yellow runny yolk and the green mutton (hopefully) kheema with a hot pav and it’s a breakfast for a myocardial infarction.
Bhurji Pav or Omelette Pav is another Mumbai street favourite. This omelette is anything but French, anything but fluffy and anything but lovingly seasoned. It’s more of a flat burned paratha made from a liquid of beaten egg, with a profusion of raw onion, tomatoes and green chillies. The liquid is poured onto a large flat pan with lots of oil. The egg quickly transforms into a flat, well-browned pancake, which is folded twice and served between bread, or as we call it pav. The bhurji, honestly, has the same ingredients, and is nothing more than a scrambled or coddled egg. It is often full of masala and oily as hell and tastes unbelievably godsend. If indulgent, you could ask the fellow to heat up your pav on the same tava on which the bhurji was made and wipe dry the remaining oil and spices. If you land up at an Irani café early in the morning, instead of eating a roadside bhurji, you can have their version of scrambled eggs, the Parsi Akuri, which is a sort of creamy bhurji.
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Egg Roast with Paratha or Nalli Nihari?
If you like more eggs, find a Kerala joint, like Sneha in Mahim, and turn up at 6 am for the Egg Roast with Paratha also known as (Nadan Mutta Roast). It’s quite simple to make as most fast breakfast foods are, and all the preparation you need to do is, make a few hard boiled eggs. The boiled eggs are slit so that the masalas can permeate, and then shallow-fried in heated coconut oil until they start to turn light brown. Now after that is done, on the same pan fry some chopped onions, ginger paste, garlic paste, green chillies and curry leaves. Once done, add chopped tomatoes and salt, fry a bit, add some water and let the water dry up on the heat. This simple Kerala breakfast tastes fab with fresh Kerala parathas, or if you are asli Mumbaikar, with Brun Pav.
And finally for the true carnivore, Surti Barah Handi at Bhendi Bazaar. Various parts of the goat are cooked through the day, with a selection of spices, in 12 huge handis, over coal fires, ready to be consumed soft and tender at 6 in the morning. From Paya (trotters) to Pichota (rump/oxtail) to Nalli Nihari, you can have your pick. Wipe off the gravy with enormous thick, fluffy rotis.
Frankly, after eating a breakfast of this magnitude, flavour and grandiosity, I’d happily forsake lunch and dinner.
Kunal Vijayakar is a food writer based in Mumbai. He tweets @kunalvijayakar and can be followed on Instagram @kunalvijayakar. His YouTube channel is called Khaane Mein Kya Hai. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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