Mumbaikars will swear that monsoons have ARRIVED!!! What with the near non-stop downpour, resulting traffic snarls, submerged roads, pedestrian woes, it’s almost as though it’s July. That’s when the rains are this incessant. But this year seems to be different…
The rains that started Friday afternoon is continuing. Unabated. The newspapers too foretold the same story – heavy rains over the weekend. This made us develop cold feet – we have stayed put at home all of Saturday/Sunday with the only exception being attending our music class Saturday evening. Didn’t even go to the market/super-mart for the weekly rations.
But woke up with this bad craving this morning — Wanted to eat vada pav from Dheeraj’s Vada Pava opposite Mithibhai College in Ville Parle, near Juhu. The vadas (potato cutlets) are probably the tastiest in Mumbai; hot and soft and yumm; just out of the frying pan. The pavs (much like a burger bread) are big. The guy at the counter splits it into half, spreads butter on it (so much that you will vow to jog back home!), puts a layer of the hot and spicy orange powder, and then a layer of hari-chutney (green chutney made with mint, coriander and chillies) and as if all this was not enough, puts one full green chilly in the bread. The vada goes in next. And your vada-pav is ready!!
We can’t tolerate so much of chilly though. So we instruct him right at the beginning, No orange powder, no hari cutney, no chilly for us. Disappointed, he lifts his head from his regular chore to look at us, and then adds some more butter to the pav, as if to make up for the other ingredients he has been asked not to use. We look in dismay — that surely nullifies at least a fortnight’s gain, err loss, at the gym!!
But one bite of the vada-pav, and your ‘butter shock’ will melt. You will be transported to this guilt-free world, where all you can do is rave about the pav. All this for 15 rupees. Do not blink in disbelief. We told you it’s a street eatery!!!
Guess it opens during breakfast time and closes when the world has gone to sleep, for, we have never seen the shutters down at this place.
Well, I am craving for exactly this yumm vada-pav this Sunday evening. It would have been perfect with the rains outside and a cup of tea inside. But alas, I am loathe to move from the house. And certainly not dare the pot-holes and the water clogging in Mumbai’s streets after three days of non-stop rain.
How I wish the vada pavs from Dheeraj’s could be delivered home…sigh!!!
Which is your favourite vada-pav joint in Mumbai? Tell us about it.
Also read: 10 Things To Do In Mumbai