Apart from being known as ‘Land of the Cupcakes’, Bandra can now re-christen itself to ‘Shawarma Town’. Only in Bandra can you see an equal number of Shawarma rotisseries and traffic signals. Okay, I’m exaggerating here, but you get the drift. Latest entrant on the Shawarma scene is Cairo Grill – a Mediterranean take away space that does the staple shawarma in addition to a lot more.

Situated in a by-lane off Linking road, surrounded by cafes and fast food joints, Cairo Grill is a small space. But none of these factors deterred the crowd away. This take away joint was swamped with customers on the Sunday evening I visited. The two page menu, listed on the wall covers your basics – salads, hummus and it’s variants, cheesy fries with toppings, and shawarmas. But I was most excited to try their New York food truck style rice-meat combos. 

We placed our order, and watched the food getting assembled in their tiny albeit clean kitchen. The most important aspect of a take away place is now well the food travels in the containers. Our boxes endured a bumpy rickshaw ride home, and everything was well packed and taped, including the sauces.

I’m a fan of the Gourmet It Up (GIU) concept, I really am. It’s becoming crazy expensive to dine out in the city with all these insane number of taxes, and even when you’re willing to pay the price how do you know what to order? Here’s when Gourmet It Up comes to the rescue. They offer set meals, at some of the finest restaurants across India’s metro cities, at a prices that are definitely lesser than a la carte. A completely pre-planned menu featuring specials from the restaurant, so even the hassle of deciding what to order is eliminated.

I recently decided to go for a celebratory dinner to Joss – Farrokh Khambatta’s South East Asian restaurant, serving Japanese, Malaysian, Balinese and Indonesian food with a modern twist. I loved their Kala Ghoda outlet, infact my first tryst with sushi happened there. I’d been wanting to visit their Santacruz outlet since a while, and I thought the GIU experience would be the best way to sample their menu.

Everything from looking up their set menu, to booking a table, and getting a confirmatory call happened flawlessly through the GIU website. The set menu looked really promising as it had all of Joss’s favourites – sushi, dimsum, and their green curry spread across four courses! The menu has an equal number of options for the vegetarian and non-vegetarian diner, which is very commendable. 

Joss sports beautiful, monochromatic interiors which are classy and modern. The outside al fresco seating is perfect location for a balmy (so-called) winter evening to nurse your drink. 

Welcome to the Sasta, Sundar, Tikao section on the blog. As the name suggests, it includes roadside joints, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and street side vendors who dole out delicious food at the most reasonable prices. These are the lifelines of our city, and what the common man’s idea of eating out comprises. There are some dishes that just cannot be replicated in the best of restaurants because the fun lies eating them off the road, the wind in your hair, and traffic noise in your ears. Hope you’ll enjoy reading these posts, and eating at these places. 

I read about Jani Khaman and Locho House in a Mumbai Boss article two years ago. It has remained on my Must-Eat-At list since then. (I have a list of places on my phone where I have to go eat at, and I’m constantly adding, deleting, modifying this list). Two years later, destiny and true love brought me to Borivali – land of Khaman and Locho House. 

Eons ago, a chef in Surat added excess water to his dhokla batter of chana and urad dal, and exclaimed ‘Locho thayi gayo!’ Having nothing better to serve his guests, he served them this pulpy mash along with sev and chutney. Therein the ‘Locho’ was born. Credit to the chef for coming up with this, and for the smart Suratis for making this erroneous snack available in every nook and corner of Gujarat.