The Grateful Gullet

Among the various people I curse silently during the course of a day are eateries that serve anonymous food in Mumbai. I don’t prefer eating out every day, but it’s an occupational hazard.
My city has a lot of places that serve unremarkable food, from Udipi joints that are seemingly located at every other corner to the bigger, fancier restaurants (I’m talking non-five-star restaurants here), which are hyped every Food-Page day by the city’s newspapers.
The worst part of the food in these places is not that it is bad, but it is the indifference that causes the bile in me to rise. They leave you with no memories, which is where they fail so miserably – all food, as someone once said, is just memory.
I’ve eaten at most of Mumbai’s restaurants – both the so-called institutions and the high-profile places – and I feel eateries in Calcutta beat them all hollow. I simply can’t fathom why Mumbaites sing praises of Lucky (Bandra) or Baghdadi (Colaba) or even Gajalee (Vile Parle, plus there’s an overpriced, upmarket version at Phoenix Mills at Lower Parel). There’s just lots of gunk with lots of oil.
If you ever find yourself in Cal, try Peter Cat or Shiraz. My gullet will forever remain grateful to the former’s Chelo Kabab.
I reckon it will be these grand meals in unsung places that’ll flash before my mind’s eye, bringing back oral memories, just before I flatline: of a Gujju thali in Junagadh, a Tandoori chicken untainted by colour somewhere in Punjab, fish curry and roti at my guide’s place in Mandu in MP, rice cooked in champagne in Turin and, how could I forget this, a fiery mutton curry at a government-run lodge in Rajgir in Bihar.