Seafood and Crockery

I have always been deeply interested in the crockery you find at a roadside or local eating joint. More than often, it’s the standard stainless steel plates, steel tumblers, plastic jugs with worn out caps, non-absorbent tissue paper (you know, that glossy one, that doesn’t absorb a drop, so irritating that one is! Sometimes I feel like killing someone when I see that glossy tissue paper with the blue printed border…), plastic shakers with damp salty sludge, fork with bent teeth, dabbra coffee tumblers, that stainless steel ice-cream / dessert bowl which invariably has a rotating bottom, and that wonderfully aesthetic “cutting chai” glass cup (which has a cult status comparable to the “Goti soda” bottle) among other table-top paraphernalia. However, every once in a while one experiences a moment of crockery revelation. That precise moment that you realize that you aren’t just eating at A place, you are eating at THE place. That one single piece of gastronomic equipment that makes you question the motivations of the crockery selector or maybe even the profundity of life itself.

The important thing to note here is that that one item needn’t be quite as opulent as that silver coffee tumbler at MTR, or as demure as that leafy donne at Gundu’s, or as outlandish as the shiny copper water bowl at Rao’s Miltry mess, or even as simple as that Nat Geo glossy sheet of paper that cradles your geela bhel. It could be anything that induces An Oak Tree moment, makes you realize you experienced more than just a piece of cutlery and makes you remember it long after you’ve left. No?

Recently, a certain Mr. A paid us a visit over a rather short gourmandizable week. It being the monsoon, we had been advised by all and sundry to completely avoid seafood in Mumbai, the Konkani-Malwani-Saraswats reminding us that the surmai needs to breed, the pomfret needs to gallivant and the crab needs to do whatever it is that crabs do in the monsoon. Mr. A and I, despite being avid lovers of crustaceans, critters and crunchy fish fritters alike, decided to do the next best thing. We went for seafood anyway, cos seriously you can’t replace seafood with anything else. Pooh! Our destination, Goa Bhavan in Juhu. Very close to Amitaavacchan’s house.

The place itself is like a converted 1 BHK with 5 – 6 tables and no menu. A small 11-inch TV plays hindi songs and you get glimpses of the kitchen every time someone draws the curtain out carrying food in stainless steel plates. The name is rather misleading though. Don’t come here to be dazzled by sorpotel, xacuti or vindaloo. In fact, it’s a completely Malwani style mess where good coastal mulgas come to eat aaiee-che-jaywan (mom’s food). We got ourselves a chicken thali, a mandeli fish thali, a pomfret fry, prawns koliwada and a plate of shellfish sukkha. The thalis come with sol kadhi and some veggies, but really it’s the seafood that’s absolutely fabulous. I remember having a heap of shellfish sukkha at Trishna during a Koli seafood festival, and this one kicked its ass out of the water.

What I really remember though, were some quaint ceramic saucers on which we got served the chicken curry and the shellfish. Very similar to the ones that come with those almost spherical cups of tea and are always coloured a dirty brown with a streak of cream passing through. They used to be a Brahmin household specialty, only brought out when special guests came home.

Non-veg in them means abhistu!