A new view of Mohammed Ali Road

 
This year was the third year running that I visited Mohammed Ali Road during the holy month of Ramzaan. Devout Muslims fast the whole day (not even a drop of water is allowed) and can partake of food and drink only once the moon rises at night. So Ramzaan nights are all about feasting, shopping, dressing up and catching up with family and friends  among  the brightly-lit bazaars and gullies. Muslim neighbourhoods like Mahim and Mohammed Ali Road come alive and sparkle like jewels duing the rainy Ramzaan nights.

After exploring Mohammed Ali Road under H’s guidance last year and the year before last, this year Agent J and I took a step away from the usual, and  retraced Allie’s (of the biryani fame) footsteps through a different section of Mohammed Ali Road. We ditched our cab (rather, our cabbie ditched us!) at the beginning of the Bohri Mohalla area opposite J. J. Hospital

Agent J and I strode along rain-splattered lanes and alleys, trying to locate the shop selling “the most amazing payaa” that Allie had very highly recommended. I don’t know if it was being in a different locality, or at a later-than-usual hour– nearer 10:30 PM – but the area seemed quieter, less crowded and the stalls seemed ready to shut down. But since Allie had told us that payaa shop started service only after 11:00 PM, methinks that this was the lull between when the tourist throngs milled around and when the locals got down to eat. Or maybe this area was not really frequented by tourists….

After 10 minutes of walking around in circles through the confusing network of gullies, J and I were getting a bit irritated. Why do people give directions when they aren’t too sure about the place, anyway? Finally, bugged at J’s reluctance to cross-check directions  (what is it with men and directions, anyway?)  I stepped up to ask some old gentlemen about Valibhai’s Payaa shop (Valibhai Payawallah) – and lo behold – it was a stone’s throw away, in  a small alley which I am pretty sure we had passed earlier. Perhaps Valibhai’s shop is like mythical Brigadoon – it only appears once in a while. :)



Valibhai’s is Spartan in décor, with formica-topped wooden tables, green-tiled walls and a huge coal/wood fired stove by the door with -  get this -  NINE pots (handis) gently bubbling away.

 

The place looked deserted - business was yet to start - but as J and I made ourselves comfortable at one of the tables, the cook started pulling out long bones (gulp!) from one of the handis – their job (of donating bone marrow to the nalli nihari) was done! Right on cue, people started trickling in one by one and the waiter started taking orders. We ordered the Paaya (stew/gravy dish made of lamb/cow trotters) which the shop was named after and the sukkha mutton with lashings of nihari. We’d ordered the “Chhote ka” paaya, i.e. stew made of lamb trotters/shanks as against “Bade ka” i.e beef. The unusual thing about the joint was that they only made the curries there – the rotis/bread  were procured from a neighbouring eatery.

Within 5 minutes our food was plonked sown in front of us – a big bowl of the Paaya, a slightly smaller bowl of the mutton topped with rich gravy and a HUGE puffy tandoori roti, bigger than a dinner plate. 
 





That roti was the stuff of dreams – incredibly light, a tad yeasty and soft yet crisp. We tore of pieces of the roti, dipped them in the gravies and ate, and ate and ate. My personal favourite was the mutton – slow cooked to melt-in-mouth tenderness, with a sparkling-with-spice gravy. The Paaya was milder and richer, and while tasty, wasn’t as tongue-tingling as the mutton.

Conscious of the fact that there were more delicacies to sample, we didn’t order any seconds, and walked out in search of Tawakkul, a famous sweetshop nearby. Luckily, we found it without any effort. At Tawakkul, malpua productionw as on in full swing and I watch mesmerized as the cook poured HUGE ladlefuls of malpua batter straight into the  kadhai, and it spread into a sunny yellow disc. 
 

We picked up one of the smaller malpuas  (saucer-sized) to eat while we waited for our phirnis to be packed. The malpua was nice, not too sweet, but not as crispy-on-the-outside-and-pillowy-soft-in-the-centre as the one at Suleiman Usman. But the phirni – oh, my! My parents and I had it the next day for breakfast and it was deliriously delicious. Served in earthenware bowls, it had the perfect almost-set consistency, the perfect amount of sweetness (not too much)  and the alluring, delicate scent of rosewater. Totally drool-worthy and most definitely worth a second trip to M.A.R.

After the malpua, Agent J was ready to call it a day, but I didn’t want to leave without sampling some sort of kebab. Unfortunately, it was past midnight and all the roadside stalls selling kebabs were shut. So we trekked a bit southwards to Shalimar (recommended by the kindly old owner of Tawakkul) to get our fix of kebab. Shalimar was a disappointment – it served Chinese food alongside Mughlai food! – but it made up for this with its zingy mint chutney and the glistening-with-fat spicy seekh kebabs.
 

We also ordered half a tandoori chicken, which was alright, nothing rave-worthy. Not delicious enough for us to ignore our full stomachs and plough on.

In short (or long!), this exploration of a whole new part of Mohammed Ali Road was just as rewarding as our earlier jaunts with H. Finding something new is always exhilarating, and Valibhai and Tawakkul were finds worthy of euphoria. May every trip to Mohammed Ali Road yield such treasures!