Best of 2015: The World in your Tummy

Ethiopian Thaal, Oriya Thali
Passionate cook and author of Planet Gastronomy, Ananya Banerjee is the only one to offer Ethiopian and Oriya food in the city, not available even at restaurants.

The Ethiopian meal, Injera—named after its base, a flat, soft, sourish bread called injera—is usually eaten in a large, thaal-like platter for groups of four or more. But she adapts it for one, explaining to guests the traditional way to eat it—first line the plate with injera and on top of it arrange doro wat, a meat stew; tibs, a meat stir fry; lentils and three types of vegetables. Since Ethiopian cuisine has no appetisers, desserts or rice, Ananya includes African foods to complete the meal. Most Indian spices are used in Ethiopian cuisine, but here you don't get the main injera-ingredient, teff flour. So she developed a substitute by fermenting corn flour, refined flour and whole wheat flour.

An Oriya Thali

Her Oriya meal starts with the classic pokhal bhat, a fermented congee unique to Orissa, followed by a prawn relish, fish relish, wadis and a few more fried sides. The main course has rice, the traditional dalma, dal cooked with arbi; pumpkin and raw banana; santula, a chopped vegetable dish; and ghanta, mixed veggies with black gram sprouts, fish and chicken cooked in a clay pot. For dessert, there's khaja, which is famous in Jagannath and the cheesecake-like baked paneer, chenna poda.
Enquire at: Facebook Page Ananya's Food Journey
Weight on Wallet: Ethiopian `1,800 – 2,000, Oriya `1,200 -1,500

Bihari Bhojan

Bihar's celebrated Litti Chokha Pic: Rajdeep Das (CC BY SA 4.0)

While films like Gangs of Wasseypur and Masaan created regional awareness, Dolly Singh brought us Bihar's cuisine. She did it on a whim and as her first three pop-ups got sold out, she discovered Mumbai's taste for adventure. Why else would people be happy dining at a hair salon, an interior store or an art gallery?

The most celebrated dish from Bihar, litti chokha, is at the meal's centre. In Bihar, litti (dough balls stuffed with spiced gram flour) as well as chokha (mashed, spiced vegetables, particularly brinjals) are roasted on an open flame. So it would be cooked on smouldering embers in rural areas, grilled on a sigdi in small towns and cities and deep fried or baked in an electric oven in urban homes. As it's served with a number of accompanying dishes, Dolly plates 10-11, including sarson machli and khada masala chicken with whole spices. During winter, peas and red channa, which grow well on the banks of the Ganges, are very popular, so her menu features pea dal, pea puri or peas fry. Biharis are proud of their home-made paneer; Singh makes a kofta gravy with hers. Dessert is lotus seed kheer, roasted sooji halwa, pidikiya (it's like karanji) and in winter, khaja.

Enquire at: Facebook Page HOME CAFE/98190 38599 (Home catering orders for small groups also accepted)
Weight on Wallet: `1,000-1,200

Andhra Ahara

Unlike other dosas, pesarattu, made of moong dal is made of fresh batter rather than fermented

Unable to find a dedicated Andhra eatery in the city, a plucky Srividya chucked her job in corporate finance to open the all-veg Gonguura in Andheri. Since its launch in June, it has become a haunt of both Andhra and non-Andhra customers. Though similar in many ways to other south Indian cuisines, Andhra food is way spicier. Another significant flavour profile of the region, sourness is captured with the tamarind-like tangy gongura (sorrel leaf), from which the restaurant gets its name. Gongura is served in many forms—as pickle, flavouring for dal or even cooked by itself as a vegetable. In Andhra, almost every vegetable is pickled; you’ll find at least 50 varieties of mango pickle with the average household stocking three to four. And podis (spiced powders), made from a number of ingredients such as coconut, sesame, groundnut and urad dal, are either kept as table accompaniments or used as toppings. Their menu's most popular dishes are pesarattu (moong dal dosa that unlike others is made of fresh batter) and perugu vada (Andhra's version of dahi wada). Gonguura also offers a thali with nine dishes, and pappu annam and podi annam(mini-meals of dal and rice with two or three varieties of podis).

Enquire at: 022 26233052
Weight on Wallet: Thali `350,  Podi Annam `50

Sweet from Sikkim

Sikkimese sel roti Pic: Swapnil Acharya (CC BY SA 3.0)

One of the earliest home chefs to do pop-ups in the city, Gitika Saikia has become famous for introducing North Eastern food to Mumbai. Every month she does two pop-ups focusing mostly on her native Assamese cuisine (and sometimes the rest of Seven Sisters). Her menu, generally has five to six dishes showcasing the rural, tribal cuisine, and is never repeated as she only uses seasonal ingredients. All her veggies  come from her family kitchen garden in Assam.

Though she doesn't claim to represent Sikkim, which is also part of the North East, this year, she added to her menu the state's sel roti—a ring-shaped sweetbread made of rice batter. This popular Sikkimese dish belongs to Nepalis, one of the Sikkim's three main communities that include Bhutias and Lepchas. It's usually eaten as a main course, but she served it as dessert and for a twist, paired it with thickened milk rather than the usual aloo ka achar.

Enquire at: Facebook Page Gitika's PakGhor
Weight on Wallet: ` 1,400 -1,800

African Grub,  the Americas' Comida

North African: Charmoula spiced aubergine with broken wheat salad

On one Sunday, every two months,  friends and food bloggers Upasana Shukla Maheshwari and Payal Bhuptani host a world cuisine pop-up at Andheri's Road House Bluez, introducing diners to three-course meals from exotic destinations. Their North African fare featured treats from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria with dishes like charmoula spiced aubergine, harissa chicken tabilch, lamb tagine and a deconstructed baklava.
   

South American tricolour potato mash

As for the South American meal, cuisines of Peru, Brazil and Argentina were presented through dishes like causa rellena tres colores (tricolour potato mash), gallo pinto (rice and beans) papa a la huancaina (potatoes with a spicy cheese sauce). It’s not surprising that potatoes were prominent on the menu, as Peru has them in a range of colours and shapes that you don’t see in most international markets. As Spain and Portugal were the dominant colonial powers in the Americas, their influence is seen in the use of beans (popular on the Iberian peninsula and extensively used in the continent) in these places. Thanks to the European love of sweet and dessert making, the dessert in this region can be elegant and flamboyant, combining fresh tropical produce with refined European techniques. The duo showcase this through postre chaja’ with Brazilian brigadeiros (peach cake with meringue, chocolate bon bon and sandwich cookies filled with dulce de leche).

Enquire at: Facebook Page Dont Give A Fork or Blog (ladymacbake.wordpress.com)
Weight on Wallet: ` 1,200

*NEWEST: 29 States on a Plate
To offer us culinary gems from across India the new, all-veg diner, engineer-turned restaurateur opened 29 States at Kemps Corner last week