For Mumbaikars Only: Three Best Places To Lunch Out

 

For Mumbaikars Only: Three Best Places To Lunch Out

Shrikant G. Talageri 

 

Eating is one of my passions (after listening to music, reading story-books/novels, and watching serials: this third is now very much reduced, but I still often watch Crime Patrol, Netflix and Zee Marathi (though, I spend most of the time in this last one cursing the storylines, dialogues, situations and character-portrayals); and, of course, writing articles and airing my views and opinions on anything and everything, whenever I feel doing so. It is in pursuit of the last of them that I am writing this article, which I admit would have been more suitable for a column in a Mumbai-based newspaper or magazine (but who will give me an opportunity to write in those places, and why should I when I have my own personal “magazine: my blog?).

Of course, with the passage of time (I have now completed 67 years of age) one’s gluttony and capacity to eat diminishes. But I have been thinking of writing this article since the last few months, and only hesitated because I felt a bit foolish to do so. But, since I am on an article-writing spree at the moment: here goes…

But a warning: I am a vegetarian (though I eat eggs since they do not involve killing living-and-feeling creatures: I will not enter into debate about this, since I have already written an article on Vegetarianism). So this will strictly be a mainly vegetarian list.

I will deal here only the three best hotels to lunch in (non-residential ones, which I am told should strictly be called “restaurants” and not “hotels”, but in India the word “hotel” is regularly used for a “restaurant”. and I use it in that sense here) and say a few short words on other breakfast and snack hotels, etc. while concluding.

I will start with the first and least costly one of the three (the prices are all as per today: 24 November 2025):

 

1. Gujarati thālī hotel just outside Borivli station (west), “Laxmi Dining Hall”. I will make clear that there are Gujarati thālī (or Gujarati/Rajasthani) hotels all over Mumbai, with prices ranging from 900 rupees downwards (and maybe upwards as well) offering a very wide range of items in the thālī, and each and every one of them will have its loyal fans. This particular hotel that I am naming does not have as large a range of dishes as the costlier ones, and there may be others with prices, taste and quality comparable to “Laxmi Dining Hall”, so this is not an absolute recommendation: it just happens to be my favorite at the price, and is as fully satisfying (in my opinion) as the costlier ones with the very much wider range of items. The location also makes it easily accessible.

The price (24 November 2025) without the extra limited “sweet” is Rs. 170. And with the “sweet” is Rs. 200.

 

2. My second recommendation is a strong one: “Sri Krishna Veg Restaurant” in the Nana Chowk circle (four minutes walk from Grant Road west). It serves a thālī which it advertises (on the board outside) as “Brahmin Uta” (Brahmin Lunch, in Kannada). It is an unlimited thālī served on a banana leaf, (unlimited including the buttermilk and the sweet payasam, which, in Gujarati thālīs, including the above, are not unlimited), and though the number of items is not unlimited, the taste, quality and richness are beyond words. In fact, I am surprised that it is not as crowded everyday as it fully deserves to be (though that is to my advantage): it may be lack of publicity and advertisement.

Actually, the restaurant is otherwise a costly one: once I took a visitor to it for tea, and to my amazement it was Rs. 85 for one cup of tea (more on this presently)! But no-one can deny that the quality of the food in this hotel is superb. And that makes the price of the unlimited thālī even more surprising:

The price (24 November 2025) is Rs. 299 plus GST.

 

[p.s. any friendly visitor to my house can expect me to treat him to this thālī if he wants: I like treating people to food and snacks].

 

3. Finally, the absolutely best lunch in Mumbai is the unlimited buffet at “Govinda’s Restaurant” attached to the ISKCON temple at Juhu-Vile Parle (actually Andheri west). It is unbelievable. Needless to say, the quality and purity of the ingredients, and the taste, are beyond comparison, and every item is unlimited. The number of items is staggering: starting with four kinds of drinks (two juices, buttermilk and jal-jeera) and ending with four rich sweets, a kulfi and one (sometimes two types of) icecream; and with an amazing range in between of all kinds of (Indian and non-Indian) starters, chaats, vegetable dishes, breads (i.e. puris, rotis, chapattis, parathas, etc.) rice and pasta dishes, raita, etc. More than half of the dishes have to be left untaken: they are too much for one stomach.

The price (24 November 2025) is Rs. 650 on weekdays and Rs. 750 on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

 

Before ending the article, I must touch upon other kinds of hotels and my views on them:

1. Other kinds of hotels and eateries in Mumbai include Maharashtrian hotels. I am not talking about the ownership but the food: those which serve Marathi dishes, especially of the “upavās” type (sabudana items, upavās misals, and many other items of similar nature, often made of potatoes and sweet potatoes) and other Marathi dishes (like kothimbir wadis, masale bhaat, zhunka bhakar, pitla bhakar, etc. and even Maharashtrian thālīs and in the month of Shravan, upavās thālīs).

There are many such hotels, especially in and around Girgaum and Dadar, and perhaps in Thane, and doubtless in many other areas. The most well-known are the various “Panshikar” hotels (not all apparently part of a chain or having common owners). My favorites are “Prakash” and “Saandu” in and around the Girgaum area.

[One idiosyncrasy of many of these hotels is their rigid adherence to particular week days for particular items].

On another note, there is a famous Maharashtrian hotel at Lamington Road (Grant Road east) called “Chaphekar”. It is old and popular, established in 1928 (and apparently frequented by many of India’s prominent freedom fighters), and still one of the very good hotels for all the typical Maharashtrian food. But what I particularly remember about this hotel is its unique missal, which was different from other Maharashtrian hotels which serve a particular kind of Maharashtrian missal. Now, the old missal seems to have gone extinct, and what you get now at “Chaphekar” is not even the typical Maharashtrian missal, it seems to be the kind of missal you get in South Indian hotels in Mumbai!      

 

2. I cannot talk about hotels without special reference to one of the most iconic hotels in Mumbai, which was situated at Nana Chowk, Grant Road west:  “Jai Hind Cold Drinks”.

I can only quote what I wrote about it in an article in 2015:

“the shop which I consider probably the classiest and most memorable non-starred eatery in the whole of Mumbai: Jai Hind Cold Drinks beside Belgaum Ghee Depot in Nana Chowk (with Café Mazda, another memory, on the other side of Jai Hind). This shop was famous mainly for its wide range of ice-creams, jellies, kulfis, faloodas and sweet set curds (in flavours like chocolate, mango, pineapple, strawberry, kesar, etc.! Can we get fresh curds of this kind anywhere in Mumbai today?). Even more striking was its classy antique ambience: glass tables, glass statues and glass fountains, and rows of glass cupboards all around with thousands of glass ice-cream bowls arranged inside them in rows of different colours! The closure of Jai Hind (now a plywood shop stands in its place) was, in my opinion, nothing short of a crime.”

 

3. I spoke about the “Brahmin Uta” at the “Sri Krishna Veg Restaurant” in the Nana Chowk circle. This same hotel also has a superb unlimited breakfast in the morning, only up till 10.30 AM. This is the most superb unlimited breakfast I have ever seen, given the taste and quality of food in this hotel: it includes (besides the idli-wada-dosa-upma-shira items, the shira made in pure ghee with jaggery instead of white sugar) items like Mangalore buns and ragi-sevai-upma. Surprisingly, tea and coffee (more than one if you want) are included in the price: surprising, given the price of one cup of tea if you visit the hotel at normal hours.

The price (24 November 2025) is Rs. 175 plus GST on weekdays and Rs. 250 plus GST on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

 

4. There was another unlimited buffer I had quite grown to like. It was at “Global Fusion” (the particular branch at Atria Mall, Worli). others in my family had been to it many times, but they eat non-veg food (which can probably be made “vasool” to some extent at the rate charged). I was repeatedly told that there were equally delectable veg. dishes, but I did not think it was worth it (at Rs. 900 for the veg. buffet six years or so ago). But I went once, and found that unlike most other such veg. buffets, there was quite a variety of different East Asian veg. starters and dishes which would be hard to find elsewhere, and I particularly liked the Continental soups (I detest Chinese soups). So, sometimes I also accompanied them. However, the prices kept shooting up, until it is now around Rs. 1500 or so (which I personally don’t think worth it). So it has been a long time since I have been there.

[I will not talk here about any of the countless other new hotels springing up all over Mumbai, all posh, expensive, and catering to the rich, modern and internationalized sections of  Indians].

 

5. While praising so many hotels, it may be bad form specifically mentioning a hotel in the opposite way, especially because the hotel in question is “Govinda’s International” attached to the ISKCON temple at Chowpatty (Grant-Road, west). But, to be true to the purpose of the article, I must mention it, not just because the lunch thālī here contrasts sharply with the unlimited buffet at “Govinda’s Restaurant” attached to the ISKCON temple at Juhu-Vile Parle, since nothing compares to that buffet. But because it contrasts sharply with the lunch at the above-mentioned lunch at the “Sri Krishna Veg Restaurant” in the Nana Chowk circle which is at a distance of just 10-minutes walk from this one:

This thālī is fixed and limited at Rs. 450, the “Sri Krishna” one is fully unlimited at Rs. 299 plus GST.

This thālī gives white rice and maida rotis and a roasted papad, the “Sri Krishna” one gives a choice of white rice and brown rice, four types of breads (whole-wheat parathas, bajra chapatis, jowar chapatis and ragi chapatis) and fried papads as well as one other variety of fried items (palak-bhajias/cutlets/dalwadas).

This thālī gives two types of vegetable dishes which can be got in any hotel anywhere (it was paneer masala and mixed-veg masala when I went there), the “Sri Krishna” one gives two types of unique coconut-rich traditional vegetable dishes from Karnataka not found at many places.

And, for what it is worth (I mention this for those who would like the ambience), the “Sri Krishna” thālī is served on a banana leaf with all the traditional condiments:  salt, pickle, liquid chutney, chutney powder, curd chillies, and also a velchi banana.

[I often visit the beautiful ISKCON temple at Chowpatty (my brother more often), and have the greatest respect and veneration for the temple authorities, rituals and social service activities of the temple. It pains me to have to write the above about the lunch at a hotel attached to this temple, but I respectfully believe the hotel functions separately from the temple in this matter].  

 

5. Talking about South Indian restaurants, sometimes sweepingly referred to as “Udipi” restaurants, there are countless other very good ones in every nook and corner of Mumbai, too many to be named here, many of them very old, famous and popular. I think anyone will be able to get information about them from many other diverse sources, or from friends and acquaintances among Mumbaikars with a fondness for some particular one of them.

But I will mention one restaurant which I had got into the habit of frequenting in the last ten years or so (although it has been quite some time since I have been there): a hotel called “Shardha Hotel” in the Matunga Labour Camp area (included in the greater Dharavi area) in the heart of Matunga East. Apart from purely Tamil variants of South Indian dishes, it has a unique dish called “egg dosa”. Yes, I am now stepping into the “egg” zone. Someone told me about it, and I went all the way to try this dish. What attracted me most was the purely ethnic, antique Tamil atmosphere of the shop: the highlight was the huge antique menu board on the wall which gave the name of every dish in three alphabets: English, Hindi and Tamil: the only such hotel that I at least have seen in Mumbai. But suddenly, one day. a few years ago, the owners changed the board and put up a new board which gave the names only in Hindi and English. I was so put out that I asked the owner (I assume the person sitting on the counter was the owner) why they did that. He seemed surprised at the question and told me the board was an old one and so they put a new one! He did not seem to think it necessary to explain why the Tamil names were removed. I was as infuriated as any Tamil activist could have been, and even toyed for some time with the thought of taking up the matter with the DMK party office in Dharavi (I believe there was or is one there)! The hotel is still as iconic as ever, but in my opinion it has lost its unique ambience.

 

6. Having gone on to eggs, I must mention my favorite restaurant in the Muslim Bhendi Bazar area of South Mumbai, “Café Shaheen” at Nizam Street, Bhendi Bazar., where I have often been having shahi dal fry, mixed tarkari fry, chana masala fry, and bina-mirchi omelettes with chapatis and biriyani rice.

 

As I am ending this article, I must point out that Mumbai is a multicultural metropolis, and there are probably many iconic areas and hotels/shops where the cultural culinary delicacies of different parts of India can be had:

There are Sindhi hotels in Mumbai (though my favorite “Geeta Bhavan” at Navjivan Society, Lamington Road has closed down decades ago), but, apart from Guru Kripa at Sion,  the main traditional Sindhi food hubs are in Ulhasnagar to the north of Kalyan.

Punjabi food is, of course, everywhere, and in every kind of hotel. Perhaps, authentic Punjabi food may be found in little-known dhabas in different places: I cannot specify any particular one.

For U.P-Bihar items like litti-chokha, I have just discovered a shop in Andheri east and one in Bhandup west. Of course, most street-food sellers of chaat items in Mumbai, like pani-puri, bhelpuri, etc., are usually people from U.P-Bihar.

There are many shops/hotels selling Parsee and Goan food particularly in different parts of South Mumbai and Bandra. Again, I cannot specify any particular one. And of course, there are typical Mumbai dishes like pav bhaji available everywhere.

There are probably centers of Bengali food in particular parts of Mumbai (and I am not referring to the ubiquitous Bengali sweets available everywhere). We in our area get a taste of authentic Bengali food (and Bengali music and rituals) during the annual Durga Puja celebrations of the Bombay Durga Bari Samiti at Tejpal Hall behind August Kranti Maidan. My favorite items are the amer chatni and the unique Bengali bhajias (I wonder if they are coated in rice flour rather than gram flour). A few years ago, I bought a gopichand (a Bengali stringed instrument) at one of the stalls, which still adorns my book-cupboard.

Having said all I wanted to say, I am ending this article at this point, with a paragraph from an earlier article: “What can make a true Chitrapur Saraswat’s mouth water more than the thought, smell or sight of special bhajyo, randayo and godshe items so dear to our community (refer Rasachandrika, that iconic cook-book of the community) like ambya sasama, amble ghashshi, alsandya ghashshi, karatya sukke, batatya sukke, gadzra godzzu, kakde kosambari, patrodya panna alvati, kairasu, chauchavu, kulta saara, avrya bendi, bhoplya bajji, ghosalya ambata, vali ambata, madgane, cheppi khiri, surnoli, shevai rassu, phansa pattolyo, sukrunde, bogdela, undio, appe, khotte, doddaka,  etc., right down to the down-to-earth basic bhanap dishes like hot batatya songa or talasani and hot dali toya or kholmbo?”