South India: Mumbai: Chetana Restaurant

Chetana Restaurant

Colaba, Mumbai

The last leg of our trip was in Mumbai. I must say that Mumbai has a lot of very nice restaurants with different regional cuisines. We went to Chetana because they advertised a high tea special, which appealed to us since we had skipped lunch.

Chetana is an all-veg place located close to the Taj Hotel. From the high tea menu, we decided on a couple of small bites with our masala chai.

Moong dal bhaji (fried dumplings) and veggie biryani. The dumplings were freshly made and vanished rather quickly.

As we were finishing, we noted that Chetana was starting to prepare for the dinner crowd. Out came the dinner menus, the tiny candles and the cloth tablecloths. From the specials, Chetana looked like it had really good thali, northern-style. I ordered the regular thali and DJKung got the Rajastani thali. Thalis are all-you-can-eat affairs; sadly, our stomachs were unable to do justice to the food.

More fried dumplings for starters. Amazingly, these fried little babies were never too greasy nor too heavy.

Yeaaa! This is Superfatty's plate. You can get fresh naan or chapati (or both), and an assortment of sides. On right, which got cut off, is a nice cold mango puree made from Alphonso mangoes, which were in season,

Fresh naan with butter. In the foreground is a ginger-flavored dumpling.

Needless to say, we were quite stuffed after our high-tea-cum-dinner affair. DJKung felt that with great food like this, anyone can go vegetarian!