Eating Out...

Among all the local junk food, the one I like best is the onion bhajia, better known as kande bhaji (the ‘a’ silent in the bhaji). Recently I had it in a busy little town on the highway between Savantwadi
and Ratnagiri.

Among all the local junk food, the one I like best is the onion bhajia, better known as kande bhaji (the ‘a’ silent in the bhaji). Recently I had it in a busy little town on the highway between Savantwadiand Ratnagiri.

It is essentially a traveller’s food, also a drinker’s food, though it goes very well with afternoon tea. The onion strips are deep-fried dark, along with the bhajia dough, the dough tightly clinging to them, very crisp on the outside. When you bite into them, you get the onions in the mouth, but minus their offensive odour.

The quality does not differ much from place to place. A lot depends on the oil in which it is fried, if the oil is bad, the better the bhajia tastes. In the far north of UP, in the dhabas along the Bhagirathi and Mandakini, they fry them in mustard oil. It gives the kanda bhajias a slightly rancid taste. After a few plates, you start enjoying it, and miss it when you return to your insipid vegetable oil.

The ones I had between Savantwadi and Ratnagiri were made in vegetable oil, but they were excellent, the onions firmly clustered together. I could get the aroma of the onions frying from the highway, and my nose led me to them. They were being cooked and served simultaneously, as onion bhajias usually are — totally fresh. A plateful was a generous plateful, spilling over on the table. And there was a thin brownish chutney with it, made from groundnut, I think. Some people serve raw chillis, or fried chillis, with the kande bhajias, I like that -- bite into them.

I had a cup of tea with it, chaloo not special. You should always have chaloo tea at small restaurants, they are just right, the specials have too much milk and sugar. And the tea had a kick to it, after the bhajias.

The town, as so many towns in Maharashtra, or in India, was stretched along the highway. They never have too much depth, everybody likes to stay by the highway, and all the shops are there. And the restaurant itself was busy, most people were having pauva, which is Maharashtra’s breakfast dish. And a very sensible dish at that. And some people were having sheera, which I do not know whether it is pure Maharashtrian or borrowed from the southern upma.

The kande bhaji is Maharashtrian, no doubt about that. The Shiv Sena hand-carts sell it outside Churchgate station, and you cannot be more Maharashtrian than the SS hand-cart. They fry it on the spot in overused and reused oil, and they serve it with the garlic-coconut-red chilli chutney powder. That is heaven, I would any day have it to zunkha bhakar.