The Persuasive Pav

Mumbai’s popular vegetarian eatery lives up to its reputation with its first outlet in Delhi

Recently opened next to another vegetarian bastion, Sarvana Bhavan, is Bombay (not Mumbai) brat Shiv Sagar, marking its Delhi debut at Janpath. Rather more salubrious that its native avatar in Maximum City, the Capital’s first Shiv Sagar is a brightly-illuminated split level space with piped orchestral music and smiling servers ever-ready with menu suggestions.

The menu itself covers the street food of both metropolitans, complete with Chinese and south Indian, de facto degustations of Delhi and Bombay. The prices are comfortable, a meal for two setting you back Rs 500. We begin our meal with a sampling of the restaurant’s celebrated seasonal fresh juices; still frothy from the blender with sediments of fresh fruits, the juices are actually real, sans any added flavouring.

While we’re still sipping away the starters come: Chilli Idli and Bombay Sev Puri. The former immediately occupies front and centre, seemingly identical to your favorite (and ours) Chilli Potato. While actually made with deep fried cornflour-ed idli chunks, it is still tossed with onions and capsicum. That slightly mealy aftertaste, so characteristic of anything with starch, completes the illusion and we greedily hoard the snack, nibbling away at it indiscriminately through the rest of the meal. Meanwhile the sev puri comes in six mothfuls, ranging from crunchy (the sev) to pliant (the potato) to juicy (the pomergranate) and multiple flavours barring bitterness. Our entree is a Shiv Sagar standby, the Pav Bhaji, the subject of many moving multimedia reviews.

The Bhaji itself is, like Amul professes its flagship product to be, utterly butterly with more emphasis on the gentle simmering of vegetables. For our mains, we just get the Special Tawa Pulao with Raita. Comprising home style “fried rice” bejewelled with diced vegetables and an accompanying masala-spiked raita, the pulao is pure comfort food, never mind the weather.

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Sarvana Bhavan