Nida Mahmood’s restaurant Junglee Billee is whipping up the food sold by hawkers in different khau gullies and chowpatties across Mumbai with a twist. Shrabasti Mallik checks in
There are places you go to eat, and then there are places you go to buy customised furniture and expensive pieces of jewellery. But step into Junglee Billee and you can actually do both. It is one of those rare places where you can place an order of the chair you are sitting on, along with a rather exciting dish of Khandvi chaat. The chair (or a similar looking couch) might take a week or two to be delivered but the chaat will reach your table in about 15 minutes or less.
Junglee Billee is designer Nida Mahmood’s brainchild and the interiors totally reflect her quirky, colourful and vibrant self. The food, however, is quintessentially Mumbai street food. Think of ragda pattice, bun maska and cutting chai, keema pav and khandvi — chef Pawan Bisht will give you all, with a special twist of his own.
The starters come in small portions, in a really fancy presentation, taste intact. We had the vitamin kurmure bhel and the khandvi chaat and they were about the right mixture of tangy and salty. The khandvi, especially, was very soft.
You can try their starters in chicken and fish. They are cooked in a tandoor instead of being fried for the health-conscious but tasted quite as delectable. We would recommend you try their Junglee Billee signature keema pav. It is hot, spicy and even though your tongue would ask you not to pick another one, you would find yourself drawn to a second helping. You might like their prawn aglio olio and moong daal chilla taco, too. The chilla had a filling of what tasted like paneer keema, which melted in the mouth but left our tongues burning. And it’s best to use your hands for this, you cannot really eat a taco with a fork and a knife.
We were a little disappointed with the Bhaijaan mutton seekh. Although loaded with the right amount of spices, the seekh blocks were a tad dry. The Iranian berry pulao with mutton was a treat, though — nicely cooked and very aromatic. The meat was tender and fleshy and was sauteed quite well with spice and condiments.
For desserts, the chef treated us to a very sweet Maumbai mava cheese cake. It was delicious and we could not stop but take one bite after another. But we suggest you try their grandma’s apple pie, also.
If you are in two minds about why you would choose to drop in at the Junglee Billee, may be the chef’s reason of what it is about Mumbaiyya food that makes it special will help you make up your mind. “The cuisine of Mumbai has been shaped for centuries by the Koli Fishermen, Muslim Sultanates, Hindus, Portuguese and British colonists. It was a trading port for years which helped in getting a different style of cuisine to the city from outside of India and internally also. For all these decades, the taste of food at these place have not changed because the legacy has been transferred from generation to generation by the seasoned hands of all these communities to their children’s. So the legacy, standard, taste, different cuisine, consistency makes the menu special and outstanding which has never changed for decades,” the chef said.