First Time in INDIA Trying REAL INDIAN FOOD!

In this video I'm almost getting run over. We made it to Mumbai, India. This bread, you're right, it's awesome. This is our first time in India. Everyone we talked to said we need to try this and we're going to try all the food this country has to offer. We are traveling around India making a multi-video series through this epic country. This is both of our very first times visiting India and we were lucky enough to be staying with our friend for the first few nights in Mumbai to The very first Indian meal we ate was a home-cooked vegetarian Maharashtrian Amati Dal. Maharashtra is the state of India we are currently in along the western coastline. And yes, India has 28 states with different cultures, languages, and cuisine. This breakfast was delicious and a great start to fuel us before exploring the city. We're on a little walking street, leather walking, and overall I have to say the city is ridiculous. It's so big. I've never seen anything like that. Not even Bangkok or anything can compare. However, there's a good amount of green in there, very humid climate I guess. And this one is one of the more calm streets. And they just have apartment buildings everywhere. But yeah, nice trees and stuff. And we're just ubering around. And also these rickshaws, the tuk-tuks, they're called rickshaws here. So we keep going around. I like it. We made our way to South Mumbai, participating in a walking tour to see and learn more about the history of the city. We started at the Fort District of Mumbai, walking around and learning more about many architectural landmarks and their historic significance. I really enjoyed learning about the history and heritage as we walked around the streets. We even came across a large park in the city which was full of cricket matches. As we moved further south, there were more sidewalks and buildings that felt like we were back in Europe. Our tour ended at the waterfront and the Gateway of India. Gateway of India right there. That's the gate to India. If you go out, you're in Europe. If you come back in, you're in India. The last British occupancy left there in 1948. The Gateway of India. That's where they walked out of the country, like, bye-bye. This area is just for the gateway to look at. It's caged in. So if a mass panic breaks out... There's the Taj Mahal. Yeah, the Taj Mahal, straight there. It's the Taj Mahal Hotel, the most famous one of the city. And apparently, the building architecture is patented so no one can replicate that. And we looked it up. It starts at around 500 euros per night. A little higher than our budget. With all of that newfound knowledge and exercise, we built up an appetite, timed perfectly for lunch. For lunch, we went back up north to the Varsova area of Mumbai. This restaurant offers a curry tasting so we could test out different types of curry bases before ordering larger portions. This was honestly perfect for noobs like us to try and have someone explain to us a few of the many curry flavors of India. All right, so we are at a South Indian restaurant here in Mumbai with our lovely friend Shruti. We're doing a curry sampler right now. We just tried a whole bunch of different curries. The majority of these were completely vegetarian-based and you can put your own protein in there if you want chicken, if you want lamb. And this was a mutton base, which is a lamb base. I think we all liked this one the most, which was like a coconut onion-based red curry. What was that one called again? Madras curry. It all tastes so good. And then we have a coconut rice, a tamarind rice, and a lemon rice. So the point of this is you can just sample it and see which one you want, and then you order the main meal. You can order the main with rice or any of the bread. There's more than just naan in Indian food, so we're going to try a little bit of decisions. We'll make a decision. We put in our order for the curries and enjoyed some starters while we waited. We ordered some veg and non-veg starters, as they say in India, and Phil is trying out a vegetarian jackfruit cutlet, the first time this German is eating jackfruit. I love just eating with my hands and I can't wait for the main to come out. The beauty of Indian cuisine is there are a ton of vegetarian dishes that are actually flavorful and delicious. A large amount of the Indian population is vegetarian, so it's very easy to find hearty vegetarian dishes. As an omnivore myself, I didn't miss the meat in some of these dishes. They were much better than the vegetarian bean burger patties that I've tried in the past in the USA. We ordered two other starters, which is a lentil-based fritter, and kotu parota, which is a type of street food dish consisting of shredded parota tossed with egg, spices, and gravy. I like a lot of super soft chicken, like so slow cooked and just super nicely flavored with the sauce on top. Can't go wrong with that. And after devouring our starters, we were ready for the main courses. All right, so we decided on two curries. We got a vegetarian and a non-veg. We went with the madras curry here, this coconut one with chicken, boneless chicken. And then we got this chettinad curry, which is made with black pepper base, and it's a vegetarian one. And I'm gonna start with this one. These bowls are pretty hot. Just gonna move it closer so I don't spill. And I'm gonna scoop some on here. And this is your favorite type of bread? Malabar parota. Malabar parota. It's this flaky, beautiful bread. Look at this. It's freshly made. It just, it feels so good. It's a little oily, and I'm excited to just dig into this. So here we go. It's this coconut-based curry with some spices in there. Not too spicy or anything though, and it's so good. This bread, you're right, it's awesome. We have two other types of breads that Phil will give a try afterwards, but this so far, at this point, Phil is foaming at the mouth. So he gives the veg chettinad curry a try. This version is more black pepper based with vegetables like carrots, green beans, cauliflower, and Phil found a potato. Oh, is that a potato? I think I might have found a potato. His first curry vehicle of choice is the appam. It's very thin. It reminds me a little bit of a lighter version of the bread you get in African restaurants a lot. Very spongy flavor. Yeah. It's pretty nice. Appam is a thin style of pancake bread made of rice batter and coconut milk. We got the ratio here, right? That looks good. Curry is very nice. The bread does not have a very strong flavor itself. It's more of the vehicle to transport the curry into your mouth. That's all you need. We also ordered an idiyappam, which is popular in South India. It's rice flour pressed into noodles and steamed into this round disc-like shape. This one allowed the curry to soak through the noodle cracks, and it was honestly so much fun trying these different vehicles to transport the curry. We thoroughly enjoyed this meal and definitely overordered, but there's always room in our stomachs for dessert, or at least in my stomach. So we have here mysore pak, which is made with ghee, flour, sugar, and cardamom. This is a dessert from South India, and it's apparently going to melt in my mouth. Let's give it a try. It's just dissolving. It tastes a little bit like cookie dough almost. Wow, this is nice. A nice sweet ending to our delicious meal. At this point, we were sufficiently stuffed and wanted to see more of the city. We hopped on a rickshaw and made our way down to Bandra, a coastline suburb of Mumbai. Not everywhere was walking friendly, but we just loved walking around and wanted to get a feel of different areas of the city. So this area is Bandra, and we just passed Meboop Studios, which is like a film studio apparently. The architecture is a little different, also the vibe. We're in this back street, way chill compared to the main streets. Apparently, there's a lot of Portuguese influence. Yeah, that's why the buildings look a little different. It's one of the most wealthy areas of Mumbai. I don't know. This street, people are just walking their dogs, and it's just surprising how calm this area is compared to the rest. Mumbai is a hub for the Bollywood film industry, and as we walk through Bandra, we pass some murals of iconic Bollywood actors and actresses. Some of these streets are unreal and feel as if we're walking through a movie set. Well, this whole area is very tight, very tight, narrow alleyways, a lot of traffic still every now and then. You have some food shops, and I think over there, a little bit of a market section as well. Yeah, this definitely feels a little bit more like Thailand or Vietnam in the back alleys. As you can see, these are not the most walkable areas, but Phil and I really prefer to walk over driving whenever we're in a new city. Also, guys, we do these travel and food videos every week, and we're going around Asia now, but we're traveling the world and trying the food everywhere. So if you're interested in food or traveling and you're new to the channel, maybe consider subscribing and sticking around. And if you want to further support us, you can do that at patreon.com slash dianandphil, where we make additional monthly videos of behind-the-scenes of our travel. And a quick shout out to our family tier patrons, Ethan Mitchell, Heather Kuffner, Hessan Metro, Tarek Malkosh, Klaus Eisart, Lee Lim, Robert J. Kasper, Marianne Demert, Sherry and Keith Dennis, Jessica Saransak, Jeff Standen, Debbie and Ray Gordon, Micah Mann, and James Lovecamp. Thank you! And let's just say we definitely hit our step goal today since we walked around until well after sunset seeing some of these sites. Like some of the many churches still standing today in Bandra West, we even passed some Bollywood celebrity apartments and strolled along the Beachwalk Park, all while building up an appetite for our final meal of the day. All right, so for dinner, we're in this other restaurant right in the heart of Mumbai. It's a Maharashtrian restaurant, and this is South Indian cuisine, Maharashtrian cuisine, and Goa cuisine. And we have a couple of dishes. We started out with these nice green-looking dumplings, rissois de panier, or rissois de panier. These are cottage cheese puffs, which are filled with a mixture of cottage cheese cooked in milk, onion, and green chili paste. So, very common vegetarian option here. But let's go with these cottage cheese puffs. Very nice. It's pretty hearty. It's not really spicy, but it's really spiced. You know, it's very flavorful. The cottage cheese itself does not taste just like cottage cheese, but kind of like enhanced cottage cheese. You can taste the onions. You can taste a little bit of pepper and spices in there. And then this nice green chili paste that is kind of like in the batter, I guess. They're super nice. So, the second appetizer we got is called bombil, which translates to Bombay duck, which is not a duck at all. I thought it was going to be a duck. It's actually a fish. It's a deep-fried battered fish. It's a type of lizard fish. It's very common here. And it's often served with a chutney. There's a few chutneys we have here and spices, but we have this one here. I'm going to go ahead and put it on this nice fish and give it a try. Here we have it, our nice battered fish. Everyone we talked to said we need to try this if we're in Mumbai. So, here we go. Yum. All I'm tasting is the mint chutney, and it's so good. But it has a nice deep-fried vehicle to shove into my mouth. So, here's a nice fish piece. Deep-fried, it's usually marinated a bit. And our friend who is from here said that even vegetarians know about this dish, even if they've never eaten it, because the smell is so strong. The smell process of cooking it. Now that it's cooked, it's not too strong and potent. Oh, that's quite nice. I'm from South Carolina. I'm a sucker for battered deep-fried food. It's my guilty pleasure. And I really like this. Quick bite of the fish. Oh, it's so soft, very crunchy, and then it just melts in your mouth. The fish part literally melts. Very oily, but that's a nice feeling. It just becomes this flavor explosion of oil with fish paste. Very nice. So, for our main dish and basically the reason why we came here, we have this beautiful white curry. It is called Kolhapuri Pandhara Rasa, which literally translates to white curry, but it is a white gravy with meat. So, it is meat in coconut milk, green chilies, and almond paste flavored with spices. And then you have the choice between chicken and mutton, and we've gotten the mutton version. Yes, and they served it in these little bowls for us as well. They serve every dish, honestly. So, very common in these slightly better restaurants is that they come and serve your food for you. Very interesting. But here it is. It kind of looks like a pale gravy, which it is with the meat in there. All the rice here is always flavored with something, which I really like too. And then, what is this bread called? Chapati. And a chapati bread. So, I'm gonna give it a go without any side. A piece of mutton meat right there. And I hope it's good. It kind of has the consistency of a very creamy soup. Like, it's fairly fluid. And it also tastes a little bit like a soup. One thing I absolutely love about the Indian food is everything with bread. I don't even really need the rice. I love it with bread, man. Dipping. Dipping is just fun, isn't it? It goes so well with any curry and apparently also any gravy. All right, so I'm gonna give this one a try. I like lamb, and lamb is often a protein option here, so. And it melts in your mouth. That is a nice piece of meat. It just falls apart. Very good. The white curry itself isn't crazy flavorful. It's also not very spicy at all. I can go for spicy. And for some spice, we have this green chili option here. I can dump these. Yeah, that's actually proper spice. Is this blasphemy? Am I not allowed to do that? That's a lot. Oh, whoa. No problem. Fine. Definitely made it spicier, though. It's good. I'm ready for spice. Give me the spiciest thing you got. All right, so the food in that restaurant was very nice. I have to be a little critical, though. They did apply a service charge of 10 percent and then two more charges of 2.5 percent each. So you really have to pay 15 percent more than what is advertised on the menu. And I'm starting to see more and more nicer restaurants in Asia doing that. So apparently they're doing that here, too. And I can't say that I really like that. As a German in Germany, they don't do that. In the U.S., it's a very common thing. Yeah. And unfortunately. All right. Unfortunately, it seems to be that they take the U.S. as an example for that and do that here, too. However, this shall be the end of this food tour here from Mumbai in India. And this is just the beginning of our India adventures. Yes. And next, we will be testing our stomachs with some street food. So stay tuned for the next video. This is just the beginning of our Asia tour. So see you soon. Bye. I feel like I'm pretty overwhelmed by the humongous beast of a city this place is. But it's really interesting and I like Indian food.