Bademiya, Bademiya, chote miya, subhanallah! (Khushali P Madhwani)

“Bhaiya, ek plate chicken sheek kebab, ek mutton sheek kebab aur ek bedda roti!” Sounds familiar? Well, these are the items on the menu one dare not miss when at Bademiya. You can forget to brush your teeth while in Mumbai, but cannot miss a visit to this place. This roadside restaurant, serving off the tava prepared in front of you, is every Mumbaikar’s paradise.

Located on Tulloch Road (a side street between Colaba Causeway and the Taj Mahal Hotel) is an attraction for the foreigners as well. “I visit this country once in a year and I make it a point to come back to Bademiya simply for the succulent kebabs,” says Sandra, a visitor from Spain, who discovered this place while exploring the Mumbai guide.

After a long day shopping on the busy streets of Colaba or after a quick drink at a nearby bar, Bademiya is the best bet of this area. The owner of Bademiya, Mohammed Aslam says, “People come from all across the globe to eat food here. This place is my uncle’s baby and now my cousins and I have made it ours.” Five brothers together give Bademiya their heart and soul, round the clock.

The name came about when Aslam’s uncle used to sit here seventy years back, when it started. He looked like a “seth sahib” and all the clients back then started calling the place by Bademiya after the owner. Over time, Bademiya was christened. “My uncle loved to cook. He was passionate about every dish he made every day. We had to keep the legacy going and hence do this for our late uncle,” says Aslam.

The beauty of the place lies in the quality even though it is relished on the road. Shumaila, 25, HSBC employee and regular client at Bademiya says, “My friend and I make it a point to visit Bademiya at least twice or thrice in the month. We cannot imagine a month going by, without storing some ‘bedda roti’ in our tummies.”

Aslam and his brothers have looked at opening a chain of this restaurant across the county. “India is ours, if we get a chance we would love to expand,” says Aslam. The lack of man power was their biggest drawback to date, but now with Aslam’s children and his nephews, he hopes to expand his horizon. There are twenty people behind the success of this restaurant as of today. Anees Ahmed, a chef who has been here for around five years now says, “I will enjoy working for this chain for the rest of my life, even if it expands and I am posted elsewhere, my loyalty to this brand will remain for life.”

A business of about Rs 15,000 from 7pm to 2am, everyday is an achievement and for the owners of Bademiya, this is a cakewalk. Vivek Oberoi, Manisha Koirala, Jackie Shroff, Dimple Kapadia, Imran Hashmi, Dharmendar and Amisha Patel among others, are some of the big-wigs of Mumbai that frequent this joint.

Bademiya, according to me has the ideal feel of Mumbai, street food in particular. The crowd around your table ranges from the mundane to the extra ordinary. The hype and overrated impact Bademiya has received has caused the hike of prices on the menu. One may regret paying such an amount for street side food, till they actually experience the food.

The biggest plus point of visiting this place with a group of friends is the variety it offers for vegetarians. Limiting them to paneer and potatoes, but do they even get this at other such restaurants? So do not worry if two out of ten of your friends are vegetarian.

Seldom does Bademiya receive any criticism from any sources. And if it does, it is generally for the long wait to get a table. Most of the time, you parcel your dish if you do not get a table. The wait at a table is longer than the time one takes to eat the meal. The waiters refuse to cater to you immediately. A pen and paper is not the waiter’s best friend. He pretends to memorize the entire order and after a few minutes returns on the pretext of enquiring about the forgotten order. Water is something one can get faster from the sea four lanes away, than wait for the waiter to serve it. This I learnt from speaking with many people who have been to Bademiya several times.

Bademiya is not a joint that has to carve its niche in society, the name is already established and widely recognized. Indeed, as Aslam pointed out, “Bademiya, Bademiya, chote miya, subhanallah!”