By Aakash Karkare
Kara's resident curmudgeon writes about his favourite subjects; gentrification, Bombay ethos and a hipster cafe he loves to hate
Veronica’s has a lot going for it, even though it’s only a year old. It has a good selection of international and local wines, kombucha on tap, and has finally gotten a microbrew on tap. It’s located in Ranwar Village in Bandra West, which is slowly turning into a hipster paradise even though Birdsong has shut down. The bread is baked fresh daily in-house, the decor is cute and Instagram-friendly, the coffee goes down easy, and the staff is chatty and friendly. It offers sandwiches one had heretofore only seen on YouTube videos and heard about on NYC sitcoms like Seinfeld: Nashville Hot Chicken and pastrami on rye. There’s even a board at the entrance advertising tarot card readings and blind dates with bibliophiles; a hyperlocal classifieds that thrills the heart.
The place has been brought to you by the folks behind Bombay Canteen and Bombay Sweet Shop with the history each has baked into the foundation of the restaurant. Celebrated chef Floyd Cardoz lived down the road and the location was the original home of Jude Bakery which advertorials written to celebrate its opening say is where many a Bandra resident got their daily pao supply.
Over the past year, I’ve found myself sitting inside its buzzy colourful interiors four, five maybe even six times with pretentious millennials like myself tucking into sandwiches and fried goods and kombuchas and iced coffee and the occasional wine or three while listening to the early 2000s indie-music playlist typical to such establishments. Each time I have gone I have said to myself that I shall never visit again, that Veronica’s stands for everything I hate about what Bombay, the city of my birth, is turning into and yet somehow I have kept going back. Perhaps, I think to myself, if I go often enough I will be able to unlock another piece of the puzzle that is my complicated relationship with the city.
Even before Veronica’s opened, before I went the first time, I already had one key bias. I do not like sandwiches. Putting vegetables and protein between two slices of bread seem like an egregious waste of ingredients. If you do indeed trust the prowess of your bakers then roasted garlic, butter or olive oil along with some spice should be all that is required to enjoy it. And if you are going to batter fry chicken or prawn then let me enjoy the crunch without soggify-ing it. Besides the best sandwich in all the world is available in almost every street in Bombay--the humble masala toast served with a dollop of fiery green chutney and a sprinkling of nylon sev.
No, no you don’t get it, you must be saying to me dear reader. You are a philistine, you must be thinking. You simply do not get sandwiches, you might want to say. You don’t know about the Philly cheesesteak and a reuben and various versions of banh mis and Italian cold cut sandwiches, you might want to admonish. It’s not the fault of the artist if you cannot understand true art, you might want to scold.
Well, here comes the next part of my bias, or perhaps hubris. I believe I can make a better sandwich given a similar amount of time and resources than anything served on that menu. I will go on to add that I have done so several times in my home kitchen but that is a conversation for another day over the best BLT or chopped cheese sandwich anyone anywhere is going to partake of.
But one of life’s few visceral pleasures is trying out new restaurants and partaking of flavours you might not otherwise have been exposed to. On my first visit, which took an hour and half’s waiting because instagram reels are popular I have discovered, I tried the “Pass the Pastrami”. The first knock against it was that it wasn’t served on rye and the second knock against it was that this was not the kind of food to enjoy on a date. The meat was chewy, I don’t know if that’s how it’s supposed to be, and since the pieces were not bite-sized the sandwich began to fall apart. I wolfed down the rest as delicately as I could manage and the date continued to Yacht next door where even though the wine was Sula, it was a far more pleasurable experience.
The next few times I went with my friends during the day where there was no waiting, and another time with my sister who heard the loud music at 5pm and surveyed the fashionable dressed Bandra crowd and simply commented: “this is too cool for me”. Daytime visits meant that I could partake of the coffee which I must admit is quite good and the fries and popcorn prawns; also quite good. But if you make bad fried food then you have to be sent to food jail and not be allowed to run a restaurant for the rest of your life. Despite my misgivings I tried the Nashville Hot and as predicted it was better after I removed it from the bun.
Even though I do retain a fondness for the interiors and general vibe, and the friendliness of the staff, the chatty waiters as well as the bean bag graffiti, something about Veronica’s gets my goat that I am simply unable to figure out. The problem could partly be social media. I have been to several restaurants in the past year from no-end to high-end and there have been several meals I have enjoyed that were far better and yet it is this restaurant that I see populating my Instagram feed or written about and celebrated by newspapers that still have features sections. I am well aware that this could be a me-problem and not a Veronica’s problem.
Some of my disdain could stem from seeing things like the 375 rupee chilli cheese melt that is available at 60 maybe 100 bucks at best outside and the addition of naga hot honey doesn't do that much for the taste or that there is another cafe in what used to be a sleepy Bandra village that is now endlessly crowded by the SUVs of the patrons of restaurants like these that populate the rest of the lane. Maybe it’s the content of the conversations; all startup and finance in a city that is increasingly turning its back on art and things that I find meaningful. Veronica’s, like many Bombay restaurants, feels like a place created to shut out the rest of the city while branding itself as part of the its ethos.
I know that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I am as much part of this culture as the next guy. But like most writers I see myself as something of a cultural critic. That how many ever articles and advertisements try to convince you otherwise, this is not the Bombay we must celebrate. If you believe that songs like Mumbai Meri Jaan are not lying or that the end of Maximum City is not a sham then the spirit of Mumbai is somewhere outside Veronica’s.
There are several other places in Bandra itself where this is possible. I used to work down the road from Veronica’s for a couple of years, and every day for lunch, since I couldn’t be bothered to cook my own or order from Swiggy, I’d walk down to an Irani cafe and have kheema and roti (to be a little healthy) and wash it down with oversweet chai and a cigarette. Opposite Veronica’s is Yacht. It is where you can drink side-by-side with all kinds of people, enjoying drunken conversations with strangers while puffing away on a cigarette. From Soul Fry to Rangsharda to Pjs--the list is endless. Food is far superior too: chorizo fry, prawns koliwada, bombil fry, bacon wrapped shrimp, beef chilli and of course my favourite; chakli and shezwan sauce. On a difficult day, on a Friday evening, on a Saturday afternoon on a day when good food and good conversation and alcohol is sorely needed to elevate the spirit, nothing at Veronica’s can take you out of yourself like these aforementioned places can.
Should the sole purpose of eating out be to fork over a lot of cash to partake of an Instagram-inspired culture of going out? Food and kitchens and eating and drinking seem to be the last bastions of egalitarianism in a divided unequal city ravaged by capitalism. We need more spaces where we can forget ourselves even if for a moment and these places shouldn’t shut out the city but let it in warts and all.
Veronica’s, or any restaurant for that matter doesn't have to speak to its times. Nor correct the wrongs of government policy and crony capitalism. No one save for politicians have that responsibility. It only becomes a problem when you visit a restaurant that is selling an idea of Bombay to you while embodying everything that is wrong about it. All the things that on your best days you do not want to buy into but somehow end up doing anyway because maybe transcendence could just be another meal away.
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