Vada Paavs
I had heard lots and lots of tell about the famous vada-paavs of Mumbai. Lots.
An uncle even went far enough to suggest that, in comparison with McBurgers, vada-paavs would rule the roost; an exaggerated opinion seconded by many.
I had the opportunity last week to whiz by Mumbai on my way to my native town in Gujarat. Although my stopover in the city gave me little time to sample the culinary delights Mumbai had to offer, the train journey out of the Bandra terminus had more than enough opportunities presented to me in terms of the number of hawkers passing by.
(Aside: Train journeys are most fun precisely for this reason. One can have a little nibble/slurp of all the food and drink passing by. And there is a lot of food and drink passing by!)
The first hawker selling vada-paav got by me as I was busy hunting for change to pay the chaiwallah with. I caught him, though, on his return trip and quickly handed over one of my collected-specifically-for-the-train-journey ten rupee notes for four vadas and a two-piece paav bread. I examined my spoils with the glee only to get my first major shock.
Somebody, somewhere along the line, forgot to mention to me that, in Maharashtara, when one says the word 'vada', they refer to what is called an aloo bonda in South India.
Crud. Now I really am not a huge fan of most aloo dishes; especially in the cases of bondas and masala dosas. And I had in front of me *four* aloo bondas! I was so looking forward to see how what we call vadas here matched up with paavs.
Now that I'd paid for it, there was no way I was letting any of it go to waste. I stuffed the inedible mix down my gullet. It - was - not - tasty.
What kind of dumbass calls a bonda a vada, anyways? Estupido!