Sweet endings in the city

Bombay bhel chikki

No matter which part of Mumbai you're from, there'll always be a farsan or a hot chips store around the corner, stocked with glistening packets of chaklis, gathia, banana chips, chivda, sev, wafers, and all kinds of fried and roasted munchies. While brainstorming a savoury version of the too-sweet chikki, Girish Nayak, chief mithaiwala at Bombay Sweet Shop in Byculla, and his team headed to one such farsan shop. Potato, bhel, sev, gathia, salli, chakli, among other snacks, were then randomly picked up by them, and tossed into hot, melted jaggery. The sweet result: Bombay bhel chikki (Rs 180).

"To add a little bit of a pucker to each bite, the chikki bar is finished off with a special in-house spice mix. Coincidentally, a lot of our favourite snacks even go into Bombay's iconic bhel, and hence came the name," Nayak shares. True to its name, when we bite into the chikki, a burst of flavours reminiscent of our first bhel indulgence at crowded Juhu Chowpatty greets us. We try to identify the elements - there's the murmura, peanuts, sev, gathia, and are those spiced curry leaves? Not a fan of the cloying sweet chikki, the farsan and the spice mix offer a spicy, chatpata balance. Brownie points for the thoughtful train journey-inspired packaging, which informs us how chikki was created as a high-calorie energy bite for railway workers.

Bombay's three-layer chocolate fudge. Pics/Nimesh Dave

The mithai shop, known for its fun take on traditional sweets, has also whipped up what they call Bombay's three-layer chocolate fudge (Rs750), an ode to the dessert that Lonavala trips are incomplete without. Nayak's version brings together two layers of chocolate peda sandwiched with a silky dark chocolate ganache, topped with a brittle til patti-like peanut cashew chikki - a combination that led to members in the newsroom polishing off every crumb. The peda lends a lightness to the otherwise dense dessert, while the chikki adds a nutty crunch. When we ask Nayak what it takes to condense a city into a bite, he muses, "I've spent my childhood in Manipal, near Udupi. As a kid, I always looked forward to my family coming from Bombay, carrying chikki and Lonavala fudge. And, no trip to the city was complete without visiting Chowpatty or Juhu beach and having its mouth-watering bhel puri! These fond memories inspired me to create these flavour combinations."

At Bombay Sweet Shop, Dadoji Konddeo Cross Lane, Byculla East.
Log on to bombaysweetshop.com
Call 9136192636