Serving it smoky, fiery, with bhakri… eateries experiment with misal

PUNE: The humble misal was a non-judgmental item when it was introduced a century ago as a cheap, filling meal for the less-privileged, labour workforce in Pune. Today, it is a dish that foodlovers dissect ingredient by ingredient. So you have animated debates over the spiciness of the tarri (curry), the pungency of the onions, the appropriateness of pav vis-avis bread slices to accompany the mix, the redundancy or otherwise of pohe and mashed potatoes in the dish, and the battle for taste-wise topper from among Pune, Kolhapur, Nashik and other cities in Maharashtra.
The kind of misal served has remained unchanged at the older joints in the city, which probably didn’t think a low-cost dish needed innovation.But staying true to form also earned loyalty, as amply seen by the number of regular visitors devouring bowlfuls of green tarri at Pune’s first misal outlet — the 107-year-old Vaidya Uphar Gruha near the railway reservation office at Raviwar Peth. Vaidya has been serving the green tarri since it set up shop, and stuck to it even after the red variety became more or less the norm in eateries that sprung up later.
Now, a newer generation of traditional food entrepreneurs is willing to experiment with the dish, confident that it holds its own against the fare on menus guided by global trends.
The simple variation of cooking tarri on a wood-fired chul (stove) instead of on a gas burner draws the clientele to Saurabh Dadarkar’s Indiano Grill restaurant on Sinhagad road. The chul imparts a smoky flavour to his reddish-black tarri, which is prepared using a home-made masala. He says the masala is commonly used in the misals found in Khed village on the Pune-Nashik highway, which he replicated in his kitchen.
After the Khed variety, Dadarkar’s vote goes equally to the Nashik and Puneri misals. He doesn’t fancy the Kolhapur one, saying the spices that go in are a tad overpowering which suppresses the true taste of the dish. His own misal contains matki (moth beans) and chiwda made from dried pohe, sev and farsan. On weekends, he claims to prepare 50 litres of tarri.
A smoky misal is also on offer at Alok Thakar’s Damodar P30 at Bibvewadi. However, instead of cooking on a chul, Thakar puts a burning charcoal in the small clay pot containing the farsan.
Asked about the intriguing ‘P30’ suffix to his eatery’s name, Thakar says it is a tribute to the wholesome food one can savour in three peth areas that have a pincode ending with the number ‘30’ — Shaniwar Peth, Shukrawar Peth and Narayan Peth. An interesting sight at his outlet are the plastic water pouches hanging from the ceiling. Each of these have a clean coin within and their glimmer keeps the flies away, Thakar says.
At Vimannagar, Misal Ani Barach Kahi (Misal And A Lot More) restaurant offers three types of misals — one of which interestingly has a batata wada dunked in the matki-laced curry. They serve pav with the misal, but also offer bhakris if asked for. Tushar Kale (30), a partner at the restaurant, says two of their misals have matki and one green gram (mug). The only other ingredient in their misals is plain sev. They limit the number of ingredients in the mix to allow the taste of the masala come through in the tarri.
Mangesh Kale of Sai Chhaya Misal at Kothrud also believes in tickling the taste buds with his tarri, which is a unique black colour due to the use of a special kala masala. The tarri resembles a dark amti and people have no hesitation drinking an entire bowl.
Pankaj Karad, a former hotel management student and a foodie, is armed with a list of all the misal places in Pune. He claims to have eaten in around 90% of them, many times over at some. He also claims to be inching towards a milestone — eating his 1,000th misal at the notoriously fiery Nevale Misal outlet at Chaphekar chowk in Chinchwad.
This writer ate the extra spicy version of Nevale’s misal with Karad (he said it was his 974th misal there since 1996) and our sweat glands soon sprung a leak. The only way to temper the tarri is to pile on it more sev, gathiya and papdi, which incidentally are all homemade. But that would take away from the dish. Karad swears the misal has a sweetish taste at the end. The zesty tarri, fresh farsan and taste rollercoaster are probably what keeps him coming back for more.