The Well-Fed Bong

I cycled a hundred kilometres for Mumbai's most famous vada pao. Thats a bit of an exaggeration, I admit. Not the cycling, the fame of the vada pao. I discovered two crucial things on reaching Panvel - one, the McDonalds is not actually in Panvel (its nearly 4km before Panvel) and two, that watermelons are more common than vada pao there. No one in Panvel seemed to think that there was anything very famous about vada paos in Panvel; finally an auto-driver doubtfully pointed me to Wagesh. Wagesh turned out to be Wagesh Pao Bhaji Center,  a short diversion into the market near the bus stand. For someone with a famous vada pao, it was surprising that the only thing associated with pao on the signboard was bhaji, but I went in anyway. Its a tiny joint that's been around for forty years, serving various fried combinations of besan, batata   and bread to what seemed a surprisingly large customer base. The samosa was great and the misal outstanding. Their samosa is the flat, th...