Mumbai Masala Toast Sandwich Carts

The masala toast sandwich is Mumbai's most democratic lunch, and its natural habitat is the pavement outside an office building. Across the Fort business district — the stretch bounded roughly by Flora Fountain (Hutatma Chowk), Horniman Circle, Kala Ghoda and Churchgate station — handcarts park under awnings and street trees from mid-morning, each one a compact kitchen on wheels: a plank of white bread, a block of butter, a jar of vivid green chutney, and a tray of wafer-thin potato, beetroot, cucumber, tomato and onion.

• Clerks, law interns, art students and shopkeepers queue two and three deep and eat standing up, and the whole transaction rarely takes five minutes.
• The vocabulary is worth learning before you order.
• A plain sandwich is cold and simply stacked; a toast sandwich goes into a hinged iron clamp; and the masala toast — the version most visitors are sent here for — adds a layer of spiced mashed potato before the clamp is shut and lowered over glowing coals until the bread darkens at the edges and the butter crisps.
• Ask for cheese and a hand-cranked grater buries the top in a snowdrift of it.
• Ask for extra masala and you get another dusting of the black-salt-and-cumin chaat masala that makes the whole thing taste unmistakably of this city.
• The chutney — coriander, green chilli, and a little garlic or coconut depending on the cart — is the thread that ties it together, and most vendors will go easy on the chilli if you say so.
• Many will also leave out onion and garlic on request, though the potato and beetroot filling means a masala toast is not suitable for a strict Jain diet.
• There is no single address to aim for, because the carts are a floating institution rather than a fixed market.
• In Fort and Churchgate they cluster thickest between about 9am and 11am and again from 5pm, thinning out on Sundays when the offices are shut; station-side clusters near Dadar, Matunga, Vile Parle and Ghatkopar run more steadily through the week.
• Monsoon afternoons scatter them, and the cool, dry months are easily the most pleasant for eating on your feet.
• Watch a cart for a minute before joining its queue: high turnover, freshly cut vegetables and clean water for the knife are the signals you want.
• Carry small notes, and step out of the footpath traffic to eat.
• For a sit-down vegetarian meal afterwards, Fort, Churchgate and the lanes running north towards Kalbadevi are good ground.
• Udupi-style restaurants serve idli, dosa and rice plates from breakfast onwards, Gujarati and Marwari thali houses do unlimited lunches, and juice counters press seasonal fruit all day.
• Mumbai is also a major seafood and non-vegetarian city, so many all-day restaurants serve fish and meat alongside vegetarian dishes: look for a board that says pure vegetarian and confirm at the counter before you order.
• The sandwich carts themselves are usually vegetarian-only, but a few also handle egg — a quick look at the cart's board, or one question to the vendor, settles it.