r/Northeastindia

I love watching Sunrise especially the Sunsrt, going to the jungle for exploration, rivers, streams, the fresh air, sitting alone at night watching the moon and stuff

HELLO FOLKS. While writing about the history of Mumbai food, I thought why not use my own food and travel experience to review restaurants in Mumbai too. And what better place to begin than Nagabelly in DN Nagar.

Mumbai, compared to Delhi and Bengaluru, has always been a bit poor when it comes to decent North Eastern restaurants. Nagabelly started as one of the few exceptions to the usual half baked North Eastern fare in the city. I have been ordering from and visiting Nagabelly for the past couple of years, but when they opened a bigger outlet next door with a more extensive menu, I thought, why not?

Since there were two of us, we decided to try a flight of local fruit ferments (beer but I don't think they are technically allowed to say that), a salad, a main dish, and dessert to finish.

Starting with the flight of fruit ferments, Nagaland is a dry state, but unlike Gujarat and Bihar, where drinking comes with its own moral policing, the Nagas have a long tradition of brewing local ingredients, mostly rice and fruits, into beers and wine. Personally, I still think nobody can beat the Mizos when it comes to turning local ingredients into something genuinely tasty. Coming back to Nagabelly, their flight was a bit of a letdown. The sticky rice one was the best, probably because it is the most familiar brew. The roselle and gooseberry were nice too, mostly because of the tartness. The rest were pretty forgettable. Nagabelly used to do a nice hibiscus fruit ferment too, and I have definitely gotten properly high on that before.

Next on the menu was the Wahan pork mosdeng. It is not really a Naga dish, more Tripuri than anything else. The pork was good, and the cherry tomatoes added an unusual twist. The lettuce, though, felt like it had no business being there. If you want something healthy and still edible, it is the right choice. The version you get on the streets of Agartala is more robust. This one is the gentrified cousin.

I thought the crispy pork knuckle would be enough, but the size and richness of it completely caught us off guard. General Naga food is not usually this fried or oil based, but this was a proper treat. Good quality meat, deep fried, with Naga chilli chutney and oil, is basically the hitchhiker’s guide to gluttony. I have never eaten a deep fried dish like this in my travels to Nagaland, but I suppose this is from the owner’s own tribe, so fair enough.

We ended the meal on a sweet note. Nagaland, and the North East in general except Assam, does not really have a dessert culture in the usual sense. But after the missionaries and Western Christian influence, cakes have become fairly common there. The banana butter cake was oven fresh and very soft. The strawberry added a nice touch. The compote was decent, but the vanilla ice cream was a bit generic and unnecessary for a cake that can hold its own. Marie Antoinette would have been proud. Note, we went there in the last week of January, so the strawberries are probably not on the menu anymore.

Overall, the new Nagabelly is spacious and feels like a slightly fine dining take on North Eastern cuisine, with a lot of pan Asian dishes on the menu too. I do not blame them. They need to make money. An authentic Naga restaurant without fried rice or noodles on the menu would probably shut shop in no time. But yes, it is a good addition to the usual canteen style North Eastern places in Mumbai.

I am starting this vertical of Mumbai Food Talk on Instagram as well. I am trying to handcraft my reviews so they feel a bit more genuine. Hope you guys appreciate it. Will be back soon with more stories and reviews.

Here's the link to the instagram post. Please follow and spread the word
https://www.instagram.com/p/DWvUbbTl4Md/?igsh=OWwyejJhYmx4cThp