Fishing for compliments

Mumbai's seafood restaurants are coming out of their shell. They no longer pass off their recipes as Malvani. They're proud of the south Indian cuisines they serve

- VIR SANGHVI

One of my crazier moments in front of the camera came when I shot at Gajalee, the celebrated seafood restaurant at Vile Parle in Mumbai. One of Gajalee's claims to fame is that the restaurant keeps live crabs in the kitchen. When you order a crab dish, a man comes along with a tray full of live crabs. You choose the one you want. When you next see it, the crab is dead and smothered in masala.

Except that the shoot did not go according to plan.

The crabs crawled out of the tray and invaded the table. And your columnist, brave Gujarati that he is, sat back awkwardly, rooted to his chair, as the crabs took over the dining space.

When I shot at another famous Mumbai seafood restaurant, Trishna for Somebody Feed Phil last month, the only crab we saw had been killed, shelled and brought to the table as a mound of butter-soaked flesh.