The Experience: As I wrote last week, I recently visited India, the Land of Hard-to-Find Beef. I spent the majority of my time in Mumbai, and during that time I visited a few of the sites that were attacked in the 2008 coordinated shootings and bombings that occurred in the city. The sites were targeted because of their connection to tourism and western culture (fancy hotels, a tourist-attracting restaurant, a Jewish community center, etc). As such, I felt a sense of pride seeing these sites completely rebuilt and incredibly well-frequented during my visit. Leopold Cafe was one such site, filled with as many foreigners as Indians thanks to its location near what I would have to consider the Times Square equivalent in Mumbai (Colaba Causeway).
I first fell in love with Leopold because they didn’t seem to mind that I brought in a bag of McDonald’s food with me. I came to find that in Mumbai, as long as you’re buying what the restaurant is selling, eateries generally don’t seem to mind if you bring a little extra inside with you. After eating my McDonald’s food, I was alerted to the fact that one of my companions had ordered a beef burger. I was initially wary; beef in India is hard to come by due to Hindu dietary restrictions, so I was concerned that what beef was served in restaurants could be of questionable quality. Still, even that fear and my general fear of putting unknown properties into my digestive system while in India couldn’t keep me from gleefully and excitedly taking a few bites from the burger once it hit the table.
Burger Ordered: Beef Burger
The Taste: It might not look like much, but the burger was actually pretty tasty. Maybe it was the special sauce. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t eaten meat in five days, which is the longest in my life that I’d ever gone without it. Maybe it was because the adrenaline from the dance I did after learning that a real burger was coming to the table hadn’t worn off. No matter the reason, I actually enjoyed what I ate of this burger. It didn’t hurt that the Kingfisher had been flowing.
The Verdict: I have to be totally transparent and admit that starting the next day my digestive system was completely messed up for over a week. I don’t have enough evidence to prove that it was the burger that did me in. My body might just have finally given up on all of the local cuisine that I had been enjoying in extreme abundance. It’s also not uncommon for westerners to simply get sick while in south and east Asia because our bodies just aren’t used to the environment. So all that said, if you’re going to get a little sick anyway, you might as well enjoy a burger from Leopold, because it’s not bad at all.
Leopold Cafe is located on the corner of Colaba Causeway and Nawroji Furdunji Street in Mumbai, India.
