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Pittu and baabath in a humble little shop off Malay Street draw hundreds of customers
It’s simply delicious
By Smriti Daniel
They come in hordes to this pittu and baabath shop; they come on rainy days and on hot days; they come so often that it sometimes seems as if nothing could keep them away for long; they come to this place where there are few chairs and only one table and they bring friends, family and even the odd stranger with whom the only thing they have in common is a hankering for a good meal. On occasion they refer to themselves as “foodies” – lovers of good food. And if there is one thing any foodie worth his salt knows it is this – good food is often found in the most unlikely of places.

This place is so popular, that it doesn’t even need an official name. Ask anyone on Malay Street for the pittu and baabath shop and they’ll point the way. The shop opens at 4.30 in the evening and closes by 9 at night and yet in that time it does brisk business.

Baabath or tripe, is the main ingredient in many of their dishes, and appears in such specialities as the baabath curry and pastols. For those who have so far lived in ignorance, a pastol is a pastry stuffed with tripe and when it comes crisp and steaming it’s a temptation that is hard to deny. Other specialities on the menu include the likes of fried lung or liver along with less exotic fare such as beef and fish patties. However, it is the beef and marrow bone soup that is quite literally, the hot seller. Best on cold, rainy days, it is a broth one customer described as “absolutely divine”.

At first glance, it is a humble little shop that serves this delicious fare and yet its customers come in their hundreds. People from all walks of life frequent it and no one in the neighbourhood is surprised to find the business executive parked outside in his fancy car eating side by side with labourers from down the street. This is made possible mostly by competitive pricing - you can have your bowl of soup for Rs. 30 and a pastol for even less (Rs. 12). Very often there is not enough space inside and so people sit wherever they can – on stairs, on pavements and in vehicles – while they eat. Many choose to take-away the food.

The proud owner of this establishment is Kabeer Sappideen, who shares this responsibility with his wife Nona Uma Sappideen and seven children – two boys and five girls. “My wife learnt the recipe for the dishes from my mother,” says Mr. Sappideen, adding that his mother in turn learnt it from her mother and her mother learnt it from her mother – his great-grandmother. It is from these Malay ancestors that the current Sappideens have learnt the art of making the perfect baabath. This involves intensive cleaning followed by boiling sessions over a wood fire that last more than a day to ensure the meat is tender and well cooked; ditto for the beef marrow bone soup.

“The business has been in the family since 1942,” he says. Mr. Sappideen himself has had something of a colourful history, having been a cook on board various ships for nearly 25 years of his life. “I have been right around the world,” he says, “the only place I haven’t seen is Australia.” He goes on to give a list that is as dizzying as it is long and seems to truly include every place under the sun –Japan, Dubai, Somalia, Abidjan, Egypt and South Africa to name a few. He is also something of a linguist and can lay claim to knowing Greek and a little bit of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese in addition to being fluent in Tamil, Sinhala and English. He knows how to cook Greek food and says he picked it up while serving on a Greek cargo ship.

“I used the money I made on the ships to build this place,” he says, proudly indicating the room we are sitting in and the two storeys above it. He goes on to explain that the building is relatively new as it was only built a year or so ago. Before that the shop was located on Malay Street instead of its current Ferry Lane premises. In the middle it had been closed for a few months. “I was planning on closing it,” says Mr. Sappideen, “but then my customers told me that they would sue me if I did not sell my pittu and baabath curry again.” He points out a small brown bench tucked into a corner and says that for a while that was all the seating space he had to offer his customers and that too was on the pavement.

It is obvious that there have been difficult times, especially because he has so many mouths to feed. However, he expresses a lot of faith in his family, and hopes in particular, that the family business will continue into the next generation. It is far from being an unlikely possibility, thanks to a devoted clientele.

“I have been eating here for 20 years,” says Dominic Sansoni, one of the island’s most celebrated photographers, “and I have found the food has always been consistently good.” Simple but delicious food is such a pleasant break from the usual and there are no unpleasant surprises - “the menu hasn’t changed in years”, he says. “You can always find your favourites here.”

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