A ramen festival and meals in a bowl

Meal bowls at Smoke House Deli, Mumbai

Whether you’re eating a bowl of porridge for breakfast or soup for dinner or a poké for lunch, a bowl meal brings a sense of comfort that no other dish can. Here are two kinds of bowl meals in Mumbai this week.

Bowlful of Soul at Smokehouse Deli

We keep going back to Smoke House Deli for their sumptuous bacon-wrapped chicken with sausage stuffing (it can serve two really), but we now have another reason to return to the restaurant. They’ve just launched a new bowls in a meal option on the menu, called Bowlful of Soul. Yes, the name’s a bit cheesy, but one bowl meals are just the thing we love. If you like seafood, try their shrimp mulligatawny bowl, which has fragrant kaffir rice with shrimps mixed in a thick, flavour-packed Indian-style soup (more rasam, actually). They also serve a bowl of barbeque spare ribs with fennel rice sprinkled with some fresh coriander leaves, and a meal bowl of chilli chicken spiced with charred cajun peppers, served with some warm vegetable salad. There’s something for vegans too: chickpeas with wilted spinach and orzo aglio olio, topped with tomato and lemongrass dashi. The meal bowls are available through the day at all three outlets of Smoke House Deli in Mumbai.

Ramen Festival at Loco Chino

Loco Chino has just launched a ramen festival at all of its five outlets. Choose from a hearty bowl of broth filled with prawn with ginger and celery or the kimchi and lemongrass ramen if you’re vegetarian. This is ramen tweaked to such a degree that you’d be better off not comparing it to the real thing or risk being sorely disappointed.