The people of Maharashtra enjoy eating their own fast food like Pav bhaji and Bhelpuri instead of hamburgers and hot dogs. Most of the Mumbai snacks are extremely hot and spicy. Pav Bhaji is a mix of a variety of vegetables and spices and Bhelpuri is a chat eaten widely by the people in Mumbai. Other snacks available are Vada Pav and Pani Puri. Vada is made of boiled potatoes coated with Gram flour batter and deep fried in oil. Pav is a round shaped bread. Vada Pav is known as the hamburger of Mumbai. Pani Puri is a light snacks made of puffed puris, sprouts and spices. There is a variety of snacks available in this city and people just love them. Some of the famous places in Mumbai to taste the legendary fast food is khau Galii, a small laneway off Zaveri Bazaar packed with food stalls, serving delicious food items. These mouthwatering dishes are also available on the beach stalls of Chowpatty and Juhu.

Other Delights
Apart from Maharashtrian vegetarian recipes, many other dishes are also available here like soups, chidva etc. Shrikhand is a sweet dish that is eaten with puris. Shira and Puran Poli are other desserts prepared specially on puja occasions. Besides these, Chikki is a famous sweet preparation of Mumbai, which is also gaining popularity outside the state.

Drinks in Mumbai there are many cafe shops and tea stalls are available offering different varieties of coffee and tea. Delicious fruit juices are available at juice stalls. They come in exotic varieties such as mango, custard apple and lychee. A good range of foreign beer is also available in Mumbai.

Mumbai is a food buff’s delight. Here the variety of food available is more than anywhere else in India. You get a good variety of food here ranging from roadside snacks to fast-food and from ethnic food to five-star cuisine.

A vegetarian Marathi platter or thali consists of recipes such as curries, rice, sweets etc. The thali system in Mumbai is very common and most preferred meal, as it contains a complete diet of a person. It is inclusive of - 4 chapatis, pulses, vegetable, curd, rice, salad and sweet-dish optional. Among the other well known dishes of Mumbai are Bombil Batata Bhaji, Kamag Kakri, Solachi Kadhi, etc.

Similar to the coastal states of India, Marathi food also contains lots of fish and coconuts. Vegetables are an integral part of the diet here, just like in all other parts of India. Grated coconut is used in many dishes, but coconut oil is not used as a cooking medium most often. Lots of Peanuts and cashew nuts are used in vegetables and Peanut oil is the main cooking medium of Maharashtra.

Mumbai owns some of the best selected restaurants in India. These restaurants offer a wide variety of food. Gujarati thalis, Muslim kababs, Mangalorean seafood, Parsi dhansaak, North Indian tandooris and Goan vindaloo are just some of the names of the dishes available.

Dadar: Dadar is another major shopping area. It is a good place for buying cotton clothes, saris, and children clothes. The place has big departmental stores and the general atmosphere is of great fun. Dadar is having so many shopping malls and multiplexes also for shopping. These malls & complexes include each and every type of shops which includes Apparels, electronic shops, Gift stores, Boutiques etc.

Zaveri Bazaar: Zaveri Bazaar is famous for its silver jewelry and other silverware such as napkin rings, photo frames etc. But you need to bargain hard and it is better to compare prices in a few shops before buying. Zaveri Bazaar is the main retail centers for gold and diamonds, and nearby Pydhoni for silver. It has excellent jewellery that has international quality ranging from simple glass bangles and classical necklaces to ornate folk art and elaborate costume jewellery. Scores of jewellers line the narrow streets in Mumbai’s oldest bullion market.

Taxi drivers get nervous when you tell them you want to visit Zaveri Bazaar (Sheik Memon St.; Mon-Sat 11am-7pm). You’ll soon discover why. Shoppers and space-fillers shuffle and push their ways endlessly through narrow gaps in this cluttered, heaving market, and it’s often impossible to inch forward by car – or even on foot. Behind the street stalls and milling masses, glittering jewels are sold from family shops.

Chor Bazaar: This is the place where one can find curios and most of the wanted items at prices, which seem so unreal. Don’t be carried away with its name. It is a good place to see many unusual goods on sale. This is Chor Bazaar, where you can haggle and get a Gucci look-alike at an Indian price. Smuggled goods abound. Chor Bazaar literally means “Thieves Market". The adventurer buyer may come across curios and quaint collector’s items and may even chance upon a genuine antique. This is Mumbai’s famous Thieves Market where bargain-hungry tourists rummage for Ming vases at throwaway prices.

Chor Bazaar is located near Bhendi Bazaar. You will find each and every type of article, such as antiques, hardware, tools, wooden carvings, statues, figures, silver coins, engines, you name it and they’ll probably have it and sell it a reasonable price.

The main avenue is Motton Street, flanked by rows of little antique shops that look like musty attics and sell just about anything from old ship parts, grandfather clocks and gramophones, to crystal chandeliers and old English tea sets. Others offer authentic Victorian furniture, wonderful for browsers, antiquarians and restorers. Although bargains are sometimes staggering, most of the shop owners are pretty street smart, and could easily take a self - styled aesthete for a ride, so brush up on your art before you go.

Crawford Market: Named after Arthur Crawford - Bombay’s first municipal commissioner, Crawford Market is the wholesale market for fresh fruits and vegetables in Mumbai.

Crawford Market was set up in the building donated by Cowasji Jehangir to the city. It was the main wholesale market for fruits in Mumbai until 1996. Now renamed as Jyotiba Phule Market, Crawford market is poised between what was once the British Fort and the Local town. Crawford Market is a blend of Flemish and Norman architecture with a bas-relief. It is a wholesale market for fruits, vegetables, flowers, meat and poultry products. If you visit only one market, make it Crawford Market (Lokmanya Tilak Marg and Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji Rd.; Mon-Sat 11:30am-8pm), Mumbai’s quintessential fresh-produce shopping experience.

Crawford Market looks like something out of Victorian London, with its sweet smell of hay and 50 ft high sky lit awning that bathes the entire place in natural sunlight. Mountains of fruit and fresh vegetables are sold here at wholesale rates and next door there’s also meat and poultry section along with stalls selling smuggled cheese and chocolate. Crawford Market is at the northern end of the old British part of the town, facing the crowded inner city. An elegant covered market, it dominates the skyline with its clock tower and steeple. Crawford Market, also known as Jyotiba Phule Market, situated at the junction of Dadabhoy Naoroji Road and Carnac Road was built in 1871. The market is in the center of a whole network of lanes where the shopper can pick up almost anything.

Eternia & Shoppers Stop: Eternia at Breach Candy and Shopper’s Stop at S.V. Road in Andheri are two famous shopping malls in Mumbai. Eternia is an international shopping experience for women and stocks everything that a contemporary woman could ask for. Shopper’s Stop is spread over three floors and caters to the requirements of men, women and kids.

Eternia is indeed an international shopping experience for women - apart from Premsons Bazaar, one of the trendiest addresses in Mumbai. Shopper’s Stop has burgeoned into a 75,000 square feet shopping experience, covering three floors. It has every thing that women, men and children could ask for.

Bandra: Better known as the “Queen of Suburbs", Bandra is the residential abode of film stars, industrialists and other powerful elites of the city. Linking road, which joins Bandra to Khar is full of showrooms of big brands. But the place also has a number of pavement sellers to cater to people from all sections of the society.

Linking road is the only place where peoples from different cities come over there for shopping for their personal use and also for business purpose as they may be in the trading of garments and some of them may be in the business of retailing of garments.
But the striking contest here is the pavement selling which adds to the thrill while you walk out of a posh showroom.

The famous essence of perfume industry in India had its prime ingredient called Itar. Although the Itar is now only concentrated towards Kanuj in U.P., right here in Mumbai you could get a sample of it the way it used to be. Yes, walk into the famous Mohammed Ali Road and shop to your heart’s content for Itar, embroidery and Zari work besides artifacts and souvenirs.

Breach Candy and Kemps Corner, down the hill from the Hanging Gardens are also popular for their trendy clothes. Wonderful stuff for summer wear, and you can also pick up sequined and embroidered silk blouses and skirts to wear in the evenings. Kemp’s Corner is the Junction of Khambala Hill and August Kranti Maidan situated near Nana Chowk. Breach Candy is a popular spot for shopping renowned departmental stores in Mumbai being Benzer, Amarsons, Premsons, Hastkala, Raymonds and Sheetal.

Besides the markets, Mumbai offers great departmental stores for the tourist in a hurry. Three mentionable places to shop in Mumbai are Eternia at Breach Candy, Shopper’s Stop on S.V. Road in Andheri Chembur and Mulund and Crossroads near the Haji Ali Durgah at Tardeo.