As people who actually went to St. Xavier’s (and we understand there’s no way to write that phrase in a manner less condescending), we have to say it’s a great place to make memories. Not all of those memories are good ones mind you, but at least a fraction of them are. Some of our fonder memories of college that don’t involve varying degrees of substance abuse were at the Xavier’s canteen, or as WE Xavierites like to call it, the foyer. And while our foyer isn’t even technically a foyer, it is still a beautiful place. Not literally of course, it’s just that the food’s really nice. This isn’t the nostalgia and Tuborg speaking, it’s blunt objectivity.
Before we talk about how good the food is, we’re going to, in the spirit of The Bombay Report, bash the venue for a bit. The seating at the canteen is pretty awful; the chairs look more ancient than the college. They say you haven’t really studied at St. Xavier’s unless you’ve gotten at least two splinters from the furniture. They don’t actually, but they really ought to update the college motto. Then there’s the bit about there being no internet connectivity so you can’t Instagram pictures of your BMS Pav, that’s just brutally medieval #instagood.
Now let’s get to the food, we have to admit we’d gotten pretty fed up of it by the time we reached my second year, but looking back, we realise how great it really was, it wasn’t just delicious, it was pretty cheap too, and with none of that funny business of having to buy coupons like at Mithibhai. So after much consideration and taking extreme precautions, we cannot disclose (to make sure we didn’t bump into any former classmates who’d ask why we’d thrown our lives away), we dragged the team down to St. Xavier’s to do a kickass review of our favourite foods.
1) Schezwan Sada Dosa
Price: Rs.35
We’ve had some spicy dosas in our day, and St. Xavier’s schezwan sada sits somewhere firmly in the middle. It’s crispy, but not particularly crunchy, and a little grainy, which is slightly disappointing, but not a deal breaker. When you consider the fact that it’s just a third of the price of most of the dosas we’ve reviewed on this site and they whip it up in four minutes (just like Madonna) it starts looking pretty damn amazing. We liked the sambar, but they were all out of chutney by the time we got there.
2) Chicken BMS Pav
Price: Rs.50
Despite it being named after our mortal enemies, we’ve always loved the Chicken BMS Pav. Like most of the food at St. Xavier’s, it’s absurdly spicy and covered in enough onion to induce a state of permanent halitosis. But it did give me the opportunity to do one of my favourite things, bitch about how inflation is ruining our country to the younger generation. It used to be 35 bucks back in the simpler times of 2013. Also, fuck BMS.
3) Chicken Schezwan Frankie
Price: Rs.45
It’s the little pleasures of life like chicken schezwan frankies that make us thankful that we didn’t go to a college ruled by vegetarians. We understand that including two schezwan items on the same list is a bit odd, but hear me out, why on earth would you call for anything else when there’s schezwan on the menu? Exactly. The best part about the Xavier’s frankies is the eggs they use. Rumour has it they have their own chicken coop from which they source their eggs. It’s a rumour I’m pretty confident we started.
If you do find yourself sneaking (which is technically trespassing) into St. Xavier’s college but aren’t too keen on the stuff we just mentioned you could always go for the Hong Kong Rice or the (and I swear by all the Gods that this is real thing) Chicken Cotton Blue.
TBR Tip: Getting into Xavier’s isn’t too hard post 3pm when most of the day’s lectures are over (just tell them you have to meet a professor). We personally hate eating at the foyer and you probably will too, so take your food across to the Woods (the Xavier’s garden) instead. Also, no shorts.
