PRIVATE Mumbai Market Tour & Vegetarian Cooking Class with Shilpa

Experience Indian cooking

Learned the basics of Indian cuisine with a wonderful host. The food tasted excellent. Also went to the store with Shilpa and while spending time with her learned a lot about India’s daily life also! Happy to have met her!

via Viator

This was a lovely experience whilst visiting Mumbai!

If you would like an insight into local Indian cooking then this cooking class is a great thing todo. A warm welcome from Shilpa, in her home in Mumbai. We observed some prep work using a pressure cooker which highlighted its benefits and ease of use. We visited a local market/supermarket where Shilpa pointed out local produce throughout the store explaining how it would be enjoyed, which was interesting. Wholesale fresh markets obviously open very early therefore not suitable for visiting when our class was for 10am. We then started the cooking, both observing and taking part, and drank a healthy digestive aid which was nice. We cooked several dishes and later enjoyed eating these. They tasted amazing! I am gluten free and this was no problem at all. Nutritional tips of healthy eating were given throughout. Finally we tried an interesting dessert made from carrots and pistachios which was very tasty. It would have been nice to have spend the remainder of our time learning how to cook this. We would recommend taking time out and meeting Shilpa and attending her class.

via Tripadvisor

Beautiful experience

Shilpa is a wonderful host that allowed us to prepare and experience home-made Indian cuisine and get a taste of the local culture… Definitely recommend it!

via Tripadvisor

3 hour cooking class from ex chef!

Very lovely lady and talented cook. The food was simple and delicious. We were taken around the local grocery store and given a thorough education on the local foods. Then back for cooking. Really good! Highly recommended!

via Tripadvisor

We didn’t cook but food was tasty

Enjoyed meeting Shilpa, her and her husband were quite friendly. Recipes were simple, healthy, and tasty. For me, this was unfortunately more of a ‘watching’ class than a cooking class. We did not participate in cooking: her cook did the chopping and she did all the sauteeing. The extent of our participation was rolling out roti dough balls prepared by the household cook which was interrupted after the dough got a bit sticky. Additionally, we did not go to an outdoor market but to a neighborhood supermarket for 10 minutes and did not buy anything. If you prefer to actively cook and learn by trial and error as part of your experience, this class may not be for you. In previous cooking classes I’ve been to, each group has their own small cooking station to prepare their own meal as instructed by the teacher. As Shilpa’s recipes were quite tasty and she was receptive to feedback, I’m looking forward to hearing how this class develops in the future.

Response from the operator: Dear guest, Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review and for your valuable feedback. We are so glad you enjoyed your experience with our host but are so sorry that you didn't receive the experience you expected which was an open market tour and more of a hands-on cooking class. We take feedback seriously and reached out to our host Shilpa to understand why you didn't receive the experience that was described. Our goal is to surpass our guests' expectations and in this instance, we clearly failed. Please accept our sincerest apologies. We discussed your feedback with our host Shilpa. She mentioned she took you to a supermarket instead of the open market because May is the hottest time in Mumbai and the heat would have made it a very uncomfortable shopping experience. However, she should have communicated this to you ahead of time and we would like to refund you for the experience you expected and did not receive. Shilpa has also has decided to consistently offer indoor grocery store experiences moving forward because of the heat, rains and crowds in Mumbai now. It is hard to predict when the open market is convenient to visit so we have changed the venue for consistency. This is also where Shilpa and other locals shop anyway so she is looking forward to having guests experience her local shopping experience and introduce them to the variety of spices, fruits and vegetables in a more comfortable environment. We have updated the description to more accurately reflect this. (Since most stalls at the open Dadar market also close by 9am we plan to offer a separate market tour experience listing that starts at an earlier time.) With regards to not receiving a more hands-on cooking experience, Shilpa has agreed to ask guests how involved they would like to be in the cooking process and give guests a more hands-on lesson if requested. Her previous guests didn't want to get their hands dirty so she reverted to offering more of a demo but moving forward, guests will be given a choice. I truly appreciate your feedback as it helps us improve. We couldn't link your TripAdvisor name to a booking name in our records so please would you email us at "reservations@travelingspoon.com" so we can provide you with a refund? Thank you! Aashi

via Tripadvisor