No matter which part of Mumbai you’re from, there’ll always be a farsan or a hot chips store around the corner, stocked with glistening packets of chaklis, gathia, banana chips, chivda, sev, wafers, and all kinds of fried and roasted munchies. While brainstorming a savoury version of the too-sweet chikki, Girish Nayak, chief mithaiwala at Bombay Sweet Shop in Byculla, and his team headed to one such farsan shop. Potato, bhel, sev, gathia, salli, chakli, among other snacks, were then randomly picked up by them, and tossed into hot, melted jaggery. The sweet result: Bombay bhel chikki (Rs 180). 

“To add a little bit of a pucker to each bite, the chikki bar is finished off with a special in-house spice mix. Coincidentally, a lot of our favourite snacks even go into Bombay’s iconic bhel, and hence came the name,” Nayak shares. True to its name, when we bite into the chikki, a burst of flavours reminiscent of our first bhel indulgence at crowded Juhu Chowpatty greets us. We try to identify the elements — there’s the murmura, peanuts, sev, gathia, and are those spiced curry leaves? Not a fan of the cloying sweet chikki, the farsan and the spice mix offer a spicy, chatpata balance. Brownie points for the thoughtful train journey-inspired packaging, which informs us how chikki was created as a high-calorie energy bite for railway workers.