pune the humble misal was a nonjudgmental item when it was introduced a century ago as a cheap filling meal for the lessprivileged labour workforce in pune today it is a dish that foodlovers dissect ingredient by ingredient so you have animated debates over the spiciness of the tarri curry the pungency of the onions the appropriateness of pav visavis bread slices to accompany the mix the redundancy or otherwise of pohe and mashed potatoes in the dish and the battle for tastewise topper from among pune kolhapur nashik and other cities in maharashtrathe kind of misal served has remained unchanged at the older joints in the city which probably didnt think a lowcost dish needed innovation but staying true to form also earned loyalty as amply seen by the number of regular visitors devouring bowlfuls of green tarri at punes first misal outlet the 107yearold vaidya uphar gruha near the railway reservation office at raviwar peth vaidya has been serving the green tarri since it set up shop and stuck to it even after the red variety became more or less the norm in eateries that sprung up laternow a newer generation of traditional food entrepreneurs is willing to experiment with the dish confident that it holds its own against the fare on menus guided by global trendsthe simple variation of cooking tarri on a woodfired chul stove instead of on a gas burner draws the clientele to saurabh dadarkars indiano grill restaurant on sinhagad road the chul imparts a smoky flavour to his reddishblack tarri which is prepared using a homemade masala he says the masala is commonly used in the misals found in khed village on the punenashik highway which he replicated in his kitchenafter the khed variety dadarkars vote goes equally to the nashik and puneri misals he doesnt fancy the kolhapur one saying the spices that go in are a tad overpowering which suppresses the true taste of the dish his own misal contains matki moth beans and chiwda made from dried pohe sev and farsan on weekends he claims to prepare 50 litres of tarria smoky misal is also on offer at alok thakars damodar p30 at bibvewadi however instead of cooking on a chul thakar puts a burning charcoal in the small clay pot containing the farsanasked about the intriguing p30 suffix to his eaterys name thakar says it is a tribute to the wholesome food one can savour in three peth areas that have a pincode ending with the number 30 shaniwar peth shukrawar peth and narayan peth an interesting sight at his outlet are the plastic water pouches hanging from the ceiling each of these have a clean coin within and their glimmer keeps the flies away thakar saysat vimannagar misal ani barach kahi misal and a lot more restaurant offers three types of misals one of which interestingly has a batata wada dunked in the matkilaced curry they serve pav with the misal but also offer bhakris