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Tukaram Mundhe-led Maharashtra Food & Drug Administration (FDA) suspended the licenses of eight more eateries on Monday, as part of its intense festival season encroachment drive. These outlets included the original Andheri West branch of Suraj Lama Momos, one of the most popular momo shops of Mumbai, the eponymous owner of which has an interesting Bollywood connection.
Suraj Lama relocated to Mumbai at the age of 14, leaving behind his village Mirik in Darjeeling, in order to seek employment. After doing a few odd jobs, Suraj became a celebrity driver. He worked in that capacity for 25 years, including with actors Sonakshi Sinha and Shahid Kapoor, and also drove the car for leading banners like Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions.
“I worked with a lot of dedication, and saw people I worked with as my own family, but sometimes I wasn’t seen as equal. It bothered me,” Suraj confessed in an interview with The Indian Express a couple of years ago. He recalled an incident as the final nail in the coffin — “I drove an actor to the set. There was a child who wanted to take a photo with the actor, and had been waiting for a long time. I thought of helping that child, but when I conveyed his wish to the actor, they refused. I didn’t feel good,” he recounted.
When Suraj quit driving to sell momos
The subsequent rise in app-based cab services like Ola and Uber was also a factor in Suraj going for a pivot to selling momos in 2017. He even made Sonakshi and her family taste his momos, and they approved of his skills. So, he decided to quit his job, sell his motorbike and buy a cycle, with which he started a pop-up shop. He also convinced his wife Vijayata to join him, so she also quit her job of a cook at singer KK’s household.
“In hindsight, it was a big risk. We both were earning around Rs 30,000 each, spending half of it running our home, and saving the rest. The gamble paid off, but it could have gone in another direction as well,” admitted Suraj. Since momos weren’t as easily available in Mumbai back then as they were in North India, Suraj got a pretty good start.
He’d cycle across parts of Andheri West to sell both vegetarian and non-vegetarian momos. The demand swelled up fast, which prompted him to open a roadside eatery in Versova. “In fact, when I first asked the owner of our current store to lease the space to me, he said, You won’t be able to afford it’, and later, he himself reached out to me,” said Suraj. Even though Suraj and his wife earned Rs 30,000 each from their previous jobs, once they began selling momos, they quickly began earnings Rs 700 in a day alone.
He spelled out the secret to his recipe, claiming that the momos reminded him of home. “My momos are just like my mother’s. I follow her recipe. I don’t use preservatives or artificial colouring,” he told Mid-Day in 2017. He also claims his wife, a great cook, makes delectable momos. Even though he expanded with more outlets in Malad and Kandivali, he hadn’t reached other far-flung areas of high demand, including Pune, Nashik, and Gujarat.
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“It is important to maintain quality. Today, we have a central kitchen in Mumbai, overseen entirely by my wife, with a staff of 25, preparing about 16,000 momos daily across various options. It is these momos, cooked till about 90 per cent, that go to each store, whether run by us or a franchise. Until I can do that in another city, I won’t expand,” said Suraj in 2024.
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It’s ironic that with so much emphasis on food quality, as he claims, Suraj Lama Momos’s license was suspended by the FDA. The authority flagged lapses in the way the food was handled and stored, in sanitation, cleanliness and safeguards intended to prevent contamination. It said the violations were “serious enough” to take swift action against the establishment under the applicable food safety guidelines.
