In a city that’s throwing up secrets and surprises with clockwork regularity, it can get a bit overwhelming to keep track of everything. In the effort to remember that tiny stall with the best chhole-bhature you’ve ever had, you might forget how to get to the odd, hole in the wall bookshop that sold wonderful out-of-print rarities. And so, when each of these secrets come to your doorsteps in a neat brown paper bag, it’s almost impossible to resist.
When it first began in 2009, started by Mansi Poddar and Kanika Purab, bpbweekend.com was an effort to discover the best kept secrets of Mumbai, and the secret scouters, as Mansi and Kanika became known, hunted down these spots with surprising intuition and precision. Very soon, BPB became the city’s favourite way to find everything from a favourite bakery to their next hobby. The site was born out of Mansi’s need to discover the city after her return from New York. Finding that there was no consolidated help available online, she teamed with Kanika to create their own platform, one that would encourage a deeper understanding and experience of Mumbai.
Since then, the platform has grown, expanding first to Pune and then to Delhi. Scouters in all three cities unearth the several hidden food, services, events, hangout and even discount options, first sifting through it and then ‘brown paper bagging’ the best ones. The website, both attractive and easily navigated, spoils its visitor for choice, and it’s almost completely guaranteed that on each visit, something is going to catch your eye. You could find a place selling cigars from Cuba, another serving fugu fish, perhaps one that offers bespoke watches, and so on. Of course, the unlimited options require days of scouting and reviewing. Un-tethered by issues of product placement and obligations, BPB offers no-nonsense reviews, calling a spade nothing but a spade.
Part of the revenue for the site is generated from either sponsored listings, which are labelled so, or creative ideas like that of the coup card. The card, available for six months, a year or for a week, in case of visitors, is actually a loyalty card, one that entitles the subscriber to exclusive discounts in partner restaurants. Since only a limited number of cards are available, they are given out in rounds, with each round requiring a sign up.
In Delhi, BPB has 20 restaurant partners, including Amici Café, Elma’s Tearoom, The Hungry Monkey, Ploof, Olive Beach, The Yum Yum Tree, Mamagoto and Potbelly.
BPB also offers a free weekly newsletter, which packs in a report on the city’s activities and new discoveries, delivering it straight to you inbox and saving a trip to the website. Of course, if you are only just learning about BPB, this trip comes highly recommended, just in case you have missed a listing for what could become your next favourite place in Delhi. After all, it would seem like the best things come in a brown paper bag.
