Mayank Shah - As You Start Your Journey You Will Learn on Your Own and You Will Develop Your Own Style (Food Blogger From India)

I left my job to start Food blogging full-time. Will I recommend this to someone who is starting this? Absolutely Not. It does take time for one to grow on any platform but once reached a certain level after that one can say it can be a regular career.

1. Tell us about your background and journey.

I am a Microbiologist. I did my Junior college and My B.Sc. in Microbiology from Jai hind College. And My M.Sc. In microbiology from St. Xavier’s College.

 

2. When did you decide that you wanted to create content on food and how did you start?

I was a content creator before also. I started with creating informative videos and travel Vlogs but lockdown hit couldn’t travel anywhere. So, after my graduation when unlock was happening that time I was searching for jobs as I completed my master’s. I got an interview in Goregaon and I live in south Mumbai. So, I had to go to Goregaon from south Mumbai in a Bus as that time trains were still for essential services only. 

So, I travelled for 2 and half hours in a bus to reach to Goregaon and I gave my interview I thought I came so far let’s have lunch in a famous south Indian hotel in Goregaon named Udupi Vihar restaurant. I randomly made the video edited and posted on the Instagram page where I use to make informative reels and where I had 1000 followers. That reel did really good after that made the second reel and the journey started.

3. Is food blogging your passion and if yes then how did you find it?

I would say trying different food is my passion. Because we got so fast culture that just go 100km in any direction the food will change the culture will change there is so much left to explore the authentic food at the place of origin Mumbai ka Vada Pav. Kolhapur ka misal. Surat ki khamni etc. so as a traveller and as a food enthusiast I want to explore more and see what this country has to offer. 

4. Are there any courses or skills that one can learn to be a blogger?

The only skill you need to become a Blogger is learning from your mistakes or from your past video and think how you can improve. Your first video is going to be worst video ever. Your 10th video will also be very bad but better than your first video. As you start your journey you will learn on your own, and you will develop your own style which later people who admire you will adopt your style. 

5. Which is your favorite cuisine and dish?

I have to say North Indian Cuisine including all the Panjabi sabzi like paneer tikka masala Tandoori butter roti and all to Chole kulcha with big glass of Punjabi lassi.

 

6. Which restaurants/food joints would you recommend to food lovers?

For south Indian thali Jeevan Boarding House in chamber Mumbai best place at affordable but quality food.

Chole kulche at Manjeet chole puri wala Sion behind Khalsa college really good person and food. 

 

7. What makes you appreciate a particular dish or a restaurant and talk about it on your blog?

If I take an example of South Indian food. There are the best places all over Mumbai where you get the best south Indian food no doubt about it but what makes a place different from all other is with how much love they are serving the food. There are 2 types of places one that wants to remove money from your wallet and second that wants to feed you good food with love. There are best south Indian food places in Mumbai but the second kind is very less Jeevan boarding house being one of them. That’s why I recommended it in previous question. 

 

8. Can food blogging become a regular career?

I left my job to start Food blogging full-time. Will I recommend this to someone who is starting this? Absolutely Not. It does take time for one to grow on any platform but once reached a certain level after that one can say it can be a regular career.

 

9. Any advice that would like to give to the budding food bloggers?

Just start making videos starting videos will be horrible your friend’s family going to laugh at your video you might have 10 people in your family and would get only 4 likes it will happen but keep making videos keep posting you will improve with time you will learn from your mistakes and slowly people will start acknowledging you.

10. What challenges did you face during this journey and what did you learn from them?

As I left my job to start this full-time, I was questioned by a lot of people is this the right move? I face a lot of self-doubts what if this didn’t work what if I just took a very big uncalculated risk.  And one thing that I learned is that thinking about the future is just going to give you anxiety. Better focus on the things you can control. Things I could control was to make the best possible video I can and I did that and let the Instagram my audience and algorithm do the rest of the job. 

And second, big challenge which I faced and learned from it was that no one is going to acknowledge you until you become someone big. When I started this full-time when was around 3k followers on Instagram I use to go to shops or vendors and all and show them my Instagram and say if it’s okay if I make a video of them also, I would pay for the food I ate. Many of them rejected me saying ki “humare yaha bade bloggers aake gaye hai” so that’s a reality check which I got when I was on the ground but I learned to accept the rejection and started covering people who were actually nice sweet and good-hearted people and those videos went viral which was a story of both food and the food maker. So, the lesson I learned here was to be around the people who really appreciate you.

Bio-

I left my job to follow my passion as a food and Travel Blogger. And in the last 4 months since the time, I went full time I have built a community of over 100k+ followers on Instagram. And here is my story

Interviewed By - Shashank Sehgal