The Great Indian Foodie Revolution

The inspiration for the post stems from The Week dated Nov 9,2008.

The magazine was so taken by the topic,that it decided to base their cover story on it. And I felt that it was true & decided that it should have a mention on my blog. So here I am, writing away.

There was a time, which wasn’t so long ago when South Indian food meant only Idli, Dosa, Vada to the North Indians & Northie food was Chappati for the Southies. That era is long gone. Now making an Idli is very simple as supermarkets stock ready to heat idlis, batter and what not, so that a Bengali suddenly feeling like having Idli, needs just to walk over to the nearest supermarket. Similarly, while South Indian breakfast a few years ago rarely deviated from the above mentioned idli,dosa, now we have aloo parathas & chapatis for breakfast. And this isn’t really limited to the collapse of the North-South divide. Food from across the world is making its entry into India, and while a few years ago, bread used to be the staple food of patients, nowadays, bread is a regular breakfast item in Indian Kitchens especially now that women have taken to working in a big way. There isn’t really anything to cook with bread & an egg with it takes about 2 minutes to make. Convenience is breaking the barriers of unavailability & tradition.

Man has always been influenced by food & there is no wonder that he is always trying to look out for newer avenues to exercise his taste buds. While the breaking of the North-South divide is a primary example for this, the effect isn’t limited to the average Indian home. Cities in India are being flooded with specialty restaurants offering Indians a mind-boggling variety to choose from. The traditional Saravana Bhavans & Udupi hotels in the South are now jostling for space with restaurants offering Greek, Lebanese, Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Continental & of course North Indian & Mughal cuisine. A similar effect can be found all over India.

Initially, there was novelty. To an extent, it is still present, but the Indian Foodie has a lot more experience.The first to enter Indian market was Chinese. But as the Indian likes food spicy, the bland Chinese dishes were spiced up & buried in ajinomoto and Soya sauce to produce Indianized Chinese dishes such as the quintessential Gobi Manchurian (Something people in Manchuria will never taste in their lifetime unless an Indian opens a Chinese restaurant there). This provided a welcome change. But soon, with Five Star hotels sending their Chefs on trips around the world to sample other cuisines, Indians found out that the Chinese they have been eating so far was Indian! Thus rose the demand for authenticity and now many restaurants offer authentic Chinese Cuisine (yes, the bland one). Mainland China being one of the famous ones. Now, for the sake of authenticity, the Indian Foodie is willing to shell out Rs 200 to buy a bowl of authentic Korean Sticky Rice, when actually, he can make the stuff in his house. This is just what I shall call the show-off factor. The foodie seems to be more credible when he mentions the name of a specialty restaurant rather than saying ‘I cooked sticky rice at home yesterday’. (The latter would generally rouse a peal of laughter from the listener with a knowing wink, saying “Oh, guess your attempt at cooking didn’t turn out all that well huh?”) .

With the advent of authentic Chinese cuisine, some of those who travelled a bit, figured out that there were a host of other cuisines which were untapped and now, any metro boasts of at least one joint where he can sample authentic Pizza, moussaka, falafel, dimsum, kimchi, tacos & what not. Also, nowadays, the Indian foodie is considerably aware of subtle differences in cuisines and it is rather difficult to sell just about anything labelled Italian or Thai to him. Many people can now tell the difference between fusilli and fettucini and have high expectations.

This foodie revolution hasn’t limited itself to restaurants. It has made its entry into Indian Kitchens. With supermarkets stocking Pasta, Olive oil & Thai Red chili paste next to the idli batter, foreign cuisines are now making their entry into Indian homes. While house wives a few years ago would have gossiped about trying out Sanjeev Kapoor’s latest recipe aired on Khaana Khazaana a few years ago, now topics change to trying out falafel & pasta in Arabiatta sauce. Men have taken to cooking in a big way, and I’ll dedicate a post to that soon. The Indian kitchen shelf now stocks Olives & Thousand Island dressing right next to bottles of garam masala.

Though these foreign articles cost a bit nowadays, there are still people ready to buy them – just for the show-off factor. Hosting guests has become a matter of pride and hosts wish to exhibit their culinary expertise & diversity. Since the situation has changed from unavailability to highly priced but available commodities, it is safe to assume that the cost of these will come down some day. Then we can expect to see tortillas on the breakfast menu. Thus the Great Indian Foodie Revolution has started.

So go grab those nachos now.
Cheers!

Peels for Dinner

Its been a long while & I’ve been busy with work. So here comes a post after a long hiatus. For a change, this one moves us out of Chennai & places us in Bangalore. I’d visited Bangalore (Its easier to say than Bengaluru) during Diwali with friends and one of our plans included having dinner at a good place. We had been to Wonderla, an amusement park outside Bangalore and after a day of rollicking fun, we were tired, hungry & couldn’t wait to sink our teeth into some good food.

Now I don’t just post on burrp!. I also read reviews there. And after hours of reading reviews (being the established foodie, my friends dumped the task of picking the restaurant on my head), I had shortlisted a few. And from the descriptions on burrp!, we finally settled on Orange Peel, a restaurant on the Lady Bowring Hospital road, just past the Subway there.It was described as a restaurant in a Jewish bungalow and the food was supposed to be great.

We took some time to find it, as the sign advertising the place was helpfully written in Kannada (which I don’t know) on the side we were coming from. Add to the fact that the first thing that catches your eye when you step into the gate, is a boutique selling Indian artifacts (Thats the impression I got from outside. I was too hungry to bother). Its almost as if the restaurant doesn’t want to be found.

We went in and we came across a board advertising “famous movenpick cocktails”. We had to ask the waiter to ensure we’d come to the right place. The lighting is quite poor & I suppose its to give it a romantic feel. But I’d still say the lighting was poor with bits of neon peeking out here and there. There was just one another family dining & a couple of guys at the bar.
My first impression was that the table was set very well. They had wine glasses, incidentally, water is also served in these, cutlery laid out & the usual serviette. But this was lost when I saw a couple of wall mounted Plasma TVs tuned to a sports channel telecasting a second grade cricket match. That’s when I decided that the poor lighting isn’t romantic, but just poor lighting. (I have nothing against cricket, but a TV in a fashionable restaurant is a no-no). There is no air-conditioning and its partly open air. Which is to say that the restaurant is in the backyard of the Jewish mansion. Thankfully,there’s a roof.

The menus were produced & the as is common to most Bangalore restaurants, liquor is served here. There was a tiny bar in a corner. I glanced through the liquor-list and the ‘famous movenpick’ cocktails were advertised yet again as being the only ones in the world. For something so ‘Unique’, the explanation given was simply ‘absolutely rocking’ or something to that effect. Translation : Its just a fancy name the owners came up with to jazz up the place. The wine list included Champagne for Rs 1200, I don’t know if its for a bottle or a flute, Cabernet Sauvignon & Chardonnay. I remember the years to be 2005 & 2006 (though I wouldn’t wager it). But for a restaurant advertising these wines, there was no mention about the vineyard that produced them, and hence I had no way of ascertaining if they were Vintages or not. If I’d bought one, I could say I’ve had Chardonnay, but I wouldn’t be able to quote the year & vineyard that produced them to a connoisseur. It also had the usual hard liquor – Scotch, Vodka , Rum & Brandy. We didn’t order any drinks and went straight to the food. An average drink costs about Rs 400.

A couple of pages were dedicated to the Chef’s bio-data and his experiments with Teppanyaki cooking (A Japanese form of cooking) and his jaunts around the world. However there were very few, if any examples of Teppanyaki on the menu card. Well, I might have been in a hurry to order too. Well, to say the prices were moderate would be an understatement. Dishes cost anywhere between Rs 250-600. So be prepared to have deep pockets if you’re going here.

After some arguing among ourselves, we decided on having what was described as Cheese & Pepper chicken on French bread (I forget the actual name) and Panko crusted Calamari for starters and Fettucini Alfredo with chicken for the Main course. One of us didn’t actually enjoy pasta, but I had an instinct that portions wouldn’t be very large. So we went for what was most filling. The restaurant serves mostly continental food and main course has choice for poultry, seafood and lamb. I wanted to try the John Dory, but it was priced almost around Rs 600 and we weren’t sure that it would feed three. So I passed. Pasta it was!

The French bread arrived first and was a huge disappointment. It had exactly 5 rusk sized bread slices (if you can call them slices) topped with cheese, broccoli & chicken. The chicken tasted quite bland & frankly we weren’t very happy with the dish. The Panko crusted Calamari arrived next and was better. The Panko turned out be batter of some kind into which squares of squid were dipped & fried. The squid turned out to be very rubbery & we couldn’t take a bite out of it. It had to be put into the mouth whole, and chewed. We ended up eating the Panko & squid separately.

The main course arrived and it surprisingly had a reasonable amount. It was garnished with continental vegetables like broccoli, zucchini and beans. The pasta tasted fine, was supposed to be garnished with Parmiggiano Reggiano (Parmesan Cheese) but I wouldn’t be able to testify to the authenticity of that. I’m not saying that they cheated me. It could’ve been original, it could have been not.

The meal ended pretty quickly, partly due to the fact that we wanted to get home quickly (It was late) and partly due to the fact that there wasn’t much to eat. I didn’t find the service all that great. In fact, the waiters seemed to be in a hurry to clear our plates. As soon as we picked up the last piece, the waiter would appear in a flash and clear the plate without even a word to us. This got quite annoying. I would say that service was terrible considering what they charge as service tax.

We had enough of the place & we just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. We paid up and the bill came to almost Rs 1000 for our three dishes. And on top of it, I was still hungry! Only after I went through a large bag of Lays in my friend’s house did I feel better.

Well, now for the rating:

Ambience: 2
Food : 2
Value for Money: 1
Service : 1

Overall : 1.5

Well, we were so disappointed by the experience (at the end of a wonderful day) that we renamed the hotel “Maangatholi“, Malayalam slang meaning humbug. Literally translates to “Mango Peel”. We took the liberty of substituting Orange with Mango.

So much for dinner at Bangalore!

Well, do stay clear of this place. If you want to eat when you’re on Lady Bowring Road, you can pop into Subway. The sandwiches are just as tasteless, but at least you can fill your stomach & pay less.
Cheers!