A few years ago, erstwhile mutineer Manish posted here about an enterprising Tiffinwalla in New York who would deliver healthy, vegetarian lunches (“2 chapatis, rice, dal, one vegetable, appetizer, dessert and pickle/chutney”) for all of $5.
I was living in California at the time and lazy ingrate that I am, I was green with longing, even as I was eating fresh Mallu food daily at home.
It just seemed like such a fantastic concept; New Yorkers got EVERYTHING, I wistfully thought. Couldn’t the left coast have had similar, especially during that arid, empty time that my Mother was abroad for two months? 😉 I mean, protein shakes get old, y’all.
Apparently, my whining has been answered, according to a story in the grey lady which many of you were blowing up our tipline/news tab with (Thanks, Derick):
In Mumbai, formerly Bombay, the tiffin, or lunch, is prepared by the wife, mother or servant of the intended. In the United States, because of little time (and a lack of a domestic staff), many of these lunches are prepared by outsiders, but the underlying principle is the same…
Annadaata, which began as a homespun operation in 2002, has morphed into a business with several delivery people distributing meals each weekday across San Francisco. Kavita Srivathsan, 29, the chief executive of Annadaata, got her start by cooking meals for her new husband and his friends.
Srivathsan stumbled in to a market which was just waiting for someone like her to hook them up with comfort food:
She did not have a job at the time, so she spent her time learning how to cook Indian foods. Using recipes from her mother in south India, she experimented in the kitchen for a few hours each day. On a whim, she advertised $5 box meals on justindia.com, a Web site based in the San Francisco area that no longer exists. “That was the only time I ever did any advertising,” she said. “The very next day I got a few phone calls from people ordering the boxes, and from then on the word spread like wildfire.”
Mrs. Srivathsan’s business grew so fast that a few months later she decided she could no longer run it from her home. “It began as me cooking out of my kitchen, but since there was such a demand for it, I had to make it a legitimate business with a tax ID number and a rented kitchen,” she said.
Because she wanted to reach a wider market and knew that Indians generally favored cuisine from their region, she hired cooks from various areas in India, including Gujarat, south India and Punjab. Today, customers can click on her Web site, annadaata.com, to view a menu for the coming week. After choosing from among a vegetarian ($7), a nonvegetarian ($8) or a south Indian meal ($8), they place orders over the Internet and pay with credit cards.
Uh, anyone want to start this up in D.C.? Pleeease? There’s only so many times that I can stomach Chipotle/Potbelly/Subway/Raisin Bran for lunch and like the people quoted in the NYT article, it’s just not possible for me to cook. Proper South Indian food requires time, discipline and a devotion to process that I can’t muster right now and I’m not a fan of shortcuts (my mother told me this weekend at our family reunion that if she ever caught me availing myself of something like this, she’d pinch my thigh so viciously I’d need a skin graft). Owww.
Srivathsan sums it up perfectly:
At the end of the day I just wanted the basic Indian food I had grown up with.
Werd.
For those of you pinched on time, maybe you should try “Tasy Bites.” You can buy them at Costco. My sister and brother-in-law have eaten them and said that they were pretty good, and they work fine if you are in a hurry (and seriously tired of Chipotle).
You actually get lots of South Indian food mixes in desi stores, speaking of shortcuts – I love MTR Rasam mix. Most of the South Indians I know at home also use bought sambhar powder these days and I’m pretty sure idli mixes too.
Vivek, that Cook and See book sounds like a gem! Madhur Jaffrey’s books were like that for me when I first started cooking away from home, couldn’t get precise recipes out of my mother and MJ really holds your hand through it all.
you just defined a generation. genius.
so the above comment was obviously meant for the other thread… that’s what happens when you try to catch up on all your mutiny reading in one go with multiple windows open.
Old news…this was reported in the SF Chronicle YEARS ago…
Come on, now. Beans thoran: Microwave french cut beans, diced green chilli and salt for about 15 minutes on medium high. Heat EVOO (hah), fry mustard, uzhunnu parippe, add grated coconut and the beans. Stir fry for a couple of minutes. Done.
That observation added so much to this thread. Perhaps you should also note this while you’re dismissing it.
That’s hardly “proper” preparation, which is what I think she was referring to. Look, if people don’t want to take shortcuts, especially if they weren’t taught such things, why be so haughty about it?
…I always felt desi cuisine was fully hacker/borg like (in a good way)…take an ingredient brought from a near or distant land and smother in fragrant spices fried or crushed..with or without onion/garlic/ginger/tamarind…then a second layer of taste…or a third or fourth ..or a thousand combos of somesuch and there you are.
Forgot to add that if people are missing home/Mom’s cooking, then hacks won’t cut it, which is not to denigrate ingenious solutions in any way– hacks are probably how we all survive. It’s the idea of someone cooking the way their mother would, and having that cuisine delivered which is the point of this thread.
It isn’t proper preparation, I agree. I wasn’t being haughty and I am sorry if I came across as such.
I was just trying to point out that alternate forms of preparation (maybe quicker) can also taste close to the food prepared the proper way (whatever that might mean – after all, often times the recipes and the method of preparation varies between families).
Perhaps we can do a separate recipe/updated hacks-thread, if there’s interest. Until then, has anyone else heard of or tried tiffin services like those in the post and if so, what did they think/what cities did this occur in?
Okay. For the SFBA, Annadaata is okay, but like many folks pointed out expensive for food delivered daily. Spice hut does a 2/3/4 item veggie lunch special (varies every day) but they dont deliver. I finally found that the best way was to get someone to cook for the week and just pick up the food.
Venu- excellent information, thanks much. Anyone else?
Bad form to follow-up one’s own post, I know, but I forgot to mention that this works out to about $50/week for rotis, rice and 3 to 4 veggie dishes.
Also, in the SFBA, there are folks who will come home and cook as well with ingredients you supply. Posting a wanted ad in craiglist, sulekha or your local grocery store works. I have found Punjabi and Gujarati food galore, but Mallu food is hard to find.
Rasika is DC is the best Indian food I have had in a long long time in the US. Nothing in New York has even come close to their near-perfect sauce for Lamb RoganJosh. Baluchis in NYC is good too. And Brick Lane for buffet.
SORRY ANNA
I wasn’t trying to lecture, just rambling on.
I agree with one of the commenters above; Rani in Coolidge Corner is pretty good for Boston. Gourment India down the street is pretty fast foodish, but okay. Neither does a tiffin service, alas, as far as I know.
proper south indian (atleast tamilian food) as in Kootu, Kozhambu, Rasam, Rice, Varuval/Poriyal, appalam requires a good pressure cooker and a good frying pan and 1 hour if the veggies have been precut(15 to 20 minutes)……… seen my mom and paati do it for 20+ years. It never ceases to amaze me even today!!
all it takes is practice and interest!! now that is something that has to come from within 🙂
why can we not edit our posts?
Sorry ANNA about the crib and the lack of cooking space!!
Slightly OT but while we’re talking south indian food, anyone have a good homey recipe for Mallu style Tomato Fry? Was hungry and had tomatoes so quickly fried up some per Maya Kaimal’s Spice Coast of Kerala cookbook (which I otherwise adore) but these were NOT very good and nothing like the divinely delicious Tomato Fry I’ve had in Kerala. Or if anyone can comment on how brown/fried the onions are supposed to be, and whether the tomato should cook together with the onions and spices or if latter should be put over tomatoes at the end after separate cooking as per Kaimal…
Tomato curry (fry?).
Mmm, that looks good but the one I’m thinking of is more on the dry side, and doesn’t have coconut or cinnamon in it, more chunky and spicy.
TiffinBlog: I tried their food last week & their food is actually very good. it’s like home cooked they deliver in NY & NJ I was very impressed with the quality of the food & presentation. very professional
http://WWW.TIFFINBLOGCOM. 908 504 1970
Anyone tried Suvir Saran’s restaurant Devi in NYC? He wrote a good US-ingredients-oriented cookbook, Indian Home Cooking. The recipes pare the ingredients down to the basics, for good quickie week-night dishes. Plus, his descriptions of prepping and shopping with his significant other Chuck in various NYC neighborhoods make it “not your momma’s cookbook”. (My mom was surprisingly only amused by it all) But be warned, the cookbook has been dissed on Amazon by desis as not authentic enough. Serves the purpose, tho.
pinch my thigh so viciously I’d need a skin graft
..hmm I thought that was my mom’s original composition. Turns out its a standard mallu threat huh? My mom would go.. “Adi thodail kayy veccha ara kg erachi edukkum” ha ha ….
Nice to bump into Anna “Pterodactyl” again. I first saw you (very briefly) at Fraud Mallu on Orkut. Not seen much of you after that first blip about 2 years ago. That community is 6000+ strong now. (that’s me indulging in some shameless promotion of my community :). Do drop in sometime.
Nice posts. Keep ’em comping 🙂
Hey, Pondatti, didn’t know that the comments were meant to “add to the thread”! Thought they were just that: comments.
Why yes, that is exactly what comments should do. If they don’t, they’re just useless blather, unnecessary noise.
Look, on a thread like this which has a relatively specific request/purpose, I just didn’t think your “this is old…yawn” contribution…contributed much.
There’s an amazing weekily Tiffin food delivery service available in New Jersey. Generally quite flexible on locations they are willing to deliver to. The indian food is soooooo good!!!.. They deliver weekly tiffins so its really convient for all those who just don’t find the time to cook. I’ve reccomended it to many people and they’ve all been really impressed. Hopefully, im helping other people who were in my situation before find a great solution like i did… Enjoy good food with out the hassle of cooking! 908 504 1970
I tried Annadaata’s food a couple of weeks ago and found it absolutely delicious. Being a nutritionist and a die-hard homestyle food fan, I was hesitant at trying their food initially, but boy! when another review went up for them on yelp – i decided I was too curious to let it pass. I decided to order one of each of their thalis and I was quite impressed with what I got. The serving sizes were measured to perfection – they had a three compartment container – with about 14 ounces of rice, 2 phulka rotis, about 12 oz. of Dal / kootu in the south indian meal and about 7 oz. of the vegetable and in the Nonveg meal the dal and the chicken were reversed. The Mizhagu Kozhi was so authentic – I dared to call them and ask them for the recipe. It was soo good. I chanced upon this site and was reading about the need for such a service in DC metro area. Interestingly enough, the owner of Annadaata’s was in DC before she moved here. When I was speaking with her to set up my monthly order with the option of the Teen Patti – she mentioned that they were exploring the possibilities of starting up in the DC Metro Area and were in the process of hunting down a commercial kitchen in that area just like the one they have here. So, you might want to check in with them if they do have something open by now or if something is in the works!! I know they fedex food packages to Manhattan and Orange county — but I am not sure of the logistics of how it works. Does not hurt to check in with them.
Hey dude! I live in Richardson, it wuld be awesum if I can find sumthin of this sort. Do u have his/her no..???? Man, this is my last ray of hope to eat good indian food, with no hassles.. THanks man! will highly appreciate ur feedback! Deep
61 · nemo said