Category Archives: Food

In search of the great American…Indian fast food restaurant

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For years I have been telling friends that what the U.S. needs more than ANYTHING right now is an Indian fast-food chain. If I am going to be convinced by advertisers to slowly poison myself with grease then I would much rather do so

Puff puff…give

at the hands of a warm samosa than a burger and fries. And what about those long drives across America? When we pull up to a gas-and-go we currently have a choice between tired old Subway and toxic McDonalds. We can’t find a warm nan filled with paneer tikka anywhere. Recently the Indian restaurant chain “Hot Breads” announced that it was trying to spread some of its love around the U.S.

The Hot Breads chain has had great success in India, but the company is really hoping to put the hot in Hot Breads as it begins franchising in the United States.

“We have great plans of opening up Hot Breads here,” said M. Mahadevan, who first launched the Hot Bread chain in Chennai, India, in 1988. “We have a plan here for nice growth.”

With over 20 locations in India in cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi and Pondichery, two in Bangladesh, four in Nepal, one in Paris and about 40 in the Middle East, there is no reason to think Hot Breads won’t fly in the United States…

Hot Breads features bakery items such as croissants and pastries with an Indian twist. In India, Hot Breads is touted for its French baking traditions, but in the United States it is the connection with India, and its pastries filled with spicy vegetables and meat fillings, that have connected with the India American customers. [Link]

Now please don’t get me wrong. Looking at their menu you will see that this is just a baby step. The food they serve seems to be sort of an Indian-French hybrid. The Taj Mahal wasn’t built in a day however. If enough people eat this stuff then maybe an establishment like Kati Roll will decide to franchise as well. Just imagine a bouncer at every highway truck stop trying to fend off paneer lovers and keep the peace.

Mahadevan said that Hot Breads has scored as a brand that Indian Americans are familiar with from India. He added that it gives Indian Americans a sense of belonging here because they can visit a store, smell the curry and Desi coffee and be reminded of Hot Breads they have visited in India. [Link]

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That Silver Isn’t Vegetarian

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While I was sitting in the mandap during my wedding a couple of weeks ago now, I was a bit concerned about all of the Indian sweets I was consuming. It seemed that every two minutes another mithai was being prodded in my direction, and the thought of all the ghee, the sugar, the gor (molasses) etc that I must have inhaled was a bit frightening. It wasn’t until last week when I read these articles in India-West (Link 1 and Link 2), I realized that as a vegetarian, I should have been concerned with something else. According to the story,

Varak, that gossamer-thin silver sheet that covers Indian mitthai, is made by placing thin metal strips of silver between the steaming intestines of a slaughtered animal or its hide and hammered into a thin foil. A substantial number of cattle, sheep and goat are killed specifically for the industry, according to animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi.

I used to think it was real silver that was just wittled down, perhaps by a machine? Apparently, there is no such thing as machine-made varak, so chances are, if you are vegetarian and you eat mithai or anything else with that silver gossamer on it, you are unwittingly eating an animal by-product. It pains me to think that many unknowing vegetarians, who perhaps think Indian sweets are vegetarian-friendly, have been consuming an animal by-product all these years. What’s worse is followers of the Jain religion, a religion that holds the notion of ahimsa or nonviolence in high regard, and the strictest of whom will wear a face-mask so as to not kill any living thing by breathing, have been using varak to decorate their “religious idols and the tirthankaras in their temples.”

I was enraged following the McDonalds controversey a few years back in which it was found that McDonalds was wrongfully telling customers their french fries were vegetarian, when in reality, the fries were frozen with a beef tallow additive, and the news in this article doesn’t make me much happier. While we all know that gelatin is found in marshmallows and gummy bears, I was surprised to see that certain cereals like Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats, actually contain gelatin, as does a now-former favorite of mine Lucky Charms. With the increasing popularity of vegetarianism, one would think a vegetarian friendly substitute for gelatin would have been created by now.

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Love Affair With Vik’s

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I love Vik’s. Every time I go to the Bay area, I always make it a point to visit Vik’s. And as I go through my life here in Los Angeles, I pray for the day that Vik’s will show up in my neighborhood. Chances are if you are even minutely familiar with the Bay area, you know exactly where I’m talking about. The SF Chronicle just did a piece trying to figure out what makes Vik’s so great (thanks, maisnon).

Dhokla

From its beginnings in 1989 as a bare counter with just a few chairs at the front of the store, Vik’s Chaat Corner now fills an entire warehouse, and on a typical Saturday will serve more than 1,200 customers.”Our food is craving food for Indians,” says Amod Chopra, Vinod and Indira’s 35-year-old son, who helps run the business. “You don’t crave naan or tandoori chicken. You want to eat the zippy, zesty food.”

Chaat combine various textures and flavors — crunchy, crisp and soft, spicy, tangy, fresh and sour. Crackers and dumplings, made from lentils, chickpeas or potatoes, act as vessels for a stunning variety of chutneys — mint, cilantro, coconut and tamarind… Chaat means “to lick” in HindiChaat means “to lick” in Hindi, a result of the fact that chaat originally were served on banana leaves, leaving customers to lick each leaf clean. Nowadays in India, people go out for chaat like Americans do for coffee.[link]

I remember growing up what a sucker I was for the pani puri. When I was visiting Bangladesh, I was told that my sensitive stomach would not be able to withstand the water and spices of the chaat stand. Of course I would sneak out and have some anyways, and suffer through the tummy pains after. Now, you can buy all the chaat ingredients in bags and boxes at your local Indian grocery store. But let me tell you, eating pani puri at your kitchen table is simply not the same as eating it on a street corner with sticky fingers. Vik’s, though not a street corner, has the same chaat house style appeal.

As if thinking about how yummy chaat is doesn’t make your mouth water enough, check out Vik’s online menu. Dahi Papdi Chaar, Sev Puri, and Pav Bhaji, they have it all. Continue reading →

Get you love drunk off my hump

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In the basement of our North Dakota headquarters we employ a small but elite team or researchers designated the “SMU.” Their sole job is to predict “the next big thing,” and they are rarely wrong. You see, our marketing department has indicated that based on focus group feedback, readers that visit our site will flock to other blogs the minute we fall behind on what’s happening in the world around us. They will leave us the minute we aren’t ahead of the curve on “what’s cool.” Therefore, whenever the SMU staff starts “rattling their cages,” they know they will have my full attention. I predict that the next big thing (and you are hearing it on our blog first) is…Camel Milk:

While slightly saltier than cow’s milk, camel milk is highly nutritious. Designed after all for animals that live in some of the roughest environments, it is three times as rich in Vitamin C as cow’s milk.

In Russia, Kazakhstan and India doctors often prescribe it to convalescing patients. Aside from Vitamin C, it is known to be rich in iron, unsaturated fatty acids and B vitamins.

Tapping the market for camel milk, however, involves resolving a series of humps in production, manufacturing and marketing. One problem lies in the milk itself, which has so far not proved to be compatible with the UHT (Ultra High Temperature) treatment needed to make it long lasting.

But the main challenge stems from the fact that the producers involved are, overwhelmingly, nomads.

Another problem, according to the FAO, is the nature of the animal itself. Camels can reputedly be pretty stubborn. And unlike cows, which store all their milk in their udders, camels keep theirs further up their bodies. [Link]

Now I know that some of you might not like milk of any kind. Some people just don’t. My mom for example never drinks milk. But what about chocolate? Everybody likes chocolate…

An easier sell would appear to be the low-fat, camel milk chocolate, which A Vienna-based chocolatier, Johann Georg Hochleitner intends to launch a low-fat, camel milk chocolate this autumn. With funding from the Abu Dhabi royal family, his company plans to make the chocolate in Austria from powdered camel milk produced at Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates, then ship 50 tons back to the Gulf each month. [Link]

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Tablas against teabags

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A brand-new tea bar called Tavalon just opened by Union Square in Manhattan. It sells high-end loose leaf teas in a microscopic but slick storefront decked out like a lounge. The founders are young corporate law dropouts, a turbaned Sikh dude named Sonny Caberwal and his biz partner John-Paul Lee. Sonny is also a tabla-ista who rocked out on a Thievery Corporation album a couple of years ago. It’s the second gen version of the ‘I’ll open a little restaurant’ dream:

There’s a new wave of Indian restaurants as lifestyle businesses being started by young, desi Manhattan professionals. Indian Bread Company, Chinese Mirch, and their granddaddy, Kati Roll Co., remind me of the second wave of upscale restaurants in London’s Brick Lane; they’re slicker than the usual desi joint… As young restaurants, owners, friends and relatives still work behind the counter… educated urbanites… A lot of the initial marketing of these places goes through word of mouth, friends of friends in the high-speed desi network; it’s the ‘I’ll open a little restaurant’ dream made real. [Link]

The place is decorated with white tile in a fabric texture like Tamarind, white orchids, uplit shelves like a cosmetics counter and menus on 32″ LCDs. It sells teas in tins and test tubes. My buddies DD Pesh spun in the DJ perch yesterday, and Sonny played stand-up tabla by the door.

The teas themselves mimic vitamin water with frou-frou, we’re-not-Lipton themes like anti-aging, energizing and balancing. The bar also carries some wicked-looking paraphernalia including a tea stick, a perforated, stainless steel cylinder which you fill with loose leaf tea; stainless steel honey spoons shaped like honeycombs; and sinuous, double-sided sugar spoons. It’s all very SoHo-boho chic (tongue-in-cheek).

They’ve got a blend called Ceylon King for the days you’re feeling Ravanous. Thankfully, they don’t carry any redundant-dundant ‘chai tea,’ but do stop by and give Sonny shit for his ‘secret Indian spices’

Kama Chai Sutra: … teas just don’t get any more flavorful than this organic chai, made with a secret blend of Indian spices.

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Sakina’s Restaurant

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This NYT essay is a 5fer: mangoes, mehndi, curries, spices and cooking all in one piece (thanks, WGIIA). Brilliant marketing, Ms. Jaffrey! It’s not only King of Fruit, it’s Queen of Clichés and Hermaphrodite Bastard Child of Book Marketing.

mangomehndimayhem — sorry, sari

This essay itself is interesting, not really exotica — it’s about the fruit literal, not a metaphor:

The aim in India had always been to get sweet, melt-in-the-mouth, juicy mangoes with as little stringy fiber as possible… When these same mangoes entered Florida in the 19th century, they were mainly dismissed as “yard” mangoes. Too soft for shipping, they were considered lacking in commercial qualities. So all the fiber that had been bred out of them over thousands of years was bred right back, giving America the hard, pale rocks we see in stores today…

What America will be getting is the King of Fruit, Indian masterpieces that are burnished like jewels, oozing sweet, complex flavors acquired after two millenniums of painstaking grafting… One generous tree in Chandigarh bore about 30,000 pounds of mangoes every year for 150 years until it was hit by lightning…

A customs inspector, possibly noting my shifty eyes, asked me quite directly, “Are you carrying any mangoes?” … The mangoes were confiscated. This would have been bearable had I not been able to peep through a slight crack in the customs office door…

The officers were cutting up the mangoes and eating them. That hurt. [Link]

No, friends, desis, countrymen, lend me your ears for the text ad at the end. This PR placement shills for a mango-spice-curry memoir by everyone’s favorite actor auntie, mother of Sakina:

Madhur Jaffrey is… the author of “From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail” and the forthcoming memoir, “Climbing the Mango Trees.” [Link]

Related posts: Mmmmmmmangoes!, Anatomy of a genre, M-m-me so hungry, Buzzword bingo, Sick of spices, Indian enough, Sailing the Seas of Cheese

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Mmmmmmmangoes!

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For me, the sweetest fruit of Bush’s bisit to India is that finally, after 17 years of trying, Indian mangoes will soon be available in the US. Thus far, desis in the US have had to settle for Mexican mangoes, which are neither as sweet nor as juicy as what one can get back in the sub-continent.

Perfection in a golden wrapper

While India is the largest producer of mangoes (41% of the world produce), and the US is the largest importer (29% of all imports), there was no convergence between the two. The gainer was Mexico which only produces 5 per cent of the world’s mangoes and has 25 per cent of the mango export market. [Link]

The cause of the decades long mango moratorium was a fear of alien invasion, a (legitimate) concern about nasty creepy crawlies that might infest America’s fecund farmlands. This concern has now been allayed via the miracle of modern science – Indian mangoes will be nuked, neutered and neutralized before they are allowed to immigrate:

Preventing Indian mangoes from entering US supermarkets was the strict Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) conditions imposed by the US. Pests like pulp weevil and fruit fly are alien to US conditions. And the US was never confident about India’s capability to make the harvest pest-free… Several meetings later, the clincher was irradiation, the method to be now adopted to make mangoes pest-free. Earlier, it was limited to vapour treatment and quarantine. [Link]

How sweet it is. M-day is roughly 18 months away and I can hardly wait!

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Curry in a bag

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Every desi Superbowl party you go to next year will feature these I’m sure. After all, they are both “spicy” and “curried.” What more could we ask for?

Oh yeah. Break me off some o’ that.

In an attempt to win the snack food dollars of Canada’s largest ethnic groups and address a desire for stronger flavours, Frito Lay Canada Inc. is launching a new line of Asian-inspired potato chips and snacks.

Bags of wasabi- and spicy-curry-flavoured potato chips will be hitting grocery store shelves in Toronto and Vancouver this month, supported by a targeted marketing campaign in Chinese-language newspapers and television stations…

“[In Asia] they have a plethora of different snacking options — nuts, meats, those kind of things are much bigger from an Asian perspective. So the challenge for us was to find the perfect intersection between the flavours and tastes they like and something Western, which is the potato chip…”

In the Greater Toronto Area alone, South Asians annually spend $12.6-billion on retail goods and services and Chinese consumers spend $12.2-billion, according to Prasad Rao, a partner at Rao Barrett and Welsh, a Toronto advertising firm that specializes in multicultural marketing.

“I think the communities will want a lot more,” said Mr. Rao, who added that the tastes of Asians and South Asians have been largely underserved by mainstream food companies. [Link]

Our liberal Canadian neighbors always get to have more fun than us. Will American markets also demand a curry Lays? With so many flavors to choose from why would one remain monogamous?

In April, Frito Lay will launch it’s own version of shrimp chips. The Styrofoam-like morsels, which are often served in Thai restaurants…

Mmmmmm. Styrofoam….

However, I wonder, how will these compare to the snacks from the local Patel Brothers store in Rockville, MD? That’s what my parents shove in front of me whenever I go home.

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Reincarnation

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‘Try it, you’ll like it!’ my brother once told me before handing me a peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich. My brother was the king of weird food mashups. From my brother I learned that you can make a burrito out of leftover Thai, taco sauce on anything is tasty, and you can get away with Maggi spicy ketchup on fruit. Years later when I regularly dished lucre in the direction of Asia de Cuba and Sushi Samba, I thought back fondly. Bro, you should have patented.

On the advice of several Mutineers, I dragged the entire family to Avatar’s in Sausalito tonight. Sausalito clings to the Marin Headlands like an Italian fishing village, if only pescatores drove Ferraris. Avatar’s serves food which is a mashup of Punjabi, Mexican, Jamaican and California nouvelle. One of the owners charmed my parents into ceding control of the entire experience to the chef, his mother. The game was to try and guess the ingredients of each dish.

The pumpkin enchiladas were delish, the saag paneer enchiladas almost as good. The ravioli makhani reminded me of my favorite Indian food hack. We all swooned over the samosas with apple salsa sitting atop white and brown chutney drawn in patterns like cappuccino foam. The only dish which disappointed: the mixed veggies atop watery basmati with a mint chutney base.

The restaurant is simple and homey, but the menu is much more satisfying than at its chic Indo-fusion compadre, Tabla in NYC. A sister restaurant, Avatar’s Punjabi Burritos, sits just up the road in Mill Valley. This snack shack don’t lack — I’ll be back.

The late Avatar and his family and friends have created Marindian cuisine, which successfully blends Punjabi, Mexican and a bit of Jamaican flavors, ingredients and techniques…

Literally, if we find ourselves within 100 miles of the Bay Area, we are going to Avatar. [Link]

Related post: Indian food hacks

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How to befriend a vegetarian

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This anecdote about Google cofounder Sergey Brin is part of a startup PR launch, but it’s interesting. I wonder what the dare was. ‘I cook, you eat’ doesn’t sound like a very interesting bet:

The victim

[Anand] Rajaraman and Harinarayan were co-founders of Junglee, an early Web database company… In 1994, Rajaraman proudly told Brin he’d acquired a new computer with the latest version of Microsoft Windows. Brin… went over to Rajaraman’s apartment and installed Linux… on his computer…

Brin even took on Rajaraman’s practice of eating vegetarian, a family tradition. One evening, Brin went over to Rajaraman’s apartment, baked a fish in his oven, and served it to him with some lemon. Rajaraman ate it. [Link]

Tamarind once served me the lamb version of the paneer dish I ordered, two large, flat white squares. I downed the whole thing thinking it was the worst paneer I’d ever had and didn’t catch on until I saw the bill. Gross.

By the way, your bagels contain an extract from human hair and chicken feathers, your milk contains cattle hormones and pus, your beer was clarified with fish extract, your miso soup may contain fish broth and your Kiwi Strawberry Snapple is colored with a dye from ground beetles. Perfect recycling. I see some aren’t taking this meatitude lying down. Bon appetit!

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