27Apr / 2009

Orchids, Witches, Byron: Sneak Through Secret London

TOURISTS don’t see real cities. They see images, created by slick marketing people and shrewd shopkeepers. Paris, for instance, is the Eiffel tower, flashing gaudily beside overpriced restaurants and stalls festooned with “I love France” key chains. New York, of course, is the Statue of Liberty, and endless sweaty queues for a ferry to Liberty Island. And London, a photograph in front of Big Ben, a longing look though the bolted gates at Buckingham Palace and David Beckham at Madam Tussauds.

Unless, of course, you become a defiant independent traveller. It takes courage. You won’t be able to swap stories with the neighbours on how crowded Trafalgar Square is these days, or how the Champs-Elysées can be frightfully expensive, which might considerably bring down your social standing in the housing complex. (“Can you imagine, he was in New York, and he didn’t go to Macys!”) But you’ll discover a lot more. London for the locals, for instance, is a world away from the Hop-On Hop-Off tourist route.

Orchids and oysters

Languid Sunday mornings are perfect for pottering around the Columbia Street Flower Market in East London. Make your way there, past pretty houses with bright shutters and balconies lush with potted plants. Past friendly Labrador dogs out for a stroll with their owners, gardening enthusiasts excitedly discussing weed control and Londoners laden with bunches of vivid flowers.

It’s like “My Fair Lady” – except it’s the MTV version. Flower sellers holding out giant bouquets of cheery daffodils, bunches of stately white orchids and boxes crammed with potted petunias, all trying to out-shout each other, in an attempt to grab the attention of languid passing customers. Bustling cafés, handing out cups of steaming tea. And the motley crowd, swelling by the minute, includes little old ladies peering at cacti, and multi-pierced hipsters, wandering in after a raucous night, hoping to clear their heads. And maybe score a couple of beers.

This is also a deliciously unusual place to brunch. You can have a bagel in a garden café, accompanied by mugs of strong coffee. Or try oysters from a makeshift counter, where they’re piled besides traditional English kippers. Through it all a street musician provides vibrant background music. Foodies can also investigate the old barns, built like gardening sheds, covered with heavy wooden tables, creaking under the weight of local cheeses, exotic varieties of olive oils and crusty brown bread.

Magical Diagon Alley

Shockingly close to touristy Leicester square, teeming with drunk teenagers and theatre-goers bargaining for cut-price tickets, is mysterious Cecil Court. A hushed Victorian pedestrian street, it’s lined with old-fashioned stores, and reportedly inspired J.K. Rowling to create Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. Like Diagon Alley, crammed with curious shops and colourful characters, Cecil Court too has its share of magic.

With names such as “The Witch Ball” or “David Drummond Of Pleasures Of Past Times”, the shops here deal in the most delightfully eccentric goods. One dusty little store threw up shoeboxes crammed with old postcards from all over the world, including a bunch from homesick Britishers, posted in India more than half a century ago. (One, strangely enough, gushed about a snowstorm in Poona!) Then there’s the antique dealer, with a wealth of snuffboxes, Victorian charms and even a white stuffed owl that bears a startling similarity to Potter’s pet, Hedwig. Not surprisingly, this is also a meeting place for people interested in magic, most of whom head to the “Esoteric centre”, abounding in mystical books, beads and tarot readers. (London, by the way, has a significant number of wiccans and druids, many of whom are members of official groups such as the “Pagan Federation”.)

For a splash of extra colour, the road even has a turbulent past. Legend (and Wikipedia) has it that Cecil Court was razed in the early 1970s, probably by a Mrs. Colloway, who was apparently running a brandy shop and brothel there.

And, of course, if you need to stock up on Harry Potter money — galleons, sickles and knuts — you’ll find a store at Cecil Court that sells that too.

Byron’s Harrow

At Harrow On The Hill, bustling central London could be centuries away. Walk up a steep, winding path so quiet that the only thing you’ll hear besides your own breathing will be the rustling of leaves.

There’s something about Harrow On The Hill that makes people silently reflective, maybe it’s the languorous silence that wraps the hill. Or the almost intimidating Harrow School, founded in 1572, with its world famous alumni, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and former British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, amongst others. (There are guided tours of Harrow, made up of a charming muddle of warm, inviting buildings, with random stairs and unexpected quiet courtyards.) Or maybe it’s the spectacular 900-year-old St. Mary’s Church.

Beloved by the poet Lord Byron, who joined Harrow as a student in 1801, St. Mary’s is the quintessential English church. Even tempestuous Byron, infamous for his many roaring love affairs, extravagant lifestyle and wild living (Lady Caroline Lamb, one of his best known ex-lovers, described him as “mad, bad and dangerous to know”), found peace here.

Soothing landscape

In the churchyard, beyond the shadowy tombstones, there’s a huge tree under which he used to sit for hours, both as a boy and an adult. It’s easy to see why. The view — green meadows, aged trees and quaint houses dappled with sunshine — is as soothing as a watercolour. Byron’s sentimental poem, “Lines Written beneath an Elm in the Churchyard of Harrow”, was composed here. A part of it is reproduced on the plaque that marks the spot now. When Byron’s beloved daughter Allegra died at the age of five, he insisted on burying her at St. Mary’s. However, today she lies in an unmarked grave and all there is to remember her by is a discreet, easy-to-overlook tombstone, tucked into a corner. And the lines from her father’s poem nearby:

How do thy branches, moaning to the blast,

Invite the bosom to recall the past,

And seem to whisper, as the gently swell,

“Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!”

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27Apr / 2009

Posh Curry

It is as Indian as palak paneer, and as international as champagne. Traditional, like a tandoor, yet sufficiently avant-garde to keep up with edgy food trends. It incorporates age-old ingredients like saffron, and showcases caviar from the Caspian Sea with equal zest. A whole new genre, this is the newest form of Indian cuisine, currently being created by talented chefs in competitive London. Greasy chicken tikka masala has finally ceased to define India.

At Zaika, where the sleek décor is more about clean lines than the typical mirrors-sequins-and-elephants kitsch, and the music more Talvin Singh than thudding bhangra, Chef Sanjay Dwivedi offers a gourmet tasting menu. This includes a tandoori grouper, served with upma (or “Indian cous cous” as they call it) in a surprisingly invigorating champagne and cardamom sauce. The high drama of the meal is sustained by a succession of beautifully designed courses — seven in all — and theatrical frills, like a waitress spraying a thick foam of coconut cream over spice-encrusted scallops, right at the table. There’s pan-fried foie gras, served with wild mushroom naan and mango chutney. And chocolate samosas drizzled with raspberry sauce.

But Dwivedi’s current piece de resistance is his experiment with molecular gastronomy (the science of creating cuisine by treating your kitchen like a laboratory), a steaming portion of fragrant wild mushroom rice, topped with a scoop of tangy tomato “makhni” ice cream and served with mini-poppadums.

Slick and stylish

Slick, stylish and sassy, Indian food in London has certainly evolved from the days “Indian” meant oily balti meat curries and cheap takeaway. While the British have had an enduring affair with “Curry Houses” for many decades, these restaurants haven’t always been the best ambassadors for authentic Indian cuisine. For one, “Indian” in the British restaurant sector is used generically and includes Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Nepalese, and Sri Lankan food, according to Pat Chapman who heads the Curry Club and publishes the popular Cobra Curry Guide, currently in it’s ninth edition this year with about 50,000 copies sold. “Most of these restaurants in the U.K., some 85 per cent or 7,200, are Bangladeshi owned,” he says.

Typically their menu includes lamb jalfrezi, aloo gobi, vindaloos and “chicken naan”. “In a curry house, all the sauces are the same,” states Samir Sadekar, chef of the smart new Imli restaurant in Soho. “They just put in onion, carrots, tomatoes add spices and keep it cooking. Then, when a customer orders something, they’ll mix turmeric for a yellow colour, or red food colour for a chicken tikka.” And this holds true, right from Aberdeen to Brighton.

Nevertheless, these places are still popular and can be credited with having made Indian food a part of the British menu. “It’s also the British affinity for India,” says Chef Vivek Singh, of Cinnamon Club as he sips a luxurious Saffron Gin, glinting with gold leaf, in his trendy restaurant set in the old Westminster Library. “It’s the romance of the Raj… the best time of the Empire, and that just doesn’t go. So the feeling towards spices and silk is deeply engrained.” He adds that he constantly has customers who talk of grandfathers who served in India, “They still have old letters, photographs and paintings.”

Yet, he says even about a decade ago, although Indian food was wildly popular, “when it came to the top five, top 10 restaurants in the city, you would never find an Indian restaurant listed. It was still classified as `ethnic’ and it still had a cheap image.” Justifiably so since there was no quality control. “But because these restaurants were also successful — the most successful in the country — they didn’t need to change,” says Singh.

Raising the bar

Then restaurants such as Tamarind, which received a Michelin star for the seventh year running this January, began to raise the bar. Our motto is “change your perception of Indian dining”, says Rajesh Suri, Executive-Operations for the Tamarind Group. “We have high standards and inspect all supplies. If the sous chef is not happy with one fillet we send it all back.” Alfred Prasad, the Chef, adds that “London is the best place in the world for a restaurant, and a chef. But you have to be creative. And original. It’s very competitive.” And although they don’t innovate wildly, believing “there is enough diversity in Indian food. We haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg. There are so many regional specialities… the opportunities are endless,” they do “push the boundaries,” to quote celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsey. Roghan Josh with avocado for example, or “butter chicken with herb butter to calm it down,” says Prasad.

Imli, Tamarind’s sister restaurant, on the other hand is about fast, casual dining,” says Chef Sadekar. “Vegetable brochettes, fenugreek wraps, papdi chaat and mushroom tikkis… What we are offering is lighter food, and great quality at affordable prices. For the common man, this food is a revelation. After a meal here people say, `I never knew Indian food was actually like this’.”

With three-year-old Benares (featuring contemporary food from all over India by Chef Atul Kochar) also being given a Michelin star this year, it looks like London is finally taking Indian food seriously. As a result, there’s tremendous competition and every chef is pushing himself relentlessly, resulting in leaps of creativity. “In India people are still following old rules… recipes that are 200 and 500 years old,” sighs Singh. “In India, unfortunately, we can do anything we want with any other cuisine, but we cannot touch Indian food. Indian people will not take any innovation.” He adds, “I create food that is relevant.”

Not just simplistic fusion

“People are changing the way they eat,” agrees Dwivedi. “We’re making food lighter. I don’t do rasamalai. And I don’t do rasagullas. I don’t eat them. Nobody does, unless it’s at a shaadhi… I’d make a crème brulee or chocolate samosas instead.” He insists it’s not simplistic fusion, but all about playing with flavours, textures and techniques. “When people dine at Zaika for an occasion we want them to remember it for the rest of the year.”

“At Cinnamon Club we’re still cooking with spice, still cooking Indian — but in a contemporary intelligent way,” says Singh. “I do a European fish on a Bengali sauce served with lemon rice, which is south Indian: the whole plate is Indian to me. The customer is comfortable because he recognises the fish, yet there’s still a wow factor.”

All this confidence is being reflected in the pricing too. For a long time, people, used to curry house prices, resented expensive meals at Indian restaurants. “It’s a mindset that’s been around for 40 years — Indian food has to be cheap,” sighs Prasad. “We use the same suppliers as Gordon Ramsey. The same vegetables, the same fish… and that’s a three Michelin star restaurant.” Thanks to years of standing firm, and their unwavering quality, Tamarind and the others now charge as much as any top London restaurant, and still have a stream of happy customers.

“I take offence to India being portrayed as just the land of snake charmers and tigers. There’s a brilliant, modern India too,” says Singh definitively. “We are comfortable with the international world, why shouldn’t our food reflect that?”

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/03/18/stories/2007031800170700.htm

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27Apr / 2009

Byte Sized Pakodas

Sauté onions till brown. How brown? I’ve-spend-a-week-in-Goa brown? Smoke-alarm-shrieking brown? Or I’ve-been-using-Fair-And-Lovely brown?
Recipes can be infuriating for amateur cooks. All those annoying professional terms: chiffonade the herbs, add a bouquet garni, julienne the vegetables. How many times have you been bent over a glossy cookbook, double-boiling and basting away like some 21st century witch, wishing that you could hubble, bubble, broil and etouffe the writer? Fortunately the YouTube generation has come up with a solution.
Between all the videos of apparently unbalanced young men having astonishingly idiotic accidents and stammering adolescents showing us how to use iPhones, there are now heaps of kind chefs and accomplished home cooks who record their recipes, thus demystifying the kitchen for once and for all. (At this point, we must point out this does not include the bright sparks at ‘Will It Blend’ who feature an intently serious man attempting to pulverize everything from golf balls to the Iphone in a Blendtec ‘Total Blender.’)
People like Chef Sanjay Thumma, who has found himself catapulted to stardom thanks to you tube, are quietly revolutionising the way people cook. Sanjay began recording and posting his recipes online just two years ago on http://vahrehvah.com. Today, his name throws up about 20,000 results on Google. His lemon rice alone prompted 10,000 instant hits. Sanjay says that he now gets an average of one lakh viewers a day, from all over the world.
Cooking styles have certainly changed. The dog-eared, turmeric stained, well-loved family cookbooks, passed down for generations might just become a thing of the past. I, for instance, take my dinky iPod Touch into the kitchen and balance it on the microwave when I cook. The ability to view Sanjay, and cook simultaneously, makes following a recipe as easy as boiling an egg.
Sanjay says written recipes are really for professionals. “Home cooks tend to make mistakes,” he says. “With a recipe, one in ten people can make it good. With a video 99 out of 100 can make it good.” Especially with Indian food. As anyone who’s ever tried to learn how to cook from their grandmother knows, Indian food involves a lot of “one pinch of this, a handful of that and a fistful of curry leaves.” Sanjay does precisely the same thing – but you now have the option of pausing, grabbing the mustard/ turmeric/ salt and then mimicking him perfectly.
“Indian food all about adding things at the right time, cooking to the right texture, to get the right results,” Sanjay adds, explaining why it’s beneficial to actually see for how long he fries onions, blends cucumber or churns yoghurt.
Sanjay’s an interesting example of how much professional Chefs can do to reach out to the public in these times, when the Internet makes all barriers obsolete, whether they’re geographical, professional or culinary. He studied hotel management in Hyderabad and then worked for the ITC hotels in Gurgaon, Chennai, Agra and Jaipur. He then moved to Chicago in 1998, where he eventually started his own restaurant ‘Sizzle India.’ It was successful enough to become a chain, but 4 restaurants and 7 years later, Sanjay decided life was getting monotonous. “I decided to sell all of them and take a 2 year vacation. Food is my passion – doing business is not… All I wanted to do was cook.”
During the vacation, he bought himself a video camera. By September 2007, Sanjay had set up a slick studio in Chicago and began recording his first 150 recipes. “I just used the restaurant favourites,” he says, “Because everyone wants to know how to make butter chicken, chicken 65, chicken tikka.” Then came the basic cooking: pakoda, sambar, chutneys. The show is largely based on requests from his large and loyal fan following.
Now, he’s moved back to India, to Hyderabad, and his website’s finally making money, though the videos are still free. “People who like the recipes donate money. And there’s also some advertising on the site.
The best part? The excited e mails from people all over the world. We’ve always known food can break barriers. Teamed with YouTube, it’s clearly unstoppable.

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27Apr / 2009

The Skinny On Lattes

I avoid skinny lattes dusted with cinnamon. I look askance at caramel macchiato. When a tall cappuccino slithers past me in styrofoam, I merely nod coldly. Global coffee is convenient no doubt, but it’s also completely devoid of romance.

Coffee shops have traditionally been the refuge of writers, thinkers and colourful troublemakers. Today they’re more about Rihanna than revolution. More for slick investment bankers than grungy poets. Containing more Armani suits than flowery Give-Peace-A-Chance bandannas.

These chic chains have been taking over the world. Once upon a time, you travelled to experience new cultures — for adventure, personal growth and novel experiences. Today, you can boat right into the heart of darkness, like Conrad’s Marlow, and then, instead of muttering “The horror, the horror”, just hop off and order a Brazil Ipanema Bourbon coffee “popular for its mellow, pleasant notes of cocoa and almonds” and “as light and lovely as a classic bossa nova tune.” It gives a whole new twist to living dangerously.

I did make an earnest attempt to boycott all chains for a while. I figured that if a reasonable number of people do that, it means the small, quirky and — most importantly — local coffee shops would have more of a chance of survival. It worked brilliantly in places such as Edinburgh, where locals and tourists exult in cafes with character and names such as Under The Stairs, The Witchery or Loopy Lorna’s Tea House. You wouldn’t expect less from a city where even love is deliciously wacky, judging by a recent gum tree posting: “Guy with light Asperger Syndrome seeks girl in Edinburgh that lacks social skills?? I like coffee shops, scenic places, folk music, art galleries…”

However, finding people and places that are this fiercely individual is getting increasingly difficult in Chennai. Especially now, with the city getting determinedly international and hip, as fast as it possibly can. Which means that it’s hard to find a cafe where you can have a conversation, read a book or write a poem, without being subjected to Ricky Martin, the fashion police in the form of skinny girls in skinny jeans and a menu that bristles with Italian coffee and French terminology.

Fortunately, the few places we have, such as Amethyst and the Eco Café, are so popular with the locals that they’re inspiring other restaurateurs. Such as Shafee Ahmed, who has just opened Beanstock on Anderson Road. It’s obstinately old-world, with antique furniture, pretty hanging lamps and bamboo. Set beside a decidedly edgy new boutique called Ambrosia, the café’s designed to be a space for a quiet pause.

Shafee calls it his “garage café,” since it sits beside a house, under a roof of pretty Mangalore tiles. Everything’s low-key here. There’s no air-conditioning; so, the café relies on its canopy of trees to keep it cool — which is working well, so far. There’s a funny little passage that connects the main part to another seating area, which feels a bit like a secret garden. And the cakes aren’t perfect, thank goodness. “I didn’t want a very nice-looking cake,” says Shafee, pushing forward a plate piled with moist blueberry and apple-cinnamon muffins, “I want food that looks like it was cooked at home.”

That’s why he’s got a supplier who bakes everything at her house (with real butter, if you please.) Right now, Beanstock is still working on its menu, so it’s rather basic with sandwiches, milkshakes and a couple of pastas. They have ambitious plans though, including a huge Beanstock in Kottivakam, next to Bella Ciao and Chennai’s latest addiction, the Paintball grounds. Maybe, it’s the beginning of a trend.

Here’s raising a toast to coffee shops where you can drink filter coffee cross-legged in delightfully frumpy pyjamas and write really bad poetry. Or, a really good book.

Beanstock is at 31, Anderson Road. Call 42188181 for details.

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11Apr / 2009

The Power Of Clove

Dried whole limes at the Dubai Spice Souk

Turmeric, Myrrh, Frankincense, Cinnamon, Indigo

To my eternal fascination, I recently met a girl who’s frightened of cardamom.

We were at a dinner party in Abu Dhabi, standing in a friend’s kitchen discussing shoes, news and all things important when she spotted a menacingly large jar of cardamom on the shelf beside her. She recoiled in horror and then, between shudders explained that the little pods really scared her. Biting into one mid meal was clearly the stuff of nightmares: “They’re all smooth and creepy and ugh.”

To tell you the truth, i feel the same way about cloves.

Spices really do have strange powers.

Once back in Dubai, it seems appropriate that we have to take an abra (Arabic for a traditional wooden boat) across the dark, restless creek at night to hunt down the city’s enchanting spice souk. We’re seated next to a group of Emiratis, in abhayas and kanduras for whom the crossing is clearly routine. Beside them, there are excited Japanese tourists recording every minute of the journey with blinding camera flashes and squeals.

Clearly, spices, like tourist attractions, tend to bring the most diverse people together.

We’re hugged by a cloud of tantalizing fragrances as soon as we get off the abra: cardamom, pepper and cloves intertwined with other, more unfamiliar, scents. Following our noses, we walk into the 18th century. A row of colourful stalls bustling with people of all nationalities shimmer with the delicious scent of frankincense.

The souk, set beside the creek, trades in spices that have traditionally arrived by sea from all over the world, mainly the Far East, India and Sri Lanka. Today, while the rest of Dubai exults in air-conditioned malls boasting gourmet hot chocolate, caviar and Christian Dior, the souk remains obstinately unchanged.

We first notice the rocks. Huge salt rocks and astonishingly bright bars of indigo, used to dye clothes. There are baskets of dark volcanic rock, to be used as pumice stones.

Then come the fragrances. Frankincense and myrrh, conjuring up images of kindergarten Christmas plays and the biblical Three Wise Men, carrying these as gifts as they travelled through the desert on camels, following a star. The more mysterious myrrh is a collection of dark saps from different trees in Yemen, and billows into a thick, sweet cloud when set on red-hot coal.

Of course there’s saffron, from Iran. A favourite with the American, Japanese and European tourists for whom rare saffron really is the ultimate in exotica. I’m more interested in the huge sacks of inviting nuts, set in rows. We chat with shopkeepers who earnestly urge us to try handfuls: cashew nuts dusted with fresh pepper, pistachios encrusted with rock salt and crisp almonds. They’re followed by chocolate coated dates with nut centres, which are chewy, gooey and crunchy at the same time.

We buy stunning pepper jars, filled with peppercorns in different colours — red, green, grey and black — from a variety of countries ranging from Brazil to India. We also discover the fabulous bezar, used in Arabic cooking. It’s a mix of cumin, fennel and coriander seeds, cinnamon sticks, pepper corns, dried red chillies and turmeric powder, all roasted till they’re golden and then ground together.

Bundles of the biggest sticks of cinnamon I’ve ever seen are set beside fascinating sacks bursting with dried limes – black and brown from Oman. They’re popped whole into stews and soups. Or pierced, peeled or crushed before being added to biriyanis, meat dishes or seafood.

There’s red and white ginseng. Fresh vanilla pods. Intriguing bundles of red and pink dried rosebuds.

Rosebuds? They’re perfect for tea. Especially if you want to pretend you’re a heroine from one of those ridiculously enthralling Mills and Boons -type stories set in the desert. Arabian stallions, campfires and a cup of cinnamon and rosebud tea makes for an ideal combination.

It also works pretty well after one too many tequila shots. Bet the ancient seafarers who explored the world for these spices would be surprised at how far their bounty now travels. And how differently.

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11Apr / 2009

Green Curry meets Chicken 65

Baked beans on toast. Hardly the heights of fine dining in these days of culinary high jinks, where caviar is handed out with all the nonchalance of popcorn, and death by chocolate is more of a steadfast purpose than a menacing threat.

Yet, in the 1970s, when Spencer Plaza was Chennai’s ‘It’ place, I have it on reliable authority that once of the coolest things to do as a college kid was to stylishly spoon up baked beans on toast.

The ultimate British comfort food? Well, it’s hardly surprising. Wikipedia states that the mall goes right back to British Raj. It was established around 1863-1864 and was really the first departmental store in the Indian subcontinent, comprising India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Hence this quintessentially item, which was
one of many on their bangers-and-mash menu.

Then, in 1983, Spencer Plaza burnt down and had to be rebuilt. Things began to change. By the 1900’s India was accelerating rapidly, and so was good old ‘Spencers.’

Today it’s arguably the best place in the city to take a reasonably tasty culinary journey across a diverse array of cuisines With two bustling food courts and a variety of little stalls and restaurants boasting everything from coconut water to fresh waffles, you can travel from starter to dessert in fifteen minutes – depending on how
fast you vaccume it all up of course. Just don’t go there on the weekend when the all the city’s languid and lethargic people seem to converge into one aimless, amorous mass, which then proceeds to conquer every corridor, lift and store.

On other days Kolkata Chaat’s really the place to be if you like the whole elbow-to-jowl brand of socialising that’s rampant in these kind of joints. It helps that many swear this place makes the best pani puri in the city: crisp outside and deliciously mushy inside, accompanied with a burst of cold, tangy tamarind-spiked pani puri
juice.

Then there’s the ever-popular Thattukada, which already has die hard fans despite being a relatively recent addition, thanks to it’s peppery chicken roast ‘porizha Kozhi’ served with soft chapattis, If you’re feeling more indulgent try the scalding chicken curry that arrived with their signature Kerala parottas, which are simultaneous crisp, flaky and fluffy.

However, what really seems to be grabbing attention now is Su Wai, which is a surprisingly authentic Thai place, set in the midst of the babel, chicken biriyani and filter coffees of the Akshaya Food court in Phase one. Run by a Thai family, the food is cooked and supervised by the owners who are also on hand to serve and explain the food.

We try the aromatic green curry, paired with a astonishingly fragrant pineapple fried rice. The highlight however was the basil chicken, deliciously succulent and laced with the powerful flavour of bright basil leaves. The pad Thai was less endearing, since the ingredients here don’t really pop with that enthusiastic freshness that
characterises most Thai food. However, considering it operates from a tiny kitchen, Su Wai really is quite a remarkable little place. The menu’s reasonably extensive, featuring all the favourites: Vegetables in garlic sauce. Drunken noodles and the intense Tom Kha, bouncing with lemon grass.

The best part? It’s in a food court. So you can pair it with combinations that will make food connoisseurs go white with horror.

Some Ponnuswami chicken 65 for instance. Or maybe a curd rice from Sarvanna Bhavan?

We’re relatively boring. We go for the Brain Stimulator juice, to deal with some issues of absent-mindedness, and a vitamin C enriched drink.

I wonder what the new age equivalent for baked beans on toast would be anyway? Organic lima on whole-wheat bread served with a dash of salmon roe? And if it’s Spencer, it will probably come with a liberal helping of masala chaat and sweet-and-sour ketchup.

Globalisation can be quite fascinating. Especially when it plays out in a crowded foodie mall.

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11Apr / 2009

French Fries in the Desert

Desert rain is almost unbearably alluring. I’m on holiday in Dubai, and yesterday the city was lashed with a tempestuous storm. After the shimmering heat of the day, it was tantalizing. The kind of rain that tempts you outside, inviting you to soak in its’ dramatic, mysterious glamour.

Of course we did nothing of that sort. Dubai’s far too hip for such deliciously hippy notions. The romance of Arabian Nights, complete with images of plush flying carpets, mysteriously smoky hookah bars and glimmering Ali Baba caves, takes a backseat to swinging nightclubs, soaring skyscrapers and Christian Louboutin-studded malls.

However, we do get to soak in the flavours of the world. With a population that’s reportedly 80 per cent expatriate, there’s no better place to take a culinary flying carpet around the globe. There’s Starbucks pushing its skinny macchiatos topped with a crisscross caramel lattice, the German Hafbrauhaus delighting in potatoes and celebrated Japanese Nobu, appropriately set beside an astonishing aquarium, glistening with dancing Stingrays and intimidatingly languid sharks at the unabashedly sparkly Atlantis hotel.

This pot pourri of cultures can be surprisingly addictive. We begin our day with Bikram yoga at a trendy little gym called Stretch, in a room heated to 44 degrees, presumably to eliminate those pesky little toxins. That’s followed by a delightfully-titled ‘Disco Chai’ at the sleepy Al Hara teashop, specialising in the rich, milky, fragrant tea twanging with spices and bobbing with smooth cardamom pods. The days whirl by in a flurry of designer shoe shops, frequent cappuccino halt and some avid star gazing at Tiffany’s, in the best of Audrey Hepburn traditions.

At night, of course, there’s clubbing. Stunning open air 360˚ at the Jumiera Beach Resort that sticks into the sea, providing hookahs and a view to die for, set to addictive house music. The trendy Kewa lounge, with icy mojitoes spiked with generous amounts of fresh mint leaves. And Chi, refuge of the eternally cool, with it’s spicy, bite sized, crisp chilly chicken.

Yet Dubai works hard on maintaining a traditional Arab ethos, which makes for interesting dining. Sometimes bizarrely so. We eat risotto at the Madinat Jumeira hotel, watching European tourists turn tomato-red as they balance gingerly on traditional abra boats, and then bump into a falconer complete with his wicked looking feathered friend in the hotel’s reincarnation of a souk.

Then, to celebrate the desert rain we head to the popular Reem Ul Bawadi, wrapped in the gorgeous aromas of smoky barbeques and ringed with a parking lots boasting sunshine yellow Ferraris, gleaming Audis and deadly Ford Mustangs. Inside, it’s satisfyingly Arabic. Men in crisp, white kandouras with flowing ghoutta head dresses sit wrapped affectionately by thick rings of hookah smoke. Women in stunningly smoky eye makeup drift by. The ceiling’s covered in a sack cloth, and
liberally dotted with swinging lanterns. The deliberately rough walls are covered with an assortment of swords, ceramic and painting suffused with the golden glow of the sun on sand dunes.

Not surprisingly, the food’s fantastic. Creamy hummus, bounding with flavour and topped with a golden pool of olive oil, teamed with succulent barbequed chicken and a pungent, creamy, addictive garlic dip. They come with fluffy kuboose. A picturesque ink-blue hookah completes the picture, bubbling cheerfully below chunks of glowing
coal.

The menu, interestingly, isn’t completely free of the insidious fingers of globalisation. The chicken comes on a bed of French fries for instance. Between the baba ganouj, kibeh and za’atar on saj, there’s penne arrabbiata, margarita pizza and even filet mignon. Even the hookah comes in every flavour from mint to cappuccino. And yes, there are cheese samosas.

Yet, as the fruity smoke blends with the flavours of the barbeque and the restaurant fills with people of a dozen nationalities, speaking a babel of languages, it still feels like a scene out of the Arabian Nights. Clearly Aladdin and skyscrapers don’t make for a bad combination after all.

Next stop, the Spice Souk, I plan to take a traditional abra across the river to hunt down exotic Arabic spices.

You have a good week at work. Bwa ha ha.

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11Apr / 2009

Venn Pongal goes places

Young Kurumi Arimoto balances carefully on her toes, and stirs the carrot mundhiri payasam. Maiko Shimizu fiddles with a nifty camera, capturing the moment. Meanwhile, Akemi Yoshii, ponders over translating araithu vitta thakaali vengaaya sambhar into Japanese. In the middle of the kitchen, cookbook writers Padmini Natarajan and Viji Varadarajan simultaneously try explaining everything from ghee-making to how American frozen spinach cubes make for mulagu kootu that’s “out of this world.” Welcome to the new global culinary classroom. Kurumi, the daughter of Japanese cookbook writer Yoko Arimoto, has written one recipe book and is currently working on another. Her fascination for Tamil Brahmin cooking is what led her to Viji’s kitchen and kadais. Maiko is a professional writer, photographer and radio presenter. She runs the website One doodle land (http://onedoodle.jugem.jp/) and is working on recording and collating Kurumi’s culinary adventures in Chennai for a travel-food story, for her website. The link that brought everyone together is Akemi, Japanese translator with a Chennai software company, she’s also a freelance food writer with a Masters degree in Gastronomy from the University of Adelaide, Australia. This is their first introduction to home made Indian food. Yet, all three state that while Viji’s cooking is exotic, it isn’t unfamiliar. As Kurumi deftly makes kuzhakattais stuffed with moist coconut and crumbly jaggery, they talk of how similar these are to Japanese wantons, and those ever-popular dim sums found in every chinatown in the world. Kurumi plans to work on popularising this kind of fresh, easy South Indian home cooking in Japan once she’s back, because she feels it fits in well with Japanese traditions. “Our staple diet is rice… and our food taste is also mild and fresh.” Despite Indian food’s reputation for being high on spice and chillies, Tamil Brahmin food relies more on the taste of individual vegetables, cooked gently with carefully matched seasonings, which fits in comfortably with the Japanese culinary ethos. As recipes and kitchen tips are swapped, Kurumi and Viji cook their way through an elaborate lunch. Eventually everyone’s tucking enthusiastically into the sutta kathirikkai gotsu, made with carefully smoked brinjal and twanging with the distinctive flavour of hing paired with fragrant venn pongal. “We don’t eat Japanese food everyday,” says Akemi, talking of the various kinds of cuisine available in Tokyo. “Indian food is our favourite and we even have our own curry!” However, South Indian restaurants are rare in Japan. The few Indian restaurants that move beyond the flaming red curry route tend to limit themselves to dosas. Although chicken tikka and greasy curry tend to represent India in places like London and New York, these cities are also cosmopolitan enough to nurture change. In many of the world capitals, Indian food is ceasing to be defined by the curries, naans and kebabs of North India. Regional food is getting popular, as Indian chefs introduce the world to the likes of Kerala beef fry, Goan prawn balchao and Chettinad chicken. However, the fact that Kurumi’s in Viji’s kitchen, learning how to make a perfect semiya upma is indicative of the fact that we are poised at the beginning of a new wave: foodies travelling the world to learn cooking from individual households, recipe hunters leaving no page unturned in their quest for something new, cooks tracking down each other to swap techniques. Thanks to the Internet, with blogs, You Tube and websites, all this knowledge is quickly available to everyone. Who ever thought a vendaikkai thayir pachadi could travel so far, so fast, so flamboyantly. (Viji Varadarajan and Padmini Natarajan recently won the Gourmand Jury award for their book Classic Tamil Brahmin Cuisine.)

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14Mar / 2009

Easy Exotic (or The Day The Emu almost Ate Me.)

Eat an emu? After coming beak to nose with one of the more nasty
representatives of the emu dynasty, I’d rather eat my hat. (Reebok.
Pink. Goes great with my new running shoes. Just in case you need the
whole picture.) It’s a good thing I had those pink running shoes on,
in hindsight. I had been absent-mindedly rambling around the Melbourne
zoo when I heard a furtive little emu cough. I turned and froze with
terror. Emu and I were beak to nose. Apparently he wanders about the
zoo, sneaking up on unsuspecting visitors for fun. He stared. I smiled
apologetically. He deliberated on which of my ears to bite first. I
politely pointed out the chubby chimpanzees. He squinted. I ran.
Eat an emu? You’ve got to be kidding. They look like they’ll make
quick notes on your appearance, send it out via some creepy
ornithological Blackberry system and, before you know it, organize
rabid gangs of their feathered flightless friends grunting
threateningly at your door.
Yet, it makes sense to eat an emu. Or a kangaroo. Or an alligator.
(Try a barbecued emu, alligator tail steak sirloin, kangaroo pie.)
Increasingly, a section of the world’s environmentalists are urging
people to expand their food horizons for the sake of diversity. This
way species that are threatened because they are so popular on the
table, like the blue finned tuna fish, get a break. And, lesser known
species get farmed more.
Unfortunately, it sometimes translates into a whole new form of food
snobbery: Who ate what. With snotty gourmets trying to outdo each
other, it’s inevitable that you sometimes end up being in the middle
of a situation as outrageous as the movie, The Freshman (1990) in
which Mathew Broderick ends up babysitting a komodo dragon for a
ridiculous gourmet club where exotic and endangered animals are served
for dinner.
In a classic case of truth being stranger than fiction, the National
Geographic recently reported on how a rare quail from the Philippines
was photographed for the first time before being sold as food at a
poultry market. This buttonquail, known solely through drawings based
on dated museum specimens collected several decades ago, might just
have been the last of its species!
Slow Food, an influential, inspirational worldwide organisation that
promotes sustainable eating is gearing up for its dramatic 2009
edition of ‘Slow Fish’, which will be held between April 17 and 20 in
Genoa, Italy. Elisa Virgillito, of Slow Food, talks of how Slow Fish
promotes responsible fish consumption, which keeps in mind the the
health of sea and fresh water ecosystems.
Of course, it’s not easy to change ingrained food habits. Which is why
Eliza says that this year they even have “an expert who can accompany
visitors around the fish market, assisting them to discover the wide
variety of the fish available and to point out lesser-known species
that are also highly tasty.”
The movement succeeds because they focus on the pleasures of eating
good food, instead of using emotional blackmail to get their message
across. So, to stop people from eating bluefin tuna and swordfish,
both of which are over-fished, they are gathering talented chefs and
food artisans to demonstrate recipes with lesser-known species like
palamita (Atlantic bonito), blue whiting or scabbardfish, which taste
as good, if not better, and often cost less too.
Since Slow Food focuses on eating local, representatives from around
the world will be talking about local flavours made with ingredients
that have never seen the inside of a plane. Italy will be showcasing
sandwiches made from butter and Monterosso anchovies, marinated horse
mackerel, grilled cuttlefish with purple asparagus and the finest
farmed mussels with extra-virgin olive oil. From Spain, the region of
Galicia, which has used seaweed in its cooking for centuries, will
exhibit a kaleidoscope of recipes featuring seaweed.
We certainly live in a weird and wonderful world. So keep an open
mind. And if you can dodge the bad-tempered emu gang, perhaps you’ll
enjoy a gorgonzola stuffed emu roast or — here’s a surprise — emu
kebabs.

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07Mar / 2009

Kokum

Stop asking me where to go for dinner. I really don’t know. Why should I always decide anyway? And why do I always have to order for everybody?

I’m embarrassingly unimaginative anyway. If I find a new restaurant, I squat there for months, till the waiters start slapping me on the back and asking me to help out on busy days.

Fortunately, this year there’s always been something new.

Now, with MRC Nagar rapidly being restructured, the city is likely to finally have an actual dining destination, buzzing with hotels, fine dining and hip restaurants. Not surprisingly, M. Mahadevan, who’s possibly one of Chennai’s shrewdest restaurateurs, has quietly beaten everyone to the draw and opened Kokum in the heart of this area.

Kokum, which follows in the footsteps of the popular Ente Keralam, focusses on traditional home cooking. Except this time, it expands beyond just Kerala to the four Southern States. Although this is a rather common theme with Southern restaurants, Kokum’s advantage is its attention to seafood, which makes up a significant part of the menu.

Right now, they keep their blinds down, because the view consists of dusty roads, ugly construction and heavy machinery. But you can see that once it’s all done, this is going to be a scenic Singapore-like area. Best of all, between the buildings, there’s the glimmer of the sea.

Which makes the juicy karivepak royyala vepadu, prawns from Andhra Pradesh, delightfully appropriate. Especially when it’s served with spicy kane besule, soft ladyfish slathered in a crisp skin twanging with spices, including the distinctive Mangalorean red chilli.
Focus on specific areas

Chef Regi Mathew, who’s overseeing the restaurant, says the team decided to pick specific areas to base the food on, so the menu wouldn’t lose focus. Otherwise, as any true-blue foodie knows, recipes and food habits can change every 10 km or so in our deliciously diverse country.

Therefore Andhra Pradesh is represented by Nellore, Karnataka by Mangalore and Kundapur, Kerala by Alleppey and the Malabar regions and Tamil Nadu by Chettinad food.

The interiors therefore are carefully unbiased, attempting to convey the essence of the traditional South without getting too hung up on specific cultures. Tranquil, pretty and sedate, Kokum like all Mahadevan’s restaurants is sensibly comfortable without being superbly posh or unnervingly opulent.
Distintive flavours

The food, in keeping with the décor, is good without being extraordinarily elaborate or fussy. Thanks to the fact that they’re being quite obsessive about ingredients, every dish has a distinctive flavour, which is quite a treat in these days of ‘one spice fits all.’

The highlights are the Goan prawn balchao, rich and tangy, teamed with fluffy sanas. Also the spicy stuffed eggplants in a thick gravy redolent with peanuts, copra and sesame seeds. Then there was the red fish curry, designed to go beautifully with steaming rice.

There was also a duck roast, though with all the spice and frying it seems overly satiating given the fact that duck is rather heavy to begin with. The mutton gongura is interesting if you like the brisk tartness of the gongura leaf. There’s also an Udipi delicacy, a rather strange blend of plump mushrooms and bottle gourd, which takes some getting used to.
Sample slowly

Although they serve an intimidatingly large thali, Kokum’s variety is best sampled slowly. You wouldn’t rush through four states as a tourist, would you? It makes sense to approach the food the same way, since every cuisine is so defiantly individual. Of course, mixing and matching is the nicest feature of a restaurant that brings together different cuisines. But do it thoughtfully. Fish and rice. Crisp kori roti, a rice flour bread, with Mangalore chicken curry. Delicate neer dosa with, well, almost anything.

A thin payasam bobbing with what tastes like little vadais (pal kozhukattai) is served for dessert. The hot milky liquid is delicious, the spongy solids less so. Instead, I’d suggest their gorgeous banana dosas laced with cinnamon, which are really starters but make great desserts with their fudgy, flamboyant flavours.

Kokum is at Old Number 60, New Number 115, Kasthuri Avenue. Dinner for two should cost roughly Rs. 800. Call 42185462 for details.

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Shonali Muthalaly

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Orchids, Witches, Byron: Sneak Through Secret London

Posh Curry

Byte Sized Pakodas

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The Power Of Clove

Green Curry meets Chicken 65

French Fries in the Desert

Venn Pongal goes places

Easy Exotic (or The Day The Emu almost Ate Me.)

Kokum

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