The other day we went for dinner to a fancy new restaurant. Seeing it pretty much crowded, we decided to give it a try. Only when we had taken our seats did we realise that most of the diners were foreigners, with an Indian face or three as part of the group.
In MNC-infested Gurgaon, this generally means ‘the introduction to Indian food outing.’ It usually has four bewildered looking white people (no blacks ever!) accompanied by two officious looking Indian chaps who loudly proclaim, ‘No yaar, they should try the Tandoori Naan (accompanied by a knowing nod from the whites), Methi Matar Malai and the Butter Chicken. The rest of the stuff here isn’t
that good.’
This makes me wonder whether all those bewildered looking whites really want to have Indian food. Would they have gladly traded the culinary delights of ‘Punjabi Rasoi or Tandoori Tadka’ for the salami sandwich at the office canteen instead? And, with such do-gooders, do the poor souls get to choose anything on their own
at all?
Anyway, the restaurant we went to also had a heavy and gilt-edged menu listing its delights and being looked into with great interest by the firangs. Given the descriptions, it took us a while to figure out it was Chicken Do Piaza it was talking about. It went somewhat like this: Succulent pieces of boneless chicken, marinated in saffron and yogurt and sautéed with whole spices and baby onions.
We also broke our heads over pickled baby mushrooms and peas sautéed in garlic and onions, served with cream. Turned out to be Mushroom Matar, in gravy suspiciously similar to the chicken’s.
After a not-so-hot meal and a completely unjustified bill, we walked out and wondered what got this lowest-of-dhabas-masquerading-as-posh-restaurant going. I decided it was probably the menu. Name anything in an exotic way and even your run of the mill ‘rajma chawal’ will sound exciting enough.
Cubed potatoes sautéed in cumin and coriander with a lime dressing, sounds so much better than plain ‘jeera aloo,’ n’est pas? Check out any French food menu. Nothing's never described in less than five lines. No wonder that the bread and snail cuisine is so hot around the world. Time we learnt.