food – Page 10 – Pertinent Observations

Going Global

Ok the second word in the title doesn’t refer to B-school slang. It means “global” in the true sense of the word, and has nothing to do with what my father used to call as “bulldology” (derived from the kannada word “bullDe” which essentially means “globe” (in the B-school sense) )

Ok so the story goes back to 2003, when I headed my way north all the way to Delhi, to intern at IBM Research. I would be staying at the IIT Delhi hostels during the course of my visit. I traveled by Rajdhani express, and had rotis and dal makhni through the journey. And in the mornings I’d get a flask of hot water along with “chai saamagri” (tea bag, sugar, milk powder, etc.)

That was when it hit me that for the next two months I’d be in chOmland, devoid of access to South Indian food, and good filter coffee. I remember getting paneer-fatigue within two weeks of my stay in Delhi. I would salivate at the very thought of going to the nearby “hotel Karnataka” and eating “meals” for a then princely sum of Rupees Fifty. The primary reason I got bugged with my internship was that I wasn’t getting my kind of food, and coffee.

Two years later, I would travel to London, for yet another internship, this time at an investment bank. The day I landed in London, I headed out for lunch with a few friends. Picked up a sandwich, and then it hit me how far away from home I’d come. Sandwich, for lunch! And I was the types who used to say stuff like “bread is for dogs”.

I remember going to this Sri Lankan store in Eastham every two weeks, carrying back “pirated” (smuggled, actually) packets of MTR Ready to Eat food, and frozen chapatis. And every evening I would microwave chapatis and some chOm dal or sabzis. The same chom food that I had so despised two years earlier was “home food” now. Of course every time I went to Eastham I’d also go to this “Madras Restaurant” and thulp madrasi masala dosa.

I don’t know where the knee-bend/point of inflexion happened but on my recent trip to New York, I didn’t have Indian food at all. The rationale being that there are certain kinds of food available in New York that are not easily available in India, so I shouldn’t miss the opportunity of eating them.

So I ate at Turkish, Greek, Ethiopian, Italian, Thai, Israeli, Korean restaurants, quite enjoyed the food, never asked a waiter “does this dish contain meat” (the reason for my vegetarianism is more because I get grossed out by meat, rather than any religious or cultural reason) (and I didn’t feel much when I set aside what looked like an octopus from my salad and continued eating the rest of the salad), never craved sambar, and generally had a good time.

My wife may not be the happiest when she reads this but frankly when I returned I didn’t exactly crave home-cooked Indian food. Of course the Rasam last night was wonderful, but it was now for me just yet another culinary item, just like coconut milk curry, or hummus or the ethiopian dals or pizza.

I seem to have truly gone global (again no pun intended)

Coffee Cultures

I realize each place has its own coffee culture. And coffee culture varies remarkably across short geographical distances.

America likes it large and watery. Even our office coffee machine here describes “americano” as “espresso with hot water”. And the less I say about the “traditional brewed American coffee” the better. Few people make coffee worse than these guys.

Oh and they like it large. The smallest size on the Starbucks menu is “tall”, though there is a “short” option available if you ask for it. I don’t know how often Americans like their coffee.

Turks like it really thick and strong, and in small quantities. It seems like they don’t like to filter their coffee. But whattan awesome coffee it is! Full in flavour, and the thickness means the taste lingers for a really long time.

Probably the best coffee I’ve had on this trip was at an Ethiopian restaurant (I’m thinking of going back there tonight) and it is not surprising since the coffee plant was first tamed there. Again it is strong and hot, and I was given the option of having it with a little milk and sugar. It is filtered I think, for there was little residue in the cup after I’d emptied it.

Madras likes it strong, with sugar and rich creamy milk (hence the “degree”). And Madras likes it large. I’m told most Madrasis have coffee just twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. The quality of milk, though, means that the Madrasi coffee looks light, though it’s quite strong.

I don’t remember too much about coffee in London, but I do remember that Costa’s there served fairly awesome coffee. Again it was all espresso based, which probably implied the quality. Though I do remember cribbing (maybe on this blog) about it. I remember drinking tea in my office there because I found the coffee not strong enough.

Bangalore likes it hot, strong, small and frequent. If I go to any of my father’s relatives’ houses, I usually have at least three coffees before I leave. All small shots. With a little milk and sugar.

At home, nowadays, I’ve been using a percolator I’d bought in Cafe Coffee Day to make my coffee (talking in singular since the wife thinks I make fairly horrible coffee). The problem with the thing though is that it keeps toppling over and I’ve to stand there holding it on the stove while the coffee brews. Any pointers as to where I can get better and more stable percolators will be appreciated.

I don’t know why but today as I was returning to my desk with half a glass of espresso and steamed milk (I’ve figurd out how to structure coffee in this office machine) I was thinking of Baba Budan. About how his efforts have made it possible for us in South India to enjoy this wonderful drink.

Jai Dattatreya.

Baklava

So for dinner yesterday, among other things, I bought a Baklava. It’s the first time I’m having it and I wonder if I’d be wrong if I were to call it the king of sweets.

Thinking about it, calling the Baklava king may not be all that inaccurate – given that I now think that the Indian sweet Badusha is derived from the Baklava. I haven’t checked anywhere but my guess is that “Badusha” comes from “Badshah” or king, and refers to the Mughal emperors who came from Central Asia.

And the Baklava, we know, comes from the region that broadly includes Turkey and Central Asia.

And I think the reason the Badusha, unlike the Baklava, lacks dry fruits is that it’s usually mass-produced – it’s a common sight at wedding receptions, and costs cannot be allowed to soar. Maybe, you might have South Indian Sweet Shops selling Baklava soon. You never know.

On a side-note I wonder why the Jahangir (Jangri in Tamil – clearly a derivative of Jahangir; imarti in Hindi) is called Jahangir. Wonder if it came to Karnataka in Emperor Jehangir’s time.

New York food recommendations

So I’m in New York for the next 2 weeks (6-18), and like last time want to do this sampling of high-quality cuisine from around the world. Meals are expense-able so cost isn’t so much of an issue, but given that I’ll be eating 13 dinners there I want to choose the places carefully.

Off the cuff, this is what I broadly want to eat. So plis to be recommending where to go:

high-quality thin crust pizza
pasta
hummus-falafel-…
mexican stuff – i’ll go to chipotle at least once for sure. any other places?
thai – something I missed out on on my last trip there.
ethiopian – considering I don’t get to eat this in India I want to eat this at least twice
french
Korean – I’m going to Hangawi once again for sure. Sheer awesomeness it is

Ok I’m sure there are other cuisines whose existence I’m not even aware of, so if you think there’s something I might like plis to be recommending. And if you live in NYC and want to meet for a meal, let me know. We’ll plan something.

And here is the list of places I went to during my last visit.

Update: I’ll be staying at the Hilton Millennium, next to the WTC site.

Alco Haalu

Does anyone know why the colloquial name for liquor in Kannada is “oil” (eNNe) while the corresponding word in Tamil is “water” (thaNNi)?

Is there some kind of a caste/class origin to it, with me being biased given that most Tamilians I know are upper caste/class, and that there is a different colloquial word that is in vogue among other classes? Because “eNNe” has more of a working-class feel to it (the name, that is), and one that has been appropriated by all sections of society.

While on the topic, I learn that the Gult word for alcohol is medicine (mandu)!! Fantastic!

What is the colloquial name for alcohol in your language, and what does it mean? Put it down in the comments here.

PS: and does anyone know why alcohol bottles are sold in black polythene covers? Never seen these things being used elsewhere so if you see a black polythene cover you know there’s a good probability it’ll contain a bottle of alcohol

The Jayanagar Problem

I don’t know why there are no good mid-to-high end restaurants in the Jayanagar-Basavanagudi area. Ok I must admit there are a few that are quite good – Chung Wah Opus (run by the Kamats of Yatri Nivas fame) and Banjara come to mind, but there aren’t too many. What bothers me more is the profusion of positively bad mid-to-high end restaurants – Presto (Yediyur circle), Cable Car (inner ring road, near Raghavendra Swami temple), Baron’s Inn (9th Main 40th Cross) come to mind.

There are several other reasons as to why I won’t move out of this part of town (except maybe to Kathriguppe, where I own a house – and that area I must say is now quite well served in terms of restaurants) , but it is a big problem for us when we want to go out to a decent place for dinner and are in no mood to drive. One such occasion was last Friday and we ended up walking to Hotel La Marvella at South End Circle, which had an extremely awful lounge and fairly decent north indian food at the not-too-bad rooftop restaurant. Still, there was something missing (which I can’t describe here) which meant the experience wasn’t particularly fulfilling.

One thing to note is that this part of town is home to a lower proportion of upper middle class immigrants compared to other parts of town. Also, the fact that the growth in the mid-to-high-end restaurant industry in Bangalore is largely correlated with the growth in upper middle class immigrant population (read: the IT boom) lends credence to this line of thought.

Then, there might be people who argue that these are “traditionally traditional areas” so people won’t eat out much, and won’t spend much when eating out, and don’t look for diversity in cuisine and all that. But the fact that in recent times KFC has opened a few branches in this part of town (“few” is important – because it’s clearly been successful) refutes this argument.

I don’t have too many other ideas about why this is the case. If you do, plis to be enlightening me.

When will people come?

So I was trying to estimate how many of my invitees will attend my wedding ceremony and how many will attend the reception (the former is at noon and the latter the same evening). While a large number of people have kindly RSVPd, not too many have really mentioned which event they’ll turn up for. So it’s my responsibility to somehow try and figure out how many will come when, so that the information can be appropriately relayed to the cooks.

Personally, if I’m attending the wedding of someone I don’t know too well, or a wedding I’m attending more out of obligation than out of the desire to be there, I prefer to go to the reception. It’s so much quicker – queue up, gift, wish, thulp, collect coconut, leave. The wedding leads to too much waiting, insufficient networking opportunity, having to wait for a seat in a “batch” for lunch, and the works.

Again, I hope that most people who are coming for my wedding are coming more because they want to attend rather than looking at it as an obligation. Actually I was thinking of a wedding invite as being an option – it gives you the option to attend the wedding, but you pay for it with the “cost” of the obligation to attend. In fact, over the last few days, I’ve felt extremely guilty while inviting people whose weddings I bunked (for one reason or another).

That digression aside, what upsets estimates for my wedding is that it’s on a Sunday, when more people will be inclined to come in the morning rather than at night. For one, they have the day off. Secondly, usually people like to spend Sunday evening at home, ironing clothes and the like, preparing for the grueling work week ahead.

And the fact that the venue is on the northern side of Bangalore, while most of my invitees live in the south (the fiancee and most of her invitees are in the north) makes me want to increase my “lunch” estimate and decrease the dinner estimate. And then the fact that I’m getting married on a seemingly “auspicious” day, when there are lots of functions all around, makes me wonder if I should discount the total attendance also.

After the wedding is over, I’m willing to anonymize and share the spreadsheet I’ve used for my estimates. Ok you might think I’m a geek but what I’ve done is to put an “attendance” probability for each event for each attendee, and then taken expected value to get my estimates. As I write this, I think I should take standard deviation also, and assume the law of large numbers (yes I’ve invited a large number of potential guests) in order to provide my in-laws (who are organizing the whole event) 95% confidence intervals for number of guests..

Anyways, I just hope that my (and my in-laws’) estimates are right and we won’t end up erring in either direction (shortage of food, or wastage) by too much in either direction. And the costs of the two (localized costs – as hosts, our costs of food shortage (in terms of reputation, etc.) is much higher than cost of wastage; though from global sustainability perspective it’s probably the other way round) have led our solution of the Newsboy Problem to be conservative in estimate.

And yesterday I was suggesting to my in-laws that after the wedding lunch, we can revise the estimates for dinner to M – X where M is the total number of guests we expect (counting double for people who we expect to attend both lunch and dinner) and X is the number of people who had lunch. It’s important, I think, to use as much information as possible in making decisions.

Buffet Strategy

Skip the main course. I’ve come to this conclusion based on three buffet meals I’ve had in the recent and not-so-recent past – Khansama in UB city in early July, Barbecue Nation in JP Nagar last weekend and The Higher Taste at ISKCon tonight.

In all these meals, there has been significant variety in the starters. There have been various kinds of starters and salads (and anyways Barbecue Nation’s USP is the barbecues – which are starters). And significantly awesome desserts too – wtih a couple of Indian sweets, variety of cakes, fruit and ice cream.

The problem with main course in all these restaurants is that it’s too standard. There might be the odd innovation here or there but it is usually a close cousin of some standard item itself. The nature of North Indian main course meals (which is the main course of the main course in all these places) doesn’t lend itself to too much radical innovation and hence the main course ends up being not too much special.

So this is what you need to do at buffets – load up on the starters. They are usually the best part of the meal in these buffets. And if you combine all the starters judiciously, it should give enough nutrition (except maybe for calories). Maybe have a little bit of main course (something like rice) to fill up your stomach (density of food fundaes). And then thulpitmax on the desserts. I’m sure you’ll leave the meal feeling happy and contented and full.

Barista Update

The Barista at Barton Center on MG Road has suddenly become so much more bearable, as they have turned down the volume of their music to a level such that you can actually have conversation without shouting. On a related note, it seems much easier to find tables there compared to earlier (yesterday we walked in around 6 and found several tables empty; earlier there would be a long wait at that time).

On yet another related note, they seem to have done something about the pricing. It’s friggin’ expensive now (70 bucks for a small cappuccino?) but I think they’ve gotten it right. There is obvious value in the restaurant as shown by the long waiting lines that used to be there earlier, and the restaurant is now simply monetizing that value rather than using artificial means (loud music) to chase people away.

As a former revenue management professional (damn; that sounds so corporate whoreish) I’m happy they are doing what a coffee shop like them is supposed to do – providing excellent environment for long conversations and chilled out afternoons, and actually charging for what it’s worth.

The earlier method was so cheap and country – they were clearly underpriced because of which there was overcrowding and they weren’t able to meet demand and had to use other measures such as playing loud godawful music to keep the crowd rotating.

Two thumbs up to Barista’s new pricing and music policy!

The City Lacks Bars

Yeah you might think I’m crazy to be cribbing like this about Bangalore, supposed to be India’s pub city and all that jazz. But I stick to my statements. Yeah we might have lots of good pubs and lounges but we don’t have lots of good bars.

I was on my way to dinner at Fava at UB City this evening when I noticed the City Bar, and it struck me as to how few such bars there are in the city. Like places where you just go to the bar, get yourself a drink and literally hang around (around random small darshini-style tables) talking to people. I was reminded of my trips abroad, of places like London or New York which are so full of places like this one – where one just goes, buys a drink and hangs around.

My hypothesis of the shortage of such bars got some weight on our way out of Fava when we noticed how full the city bar was. It was like BTS bus 201 in peak hour – there wasn’t even any standing room!

Which makes me wonder why the culture of mid-to-high end standing bars hasn’t taken off in the city, especially considering our glorious tradition of darshinis and of standing bars at the lower segments (I hope you’ve noticed this – every “wine shop” literally doubles up as a standing bar, where people get stuff from the shop in a dirty glass, stand around and quickly gulp down. I must confess I’ve never drank at this kind of a bar).

Is it because the notion of a quick drink isn’t very well defined at the higher segments of our society? Is it because a “quick drink” is associated with the lower end of the spectrum and so the richer people don’t want to indulge in it? Could it be because of the exorbitant price of liquor licenses that makes it uneconomical to serve liquor cheaply enough to get enough crowds to sustain a standing bar? (most shady standing bars don’t have a bar licence; they run on wine shop licenses)

I must admit I’m a bit of a novice at this one (in terms of total quantity of alcohol consumed during my lifetime) but this really intrigues me. Why hasn’t the concept of higher end standing bars taken off in Bangalore? Has it taken off anywhere else in India at least? Again shady bars don’t count.