Browsing: Indian cuisine

If Thanksgiving is a festival of gratitude, then Indians have been preparing for it their whole lives.

In India, take a walk down the Mumbai waterfront in the early morning mist, and you see ordinary citizens quietly feeding the fish and the birds. Their daily day doesn’t really begin until the deities in their home shrine have been venerated with fresh flowers and offered prasadam.
It is only after eating a little of this blessed offering does the family sit down to their meals. Many remember to keep aside a portion of the food for a hungry person or the birds. It is all about sharing.

International foods at the Vegan Night Market in Central Park on Tuesdays!

Madhur Jaffrey, & Priya Krishna discuss the arc of Indian food in America, & their new books – Instantly Indian Cookbook and Indian-ish at IAAC’s event at DAG

A vegetarian Sindhi meal at the James Beard House is indeed a unique event, and the one selected to introduce it to the larger world is Chef Roshni Gurnani who is the chef at Hotel Derek in  Houston, Texas. She offered a really old world treat for gourmets but as interpreted by a modern day Sindhi chef.

It’s a far cry from the ornate Indian restaurants of the past with their sandalwood elephants and their samosas.

You’ll find neither at aRoqa.

Some people infiltrate a country to conquer it. My invasion was simply to – eat it! To swallow it whole, the foods, the tastes, the spices – to make it a part of me.
I’ve been popping pieces of India into my mouth since childhood – and it’s an insatiable hunger for more and more. This year my trip to India was about reliving the past and enjoying the present, when it comes to the ever changing and unchanging world of Indian food.

Who would have thought that the princely state of Awadh exists in Manhattan? The flag of Dum Pukht has been unfurled by Gaurav Anand, a passionate culinary crusader, and the crest of the royal house is embedded right on the door of Awadh on the Upper West Side. This is an outpost of old Lucknow with its famous Galouti kababs, Lagan ki Raan and Kakori Kababs. Recently the Village Voice, the NY chronicle of everything cool, declared Awadh the best new Indian restaurant in New York.

There was a time in America when Indian food, like Rodney Dangerfield, got no respect. Westerners (and some embarrassed Indians) tried to eat rotis with knife and fork, complained of the greasiness and the smell of the cuisine, and thought Indian food began and ended with ‘curry’.

That was then – this is now!

In our new global world, Indian cuisine is hot – and cool! Everyone seems to understand the language of Indian food, Indian chefs are stars and Indian cuisine has many fans, is anointed by Michelin and Zagat, and is the subject of great reviews. So it was inevitable that a glamorous award ceremony celebrating these successes would be next – the Varli Global Culinary Awards for the best and brightest in Indian cuisine…

She’s a svelte and golden goddess with a cooking utensil in her hand and she’s coveted by all those in the world of cuisine.

We’re talking of course of the Varli Culinary Award, in the form of a lithe sculpture – and now the most talented chefs are going to be able to take her home as a testimony to their cooking talent.

On November 15, foodies, chefs and restaurateurs will gather for the first Varli Culinary Awards at the Altman Building in New York City to honor the best talents in Indian cuisine. The chief judge of the evening is renowned cooking authority Sanjeev Kapoor whose show ‘Khana Khazana’ is a huge hit on TV. The hosts for the evening are popular New York actors Manu Narayan and Pooja Kumar.

Three Shrimp Creations from Varli Rising Star Chefs at Junoon Restaurant in New York

There are not too many chefs who can cook for humans and the gods with equal panache but New York chef Vikas Khanna is certainly one of them. He has helped cook langar at the Golden Temple, exchanged hugs with Amma and also created gourmet dishes at the high-end New York restaurant, Junoon. Not to mention cooking a Satvic meal at the White House!

Yet this celebrity chef started out unsung and unknown in a simple, middle-class family in Amritsar. Growing up, Vikas’ life was different from that of other kids who would be running around, playing cricket and climbing trees. He had a disability as his feet were not aligned.

“Where I found my shelter was in the kitchen. Simple, home-cooked meals became like prasad for me, and Biji, my grandmother, my priest. She didn’t teach me recipes, she taught me the power of food to heal, to connect people.”

Inundated with new cuisines, new restaurants and new foods? Then you need an antidote to the craziness of the Delhi food scene where new eateries crop up all the time. You need to take a walk back into time. You need to visit Embassy, around since 1948.

Haven’t heard of it? Well, if you are a Delhite, you surely know it. It’s the ancient gastronomic heaven where you go to binge on food that is delicious, is reasonably priced – and also invokes memories with each spoonful. After all, the restaurant has been around for six decades with its curious blend of dishes. Where else would you get Bomb de Moscova, Amritsari Macchi, Chicken Strognoff and unmatchable chole bhature and chicken chaat – all on the same table?

For Indian food lovers, this is the equivalent of Foodie Heaven! An opportunity to taste the food of not one, not two but 13 noted Indian chefs – all under one roof. The noted chefs include names which are familiar to fans of Indian cuisine – Floyd Cardoz, Vikas Khanna, Jehangir Mehta, Hemant Mathur, Prasad Chirnomula, Hari Nayak, Maneet Chauhan ,Walter D’Rozario and Peter Beck, with Sanjeev Kapoor flying in from India.
This would have been an unimaginable scenario a few decades back but now is a done deal, thanks to the Varli Food Festival being held in New York City on April 7 at the Altman Building in Chelsea.

12 Things You Didn’t Know About Tulsi

What strikes you on entering Tulsi is the sheer lightness of being – floating white shamianas, basil green accents and mirrored walls. It’s not your traditional Indian restaurant with the elephants, silk curtains and ornate touches – this is India dealt out with a showering can rather than a shovel, and the food is just as subtle, with a melange of regional dishes and a touch of fusion.

Aasif Mandvi’s ‘Today’s Special’, which premiered at MIACC Film Festival last year, is now showing at the Tribeca Film Festival and getting a theatrical release on November 19. It is a fun and funny movie which gets you involved in the travails of Samir, a sous cook in New York, who has to find himself and his culinary soul. He is helped in the journey of self discovery by a mystical taxi driver who treats cooking like a beautiful, complex raga. (Naseeruddin Shah digs into this meaty role with relish – he’s utterly believable as the charismatic cabbie, a part of the magic of New York).

Meet some of the Big Apple’s hottest and happening Indian chefs…

They are the interpreters of Indian Cuisine, the innovators who aren’t afraid to experiment and create, adding new dimensions to the food they grew up with, giving an exciting buzz to the ho-hum chicken tikka masala and palak paneer which has become the norm of Indian restaurants around the world. Some of them are at the helm of New York’s most noted Indian restaurants and bring in the foodies.