“I think I’m one of the few people who don’t feel what they do is a job,” Hari Nayak says. “People who eat my food –I make them happy – there is a direct reaction right away and that doesn’t happen in most jobs except cooking. And that’s what drives me.”
Browsing: Foodisphere
Adda’ means a hangout in Hindi and New York’s Adda India Canteen is exactly that – a small homey place in an industrial neighborhood in Queens, next to a 711 and set close to a rumbling overhead subway track, small businesses and a community college in prosaic Long Island City, away from Manhattan’s frenetic dining world.
Nashville, Tennessee is the home of American country music but now it’s also getting known as the home of Indian street foods, thanks to Maneet Chauhan, 42, who is striking some spicy notes in Nashville with her brand new restaurant Chaatable which brings the delight of Mumbai street food to Nashville.
The noted husband and wife team of Chefs Hemant Mathur and Surbhi Sahni has probably birthed more new restaurants than anyone else! Their latest creation Saar Indian Bistro is the newest in the line of eateries which have included Tulsi, Chote Nawab, Chola, Malai Marke, Haldi and Sahib. This one has moved more uptown from the Curry Hill area of Little India. It is in the theater district (241 West 51st street) so is a real spicy alternative for diners looking for more drama on their platters (the only other Indian restaurant in the theater district is Utsav, a long time staple of the area.)
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.
For those who’ve lived in and loved Calcutta – or Kolkata as it’s now known – feasting is an important part of life. Here four Bengali-Americans share their best memories of the city’s innumerable, incomparable eats: Partha Banerjee, NY activist, talks of his favorite haunts in his favorite city; Mukti Banerjee, home cook, shares some delicious Bengali food through her meetup group in Brooklyn; Kriti Mukherjee, foodie and consultant, reflects on the importance of food in a Bengali’s life, and businesswoman Priyashmita Guha shares a tale about eating street foods with her father in Maddox Square.
Indian immigrants who have spent time in the homeland will remember their childhood passion for Cadbury chocolates – the only big brand available in India in the good old days! In those days chocolate was a rarity and a treat. NRI relatives visiting India would always be asked to bring back just about any kind of ‘foreign’ chocolate and as much as could fit into a suitcase. Now some of them are turning into chocolate-preneurs!
The instructions were simple – wear red, gold or white for a Bengali celebration! It was a party for the holiday season and a welcoming of the New Year. And yes, Jal Muri was absolutely on the menu. And since Nandini Mukherjee, once owner of the hugely popular Indian Bread Company, was the host, you could expect a great spin on Indian food.
A no-turkey Thanksgiving should make both vegetarians and the turkeys very happy!
As each successive wave of immigrants come to America, they introduce their own well-loved foods to the Thanksgiving table and in the process create new traditions.
How do you create sweet things and also sweeten life for others? Ask Surbhi Sahni – the mithaiwalli of New York. A Michelin-starred chef, she recently became the pro-bono Director of the Tiffin Project operated by the nonprofit organization SAPNA NYC through which low-income South Asian immigrant women train for marketable jobs in the culinary industry.
Had your fill of chana masala? Now you can turn this Indian special into chana masala burger! Watch the Eater video!
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.
Jacques Torres is certainly building up good karma! After all, what can be more life-affirming than making humanity happy by feeding it chocolate every day? Torres, who is affectionately known as New York’s Mr. Chocolate, creates a massive 200 tons of artisan high-end chocolate in his 40,000 square foot factory in Brooklyn.
India is the land of many cultures, many people – and many foods. Vikas Khanna’s ‘Utsav’ captures the many festivals of India and the unique dishes associated with each religion and region. Here’s a chance to experiment with different dishes and celebrate all the wonderful festivals of India!
Strolling through the Chocolate Show in Manhattan (and munching as I went) I thought I had seen it all – chocolates with a hundred different flavors, chili chocolates, chocolates mixed with bacon, even chocolate lotions, lip glosses and potions. – until I came to the most unexpected – camel milk chocolates!
For most Indian immigrants the two most mouth-watering words in the English language are “Indian Food”. Last summer I enjoyed a great culinary journey back to India: I visited Anjappar, a noted ‘military hotel’ in Chennai famous for its non-vegetarian Chettinad cooking , and also the iconic Sarvanna Bhavan beloved for its dosas, uttappams and other vegetarian delights. I next ate my favorite street foods at Kailash Parbhat, my family’s favorite Sindhi eatery in the by-lanes of South Mumbai. Final stop was of course the classic Moti Mahal in my hometown of Delhi where I’d first tasted the divine makhani murg or butter chicken in my childhood.
Yet you’ll be surprised to know that I visited all these treasure troves of regional cuisine without ever boarding a flight or stepping out of America!
When Sunita Advaney, now married and settled in Forest Hills, was seven years old, she came home from first grade and asked her immigrant parents about Thanksgiving. Her father Lal Lakhati, who had migrated from India, didn’t just explain the holiday to her, he actually went out and bought a small rotisserie bird and all the trimmings and the family had a Thanksgiving dinner. In later years they did two turkeys – one traditional and the other a bright red, coated with tandoori spices, coloring and stuffed with biryani and boiled eggs. Says Sunita, “We need our chillies and it was a good way to ease people into turkey because turkey is not our culture.”
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.
Lassi with Lavina India Blog: An Idea for a Hungry World Feasting and Fasting I’ve been on a…
Vikas Khanna’s new book ‘Indian Harvest: Classic and Contemporary Vegetarian Dishes’ begins and ends with his poems. No, it is not a book of poems but a recipe book which is part memoir, part travelogue and part encyclopedia, as well as his repertoire of traditional and modern vegetarian recipes.