Not the real deal

Bangalore may boast of being a cosmopolitan city, especially in terms of cuisine — it has plenty of international choices, giving food-lovers ample opportunities to treat their taste-buds. Apart from the hundreds of American fast-food chains in the City, which serve burgers and hotdogs, Italian and Chinese cuisines are also quite popular, and are no longer restricted only to high-end restaurants. Arabian food has been creeping into the menus of many eating joints in the City and Japanese options — earlier avoided due to pure squeamishness — are also considered to be fashionable choices.

But how authentic are these international options? The problem is that most restaurants, in a bid to do better business, tend to modify their menus to suit the local palate — pasta is made with a dash of garam masala  and Chinese dishes have been morphed to such an extent that a whole new branch of cuisine has emerged out of it.

Achuthan Anil, a student, recently took a trip to China, which is when the glaring differences between the food they serve there and the dishes we term ‘Chinese’ here were made obvious to him. “I visited Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau and since I’m a huge foodie, I tried the local cuisine in each of these places. There are huge differences in how the cuisine is prepared in India. For starters, the food I saw there had very little chicken — mostly beef and pork, which obviously has little appeal in India because of religious problems. So, the general flavour of the cuisine is lost. Besides, the spices used here are very Indianised as well as the vegetables, like cauliflower. There, they tend to use more leafy greens,” he describes, adding, “What’s more, the food there isn’t as spicy as the Chinese dishes that are served here.”

Kaushik Sengupta, a professional, adds that this sort of Indianisation is rampant with other cuisines as well.

“Mostly, eateries tend to add certain masalas to their food to suit the local palate. Lebanese cuisine for instance — shawarma is sold at nearly all the popular malls in the City, but it certainly isn’t authentic. The same is the case with items like pita bread, as well as a lot of Korean food in Bangalore. Even fast-food chains have introduced paneer pizzas and the like,” he elaborates.

Interestingly, he points out that something similar happens with cuisines from other parts of India too.

Goan joints often include buffet dishes like kadhai paneer and dal makhani and in South India, there is a tendency to use the same masalas for dishes from across the country.
“For instance, many Bengali eateries in the City add curry leaves to the food — being a Bengali I know the difference, but many Bangaloreans don’t,” he adds.

He’s conscious, though, that this isn’t the case with many of the high-end restaurants in the City. But Vijaya Baskaran, the executive chef at Le Meridien, feels that for a genuine food lover, there are enough places in the City that serve the real deal. “For the most part, in restaurants, there are chefs who have trained under authentic Japanese or Italian chefs. They even travel abroad to get a better idea of international cuisines,” he explains.

He adds that since many Indians now have more exposure to different international foods, restaurants think twice before serving them something which is not authentic.

“People have travelled a lot more — they’ve tried sushi, sashimi and real Italian food. What’s more, they want to experience the real thing back home. So, if restaurants try to fool their customers by serving them something that isn’t authentic, they won’t buy it. Unlike earlier, they know what is what,” he concludes.