Your local Indian restaurant

This post started out as one thing and may actually end up as another - well it always happens with the internet doesn't it? You look up one thing and get led into another thought bubble.

I wa going to write about local Indian restaurants like the one above in general, with a specific reference to that one - because, of course, this was what started me off. Actually, and unusually, when I went looking for inspiring quotes and/or articles about the ubiquity and nature of Indian restaurants in general I didn't find anything much. Very unusual as I ascribe to the notion that somebody has already written about what I want to write about. So I feel a bit challenged in a way.

But back to the genesis of this post. It started with the end of year concert at our granddaughters' primary school - at the time of 6.00pm - a bit early for dinner before. The family was going to do a picnic, for this was an open air event, and we would have joined them in this but they changed their minds and opted to eat before. As I said, too early for us, so we decided to eat out on the way home. So at around 8.15 we found ourselves in Templestowe - a real suburban eating hub. Lots of restaurants/cafés all pretty full which is a never ending source of wonderment really. It was only a Wednesday night after all.

First we tried The Living Room which is a mod Oz kind of place, but they turned us away because they said they were full - well not quite but they obviously didn't want us there, so we tried a new pizza place and got as far as sitting down with the menu. But - a really somewhat tatty setting, very loud and the final straw (which I didn't know about until afterwards) was that the water we were served was warm, led us to decide to walk out. Nobody, other than the waitress, when she returned to our table, noticed I hope. So we then decided to try the local Indian restaurant - an almost fail safe option we thought. And indeed it was. The food was absolutely delicious, it looked good, the service was efficient and very friendly and the environment was very pleasant - carpet on the floor, actual tablecloths. Modest I suppose and it wasn't full, but it wasn't empty either. And did I say cheap? Well that was David's big thing - we had their special menu which gave us two entrées, two mains, rice, two naan and ice cream - plus a free drink - all for $50.00 for both of us. The food was so plentiful - we couldn't face the ice cream.

So I thought I would just do a quickie on the restaurant itself. And then I thought I would expand my thoughts to ruminate on how reliable and ubiquitous Indian restaurants are.

Templestowe actually has at least two - there may be more that I don't know about. Eltham also has at least two and again there may be more. Indeed more or less every neighbourhood in Melbourne, probably Australia, has at least one Indian restaurant - and Thai, Italian, Chinese as well to be fair. This has happened since we arrived here back in 1969 because back then there was just one Indian restaurant in Melbourne - Phantom India - near the University - that we knew about. So I learnt to cook Indian food. But over the years the Indian population grew and Indian restaurants sprang up everywhere. For years and years our favourite was Haveli, about which I have written before, and we shall probably still go there on our older son's birthday in spite of it having moved a bit far away for a regular visit. And we have not really replaced it until now.

I don't think I have ever been truly disappointed with an Indian restaurant. Well there have been a couple of disappointments but not really about the food. One was Bhoj - also in Templestowe (though no longer there), which at one point was said to be Melbourne's best Indian restaurant. Well not really. To us it did not seem any better than Haveli - and it was pricey, which would have been fine if it had been superb, plus when David moaned about the Indian salad the response was a bit hostile. Then there is Ginger and Garlic in Eltham, where the food is good but the host is pushy. He once talked us into a banquet which was not a good deal at all.

But really they are all pretty wonderful, if not that adventurous. You do tend to get the same dishes in all of them, which as one writer said is a bit surprising and disappointing as the food of the sub continent varies from region to region. I did hear one theory that this was because most of the Indian restaurateurs come from the north but I'm not sure that they even really showcase their own regional dishes.

The other thing to note about Indian restaurants which sort of supports my theory that they are all good, is that if you check out all those 10 best lists you will find that every list is different. A few names crop up more than once, but there doesn't not seem to be just one or two that are on every list. Every list, as I say, is different. And our bad experience with Bhoj has not convinced us that these lists are to be relied upon anyway.

One thing I noticed whilst at Rajbhog (which means Royal feast according to the website, but may actually mean Royal taste) was that the waitress seemed to be very keen to make sure that we were not vegetarian. I now realise that this is because, this particular restaurant is owned by a Gujarati family, and Gujarat in the far north west of India, is famous for its vegetarian food. And indeed when I looked at the full menu of the restaurant I can see that by far the largest category of dishes is the vegetarian section. It's a very long list.

So I went to Madhur Jaffrey's two books on the regions of India to see what she had to say about Gujarat. And indeed the vegetarianism is the thing. The state is famous for its vegetarian food. It's a pretty dry state, mostly Hindu, but also with Jains and Parsis (also vegetarian). Of course it is not completely vegetarian - being that close to Pakistan it has Moslems too, but nevertheless the majority are vegetarian. And I have now found various sites that rave about its ingenuity with vegetarian food.

"It’s a food lab of the most magnificent proportions. The kind that Rene Redzepi and Ferran Adria could only dream of, where each ingredient has been tested, cooked and stretched to its limits over many years." Meera Sodha - The Guardian

I don't think there were many purely Gujarati dishes on the menu at Rajbhog, but there were some. The outstanding one it seems is the dhokla, which is a kind of steamed cake. Below is the version from Rajbhog with the version from Madhur Jaffrey's Flavours of India. I think the Rajbhog one looks better.

dhokla

dhokla w chutneys

There were also dozens of dishes made with paneer on the menu. There was even a tandoor paneer. I'm not sure whether the paneer dishes were Gujarati or from elsewhere, but it does show that vegetarianism is important to this particular Indian restaurant. Maybe to really differentiate themselves they should concentrate on the Gujarati thing. After all vegetarianism is growing, vegan too and some of the vegetarian dishes would have been Ok for vegans.

Madhur Jaffrey describes one of the standard ways in which Gujarati dishes begin:

"One sound you'll always hear in her kitchen is the popping of mustard seeds in the saucepan. Gujaratis call this the vaghar, a technique in which whole spices such as mustard seeds, cumin seed and fenugreek are popped and fried in hot oil. The popping is vital, because it releases the true flavour of the spice and its therapeutic properties.

Whether it's a slow-simmered root-vegetable curry or flash-cooked greens, Patel says the vaghar is her first step in preparing an Indian vegetable dish." Madhur Jaffrey

Madhur Jaffrey wrote at least two books on the regional food of India, and others have too, so maybe the next step in the evolution of the Indian restaurant will be to explore those regional specialities. Although, of course, in England at least, they have evolved a bit by fusing cuisines - Birmingham balti being just one example. And I believe the high end Indian restaurants of the major cities of South East Asia are also developing new experimental fusions. Two different ways to go. I wonder which will win, or will we continue to have just butter chicken, tandoori food, roghan josh and beef vindaloo to choose from? And isn't it interesting that these could all now be described as comfort food for the Anglo community around the world?

Nearly all of these local Indian restaurants are owned by families - immigrants who have come here, worked hard, and whose children are moving on to bigger and better things. And often on their websites and in their brochures they have pictures of the family - here is the Rajbhog one. They have owned the restaurant since 2000 so it must be at least moderately successful. I notice from their brochure that they do catering too - for up to 1000 people!

I'm betting that the daughter has a university degree in something. The charming young waiter, who was a friend or relative was another example of the upward mobility of the Indian population - helping out at Christmas whilst on leave from studying dentistry in Queensland. And Haveli's daughter has a degree in marketing I think.

So inspired by the success of this visit we shall go there again, but we should also explore the other Indian restaurant in Eltham. It might be just as good.