Washington, Sour-sweet sauces, crispy puri-papadi are a stumbling block for Americans. The James Beard Foundation Awards were held last week in which tea water in Ashville, North Carolina was named the best restaurant in the US. The taste of this restaurant, which serves chaat and Indian street food, has made the people of America lick their fingers.
For almost the last decade, the dominance of dosa dinners, buffets and chicken tikka masala or the stereotype of modern Indian food found in expensive Indian restaurants in New York, Chicago and San Francisco over the last few years has been snapped.
The restaurant was started by Meherwan Irani in 2007. He was a sales professional when Meherwan Irani started. Although he is not a trained chef and has no experience in the restaurant business, the tea water menu is surprising to many Indians.
They make everything from bhelpuri to shakarkandi chaat, aloo tikki to pakoda and bhajipau that you will find in every chaat or small lorry in India. Here they do not even decorate in a way that attracts food lovers. So how did a restaurant selling Indian delicacies become the most talked about place in the US?
The first thing that stands out in the success of tea water is that people in the US (even around the world) have turned to comfort food since the epidemic. Now among the people and especially among the young generation, a dish that is full of flavors and different flavors is preferred over a special dish prepared by a chef.
Flavors and various textures are easily found in the trough. In the past, chefs had to reduce the sharpness of Indian food and prepare it according to Western taste. But now today’s generation wants to enjoy the ‘authentic’ taste and that is why they eat spicy and savory dishes to their heart’s content.
Hannah Ruskin, a well-known American food critic and South Carolina resident, says the reason behind the success of tea water is that the food found in it is both easy to prepare and easy to eat. Also its flavors are absolutely perfect. Suzanne Sarkar, a chef at a bar restaurant in New York, also says that the ingredients of street food dishes can be easily mixed, prepared in advance and delivery is easy.
Especially after the epidemic, restaurants rely on home delivery or takeout orders in addition to the customers who come to them, in which the delivery of these dishes can be done easily. However, accessibility alone is not responsible for the success of tea water.
As Henna Ruskin said, the average taste of Americans is also changing. Meherwan Irani, owner of Tea Pani, also admits, “Americans are now realizing that Indian cuisine is not only spicy and spicy enough but also varied.”
Once they tasted the chaat, they couldn’t forget the taste. ‘ Meherwan considers Irani Chaat to be ‘affordable, equitable, easily accessible, affordable and pan-India food’. A number of smaller restaurants have also been added to the Chaat category in the last two years.
TV celebrity chef Manit Chauhan, who lives in Nashville, is famous for his chaat and spicy dishes. His famous restaurant in Nashville is dedicated to Chauhan Alley & Spice House as well as Chatable Chaat. In 2020, he also published a book titled ‘Chat: Recipes from Kitchen, Markets and Railways of India’. The book received good reviews in mainstream publications.
Lesser known regional dishes of India are also served here. Chintan Pandya, the executive chef of New York’s well-known restaurant Dhamaka, received the James Beard Award for Best Chef just last week. The restaurant opened in 2021 and serves ‘non-Instagram friendly’ dishes.
These are the recipes that Chintan Pandya came across while traveling in small villages and houses as well as in the streets while traveling in India. However, the most famous dish of this restaurant is Khad Khargosh i.e. whole rabbit. This is an old-fashioned Rajput dish. Rabbits have to be ordered 3 hours in advance and only one is served every evening.
The dish is accompanied by lentils, bread, rice and potatoes as a family style meal. Chintan Pandya said that instead of making such a change in the taste of Indian cuisine to the American people, they believe in serving Indian food easily.
Chef Chintan Pandya and his business partner Ronnie Majumdar have started another restaurant called Rowdy Rooster. This is a small fast-food shop where you can find fried chicken according to Indian tradition. The restaurant, which sells everything from chicken pakoda to chicken 2 and chili chicken, is almost like a food truck without wheels.
Meals are served in disposable containers, served in five minutes, and all dishes cost less than 15. His business is also very successful. Smaller Indian restaurants are spreading across the US, not just the two coasts.
In Texas, the cost of labor is cheaper and the laws are easier, so restaurants are opening here in a surprising way. New Indian restaurants in Dallas are converting old-fashioned family restaurants into buffet formats. They sell a variety of biryani ranging from rose cupcakes to beers made in India. SS2KP
