Friday, March 27, 2015

FOODIE SPECIAL................. Past on a plate

Past on a plate
Celebrity chef Floyd Cardoz is inspired by the roadside flavours of Bandra's vendors
                                           
When a celebrity chef comes all the way from New York to start a res taurant in Mumbai, it's natural to expect a menu crammed with Norwegian salmon, Australian lamb, and Italian truffle. So Bombay Canteen throws up its first surprise when you open the gaudy account registers that serve as menus -and find Mallu drumstick soup and maska pao, besan ka chilla and murgi aur chaawal. Not to mention low-onglamour ingredients like turai, kaddu, arbi and lauki.
The second surprise is that this eatery is charming rather than swish. The water is poured from old Rooh Afza bottles. The plates are the clunky stuff of Irani restaurants, and the floral teacups could have belonged to our grannies. The menus feature advertisements from old copies of Femina and Woman's Era.And the prices are affordable -certainly not what you'd fear from an eatery directed by a hotshot New York chef, cookbook-writer and winner of the Top Chef Masters TV show in 2012.
“It would have been easy for me to open a restaurant in a five-star hotel, using totally imported ingredients,“ says Floyd Cardoz, who grew up in Bandra and still finds enormous inspiration in the roadside masala chana, memories of kheema pao at the St Xaviers's canteen and boiled-egg vendors outside shady bars in Bandra. “But I'm known for using local and seasonal ingredients. Also, I strongly feel it's time to give Indian regional cuisines their due.“
Bombay Canteen -which is about a month old -has generated a buzz for many reasons. Its food and mood are playfully nostalgic.Its attempt to give a contemporary twist to Indian cuisine is in keeping with the big trend of the moment (as all those menus featuring deconstructed pav bhajis and jalebi caviars will testify). And, of course, there are the international credentials of its culinary director.
Cardoz grew up in Bandra, where he enjoyed messing around the kitchen. He was studying biology at St Xavier's College when, one day, he picked up Hotel by Arthur Hailey in the library . The potboiler about a New Orleans hotel propelled him into the Catering College at Dadar. Next, Cardoz worked at the Taj and then headed to Switzerland to study some more.
In 1998, Cardoz and restaurateur Danny Meyer opened Tabla in New York. Rather than follow the roghan josh route that most Indian restaurants employ, Cardoz experimented with American ingredients and came up with dishes like Goan guacamole and smoked chicken samosas.
In Bombay Canteen, Cardoz uses the same dogged how-do-you-know-gulab-jamun-won't-work-with-rum-till-youtry-it strategy. As do his two partners, banker-tur ned-foodwala, Sameer Seth, and Pune lad Yash Bhanage. “We wanted to take a fresh look at Indian cuisine. At the moment, Indian restaurants are where you go with your parents,“ says Seth.
Agrees Cardoz: “We want to change the perception of Indian food, and create a space that is fun and casual. Somewhere you can drop in often without feeling that you have to dress up.“ Somewhere to try a seafood bhel, juicy with calamari, clam and shrimp and crunchy with sev. Or a masala chai popsicle. Or a sublime guava tart topped with chilli ice cream -a dessert that instantly triggers childhood memories of soggy newspaper wrappers oozing peru and chilli powder.

Shabnam Minwalla TOI22MAR15

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