Take a small glass, fill it up with shredded onions to the brim, then take a bite-sized ulte tawe ka parantha, which sits perfectly atop the rim of the goblet and put a melt-in-your-mouth galauti kabab over it. Familiar dish served with a simple twist that makes you look at it with new, admiring eyes and immediately reach out to put it in your mouth. Or take a specially designed wooden tray stacked with a variety of papads on the four sides and several small bowls of innumerable colourful chutneys and relishes in the middle. Inviting enough for you to make a meal of it.
Indian food, which has tasted good and satiated a diversity of palates the world over, is now also trying to look spiffy. “You don’t just eat with your mouth but with your eyes too. It’s all about a dish looking good, smelling great before putting it in your mouth,” says Deepankar Arora, chef and owner of Noida’s Indian and pan-Asian restaurant Tawak. So gone are the days when the only visual relief in the middle of slapdash bowls of dal, chicken and...
THIS ARTICLE IS PRICELESS...
To read this piece, and more such stories in India's most exciting and exacting magazine, plus get access to our 25-year archives goldmine, please subscribe.
