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...
