Need some education about indian food (in the US)
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Joe Simes wrote:
Nae ower nippie does not mean what I thought it meant!
And good thing too. Unless you were alright with having those in your food! :rolleyes:
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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First, "Indian" restaurant is too generic a term to describe Indian good. depending on who runs the restaurant, you will get different food. Chicken Tikka Masala made by an Andhra cook will not be the same as that made by a Gujarathi cook. And if you get this in a South Indian run restaurant, you can be sure it will be as unauthentic as possible (because that sort of food is not common in the southern Indian states except in restaurants). One tip is to go for the buffet, that way you will probably find something that you like.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
And of course this is the reason I am looking for education. I assumed that different regions of india would produce different varieties of indian food. However, I just assumed that they would be called something different. Here in the US, there are some foods you simply can't get in parts of the country. But if I found a resturant that served those foods, I can reasonably expect some resemblance in the dish. As for buffets, we have tried several and you're right, we always find something we like. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what we are eating and since the labels on the food are different at every resturant, we don't know enough to know that we are going to like what we order at other resturants. Indian food rarely lists what is in a dish, they just give a name. Looking at the websites of a few places we've eaten at, one claims "northern india" flavors, another claims "northern and southern india" flavors...but most don't claim anything at all. Perhaps I need to just learn more about the different regions of india in general?
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Well I was more having thoughts of the lovely waitress at the Indian restaurant near my home. That would be a nae ower nippie dish! :-\
Joe Simes wrote:
Well I was more having thoughts of the lovely waitress at the Indian restaurant near my home.
Now that is a a lovely thought :-)
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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And of course this is the reason I am looking for education. I assumed that different regions of india would produce different varieties of indian food. However, I just assumed that they would be called something different. Here in the US, there are some foods you simply can't get in parts of the country. But if I found a resturant that served those foods, I can reasonably expect some resemblance in the dish. As for buffets, we have tried several and you're right, we always find something we like. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what we are eating and since the labels on the food are different at every resturant, we don't know enough to know that we are going to like what we order at other resturants. Indian food rarely lists what is in a dish, they just give a name. Looking at the websites of a few places we've eaten at, one claims "northern india" flavors, another claims "northern and southern india" flavors...but most don't claim anything at all. Perhaps I need to just learn more about the different regions of india in general?
The names are usually just used arbitrarily. They know they need to use names that Americans are familiar with so they just go with the popular ones like tikka masala, vindaloo, alu gopi etc. The preparations probably have different names in India (in state languages, not in Hindi). But in the US all names use Hindi-words and so they need to translate names, and they rarely get this right.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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kinar wrote:
of stuff in it that that I don't care for (Onions for one),
Yikes! You want curry but you don't like onions? I can't think of any curries that don't have onions in them, it's kind of a core requirement. In fact I can think of few dishes worth eating from almost any nationality that don't have onions in them. :)
Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already. - Marcus Aurelius
I don't mind onion used as an ingredient in dishes. I just can't stand the texture of onions (even when cooked). As long as they aren't crunchy and as long as I can't see them, I'm fine (or I'll pick them out). When I cook at home, I either use onion salt as a replacement for the onion or I cook the onion with the dish and segregate after cooking so they never make it to my plate (but others can mix them in if they want them).
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OK, my wife loves indian food. About once a month or so, we go out to an indian resturant or cook some curry chicken at home. There is quite a selection of indian resturants where I live and we never eat at the same place twice (at least we probably won't until we've tried them all). The problem I run into (as someone who likes but is shy of spicy foods) is that each resturant seems to have pretty much the same menu but it isn't the same food. I've been told that Tikki Masala is the dish to order for "stupid (US) americans" like me. Scenario: Resturant #2: I order Tikki Masala, wife orders Tikki Korma...I get something that doesn't taste too bad but it definately has a mixture of stuff in it that that I don't care for (Onions for one), it is a curry colored sauce and fairly thick. My wife's Tikki Korma is a red cream sauce and I absolutely love that stuff. Resturant #2, I order some kebab thing and the wife orders Tikki Masala. I get basically what I would expect out of a kabab and it isn't too bad. On the other hand, my wife gets something that looks exactly like the Tikki Korma from the other resturant and tastes very similar as well. This goes on for almost a year now and we never really know what we are gonna end up with after ordering. It seems like Tikki Masala and Tikki Korma almost interchangable from resturant to resturant but every resturant has both on the menu. There are other examples of this from the dishes but this is the one that we always come across since I almost always order one or the other while the wife branches out and gets something new. So, what am I missing? I mean, I can understand slight variations of a dish from place to place but what I've gotten are 2 completely different dishes while ordering the same thing on a menu. Is there a guide online somewhere to indian food that I can read up and be a bit more educated?
First of all, Indian food cooked by Indians is incredible. I miss my old coworker's leftovers. Indian restaurants around here are extremely hit or miss. kinar, please tell me you are in Chicago so I can give you a breakdown. Here's what I liken the range of Indian food to: There are direct translations, aloo = potato, paneer = cheese curd, etc. That portion remains common. Everything else about the dish is open to interpretation based on region and personal tastes of the chef. Think about it in American food terms. Order a soup or stew or chili in various regions, the same name does not mean the same ingredients or taste. PS. My personal favorite is Malai Kofta, Bhindi Masala, and Bhelpuri
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OK, my wife loves indian food. About once a month or so, we go out to an indian resturant or cook some curry chicken at home. There is quite a selection of indian resturants where I live and we never eat at the same place twice (at least we probably won't until we've tried them all). The problem I run into (as someone who likes but is shy of spicy foods) is that each resturant seems to have pretty much the same menu but it isn't the same food. I've been told that Tikki Masala is the dish to order for "stupid (US) americans" like me. Scenario: Resturant #2: I order Tikki Masala, wife orders Tikki Korma...I get something that doesn't taste too bad but it definately has a mixture of stuff in it that that I don't care for (Onions for one), it is a curry colored sauce and fairly thick. My wife's Tikki Korma is a red cream sauce and I absolutely love that stuff. Resturant #2, I order some kebab thing and the wife orders Tikki Masala. I get basically what I would expect out of a kabab and it isn't too bad. On the other hand, my wife gets something that looks exactly like the Tikki Korma from the other resturant and tastes very similar as well. This goes on for almost a year now and we never really know what we are gonna end up with after ordering. It seems like Tikki Masala and Tikki Korma almost interchangable from resturant to resturant but every resturant has both on the menu. There are other examples of this from the dishes but this is the one that we always come across since I almost always order one or the other while the wife branches out and gets something new. So, what am I missing? I mean, I can understand slight variations of a dish from place to place but what I've gotten are 2 completely different dishes while ordering the same thing on a menu. Is there a guide online somewhere to indian food that I can read up and be a bit more educated?
I can't help directly with your problem; but in general if you want real ethnic food as opposed to localized stuff with only a passing resemblance to the real thing and semi-arbitrary names, you need to find restaurants whose primary clientele are of the same ethnic group. OTOH you always run the risk of ending up with a staff (menu) that only speak (is written in) Hindi/Malayalam/etc and have to order in complete ignorance of what you're getting. :laugh:
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
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A few Indians who've been to London claim you get more authentic food in Indian restaurants there than in Indian restaurants in India (or rather just restaurants in India).
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
A few Indians who've been to London claim you get more authentic food in Indian restaurants there than in Indian restaurants in India
Bollocks.
Cheers, विक्रम (Have gone past my troika - 4 CCCs!) "We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread :doh:
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
A few Indians who've been to London claim you get more authentic food in Indian restaurants there than in Indian restaurants in India
Bollocks.
Cheers, विक्रम (Have gone past my troika - 4 CCCs!) "We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread :doh:
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Bollocks.
Not so much as you think. For one thing, food and taste are extremely subjective things, so while you personally may not have liked the Indian food you tried there, there may be others who found it to be the opposite. Also I believe you are vegetarian, and all of my friends/acquaintances who've told me this are pretty heavy meat consumers. So it's possible that the vegetarian dishes may not compare favorably to what we have in India. Also if it was anyone else who replied with a 1-word disagreement, I'd probably have ignored it since it's not backed with any comments. But since I somehow have this idea of you as a food lover, I thought I'd respond :-)
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Bollocks.
Not so much as you think. For one thing, food and taste are extremely subjective things, so while you personally may not have liked the Indian food you tried there, there may be others who found it to be the opposite. Also I believe you are vegetarian, and all of my friends/acquaintances who've told me this are pretty heavy meat consumers. So it's possible that the vegetarian dishes may not compare favorably to what we have in India. Also if it was anyone else who replied with a 1-word disagreement, I'd probably have ignored it since it's not backed with any comments. But since I somehow have this idea of you as a food lover, I thought I'd respond :-)
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
I do agree that taste is very subjective, but I am at a loss to understand how Indian food in the UK can be better than Indian food in India. That's like saying Chinese food in the USA is better than Chinese food in China. It might make sense if the person in question was brought up in the UK and is more accustomed to Indian food that has been suitably modified for the British palate than he is to authentic Indian food, but in general, the original statement doesn't have a leg to stand on. My experience with Indian food in London was underwhelming, to say the least. Except for one restaurant in Wembley, but then again, it was the Sri Lankan fare I had there, not Indian.
Cheers, विक्रम (Have gone past my troika - 4 CCCs!) "We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread :doh:
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I do agree that taste is very subjective, but I am at a loss to understand how Indian food in the UK can be better than Indian food in India. That's like saying Chinese food in the USA is better than Chinese food in China. It might make sense if the person in question was brought up in the UK and is more accustomed to Indian food that has been suitably modified for the British palate than he is to authentic Indian food, but in general, the original statement doesn't have a leg to stand on. My experience with Indian food in London was underwhelming, to say the least. Except for one restaurant in Wembley, but then again, it was the Sri Lankan fare I had there, not Indian.
Cheers, विक्रम (Have gone past my troika - 4 CCCs!) "We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread :doh:
Well the folks whose opinion I mentioned here are all Mallu-Americans who were comparing non-Mallu Indian food like chicken tikka masala that's served in Indian restaurants in Kerala vs that served in Indian restaurants in the UK (and they also probably compared it with Indian restaurants in the US). Non-mallu food served in Kerala restaurants can be pretty bad (based on my experience), so I do think what I said holds true. I admit though that Indian-food is not the sort of topic where you can have any kind of generalizations, not even vague ones. Not to mention that Indian food itself is too generic a term that includes multiple cuisines including those that are totally different from one another.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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Well the folks whose opinion I mentioned here are all Mallu-Americans who were comparing non-Mallu Indian food like chicken tikka masala that's served in Indian restaurants in Kerala vs that served in Indian restaurants in the UK (and they also probably compared it with Indian restaurants in the US). Non-mallu food served in Kerala restaurants can be pretty bad (based on my experience), so I do think what I said holds true. I admit though that Indian-food is not the sort of topic where you can have any kind of generalizations, not even vague ones. Not to mention that Indian food itself is too generic a term that includes multiple cuisines including those that are totally different from one another.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
Ah, OK, that makes sense. South Indian cooks are as likely to botch North Indian dishes as much as anybody else (except, of course, North Indian cooks) and vice versa. It comes down to the cook, really. A Punjabi cook in Tahiti can make better Punjabi dishes than a Gujarati cook in Gujarat.
Cheers, विक्रम (Have gone past my troika - 4 CCCs!) "We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread :doh: