March 24, 2024

Ahmedabad might not have been a show stopper but I need to mention this heritage restaurant we went to for dinner one eveing. It is called the "Agashye"- an open terrace restaurant situated in a heritage building in the heart of the old city. I think -t is also now a hotel- known as MG hotel or the House of MG. I had originally imagined that it might be a reference to Mahatma Gandhi since we were in his town. But it was named after another eminent Ahmedabad family- Mangaldas Girdhardas. The open-air terrace seating in these Indian locales has always been very aesthetically appealing to me. If you sit yourself down at any of these tables and look around , you will be surrounded by a canopy of old buildings, the ambient noise of bustling traffic and in general be in the thick of a multi-timbral and multi-hued chaos that is so quintesentially Indian. And since you are seated at an altitude you are well positioned to take all this in without gettting your hands dirty. What more can you ask for? Agashye is not the only restaurant that occasions such an experience. There is increasingly a large number of restaurants and bars in the PArk Street, Chowringhee area of Kolkata that offer much the same motif and experience. 

Coming back to Agashye, one of the remarkable things was the presence of a large balcony above the restaurant terrace which housed some live musicians who were belting out tunes. There was guy on Sitar and another on tabla. I was expecting to hear some "ragas" and their customary improvisations- but they were unfortunately playing to the gallery- belting out old bollywood tunes. Other than the choice of music, it was a great atmosphere in what was a mildly balmy evening. The food was a highly traditional Gujarati Thali- which is always a hundred percent vegetarian. I am always intellectually curious how Indians manage to craft such deliciousness in every morsel without the use of the obvious cheat codes of meat, fish, poultry, caviare, cured animal protein, lard and, of course, that emperor amongst flavour enhancers- bacon. None of that here. Yet there was a dal that was lip smacking, a mixed vegetable dish which was oozing with an Indian umami, and something called a "bhakhra"- a tiny paratha which is to be had with a white butter and a garlic powder. This bhakhra I believe I was consuming for the first time. The lst time I had a Gujarati Thali was probably a few years ago. In Dubai, not far from where we live, is a lovely district called JLT ( Jumeriah Lake Towers) which has a restaurant called Spice Junction which serves nothign but a Gujarati Thali. I am not yet a serious connoisseur of Gujarati cuisine, but I do know that the thali is not particularly monolithic- and Gujarat has many regions which all have unique culinary features. My initial impression used to be that everyone here is vegetarian. It is mostly true but in Saurashtra, by the Arabian Sea coast, there is a lot of people that eat fish. Speaking of that, I feel for such a old civilisation which has such a significant coastline, and also blessed with a riparian network second to none, our tradition of using Fish or Seafood is not as elaborate or rampant as one would imagine. The coastal peoples obviously will consume fish, but if you go to France to seaside town in Normandy, or even in a Farmer's market in the center of Barcelona, you will see what I mean.

The Thali progressed fast and furiously- and bowls of goodies were being refilled by an army of liveried waiters. Sweet dishes were also placed alongside savoury ones. One simply nibbled away without any prescribed sequence until one was satiated. I try to avoid sweets but I could not here. There was a shrikhand which looked a bit jejune and I thought I shall have but one teaspoon so as not to insult the chef. It was exquisite, and I had more than the said teaspoon. There was also kheer and a moong dal halwa - the items were not particularly gallant in either ingredients nor presentation.  The magic was in the near perfect flavour profile. It was all in the cooking. It was all chemistry as opposed to Western cuisine which is almost all physics. You buy very high quality meat and produce- and then all you need to do is boil, sautee, braise, bake or fry while seasoning with a modicum of ingredients. These chefs skills are in identification of good ingredients and skills with knives with a focus on presentation. The Japanese chef is an ever more stark manifestation of physicality. In many cases, the chef simply cuts a piece of raw fish and wraps it in some boiled rice. Yet this is haute-cuisine but not the gujarati thali. However, if the gaze of the food consumer in the west continues pivot away from meat or fish, this might all change in a hurry. Because I don't think the Western-schooled chefs quite have the chops to do anything spectacular without animal protein.

This high quality vegetarian meal was topped the following evening at the ITC Rajputana in Jaipur. We ate at a restaurant in the hotel called “Peshawari”. I didn’t do the ordering but I saw a lot of grilled meat on the table each of which tasted great. The most remarkable being a mutton Raan which had a flavour profile very delicate and not imbued in the usual Indian spices. I made a note of it in my head, and now goes into my blog entry- to be immortalized for the foreseeable future. The trip to India was turning out to be more a culinary trip than a business trip- but again it was because of my gaze- not the trip itself. Devdutt Pattnaik has made a point about the hindu gaze in his book Business Sutra that somehow intrigued me to the point that I seem to have retained the idea!