Indian food in a foreign land

Indian food outside India was probably never a rarity, even lesser so today. Indian restaurants have sprung up all around the world, firstly catering to the expatriate population, and also to other nationalities who want a taste of Indian cuisine. A friend mentioned over dinner today that there are no Indian restaurants in Sweden but there are quite a few Indians there. Struck me as weird and prompted me to google it up. Found an interesting site that lets you search for Indian restaurants in other parts of the world – http://www.indiandinner.com/.

Now, for most foreigners, there are some ground rules about Indian food
1. It is hot, spicy and oily.
2. Most of the fare is vegetarian, since most Indians are vegetarian.
3. Anything with a sense of gravy is a curry.
4. The only non-vegetarian food is Chicken Tikka Masala.
It is probably hard to appreciate the fact that India is a big country with many different languages, cultures and ergo, cuisines. Surprisingly, there are many misconceptions about different Indian cuisines among Indians themselves. Some of my favourites – 1. Punjabi food is all about garam masala (sometimes I tend to be convinced it’s true!)
2.South Indian food consists of 6 items - idli, vada, sambar, dosa, utappam, upma. There is no non-vegetarian food in South India.
3. Bengalis eat only fish. (I am a Bengali, so this disturbs me the most. There is a fantastic range of vegetarian dishes like shukto, shaakher jhol, mocha (not to be confused with the mocha in café mocha, alu posto…you know I could go on, but just sufficing with listing a few I like.)

In spite of so many Indian restaurants, most of us have problems eating abroad. I know of friends who have survived Europe tours on Fish’n’Chips. Colleagues who are here with me in Malaysia are mostly vegetarian, and find a hard time getting good food. The hotel fortunately provides some Indian fare including a very interesting capati. There are quite a few Indian restaurants in KL and that is obviously their refuge.
I, on the other hand, am a NON-vegetarian, and have no trouble with the wide assortment of meats available. Hence, I do not have to necessarily frequent the Srirekhas of KL. In fact, I have had Indian food just 3 times in the 11 weeks I have been here!

The other, and probably the major reason, that I do not eat Indian food here is that I find too oily and not tasty at all. What’s the point of stuffing myself with something that will probably make me crave for Indian food more instead of satisfying me?

The third time was today at Bombay Palace. It was the standard dal makhani, chicken makhani type something, tandoori gobi, paneer… The starters were good, but nothing exceptional that will make me go back there again. And it wasn’t cheap! Not my usual VFM place (there was one I went to a few days ago, but it was Chinese, and deserves a special mention separately).

Not much time left here in KL, and I think I’d better use it to sample some other cuisines before returning to my food in my land.