New Flavours Galore

Right from the wonders of Mexican moles to Peruvian ceviches and the Ethopian messob, a whole smorgasbord of new restaurants around India are referencing myriad Latin American and African cuisines like never before, making ‘tis the season for a bit of exotic flavours on our plates!

By Raul Dias

There’s no doubting the fact that India has, for the last couple of years, been ensnared in the
vice-like grip of a raging culinary vortex that’s spewing out every conceivable cuisine trend that,
we the diner, are only too happy to lap up (pun intended!). Never mind how outré or over the top
they may be. Today, we may know our Thai tom yums from our Italian risottos and our Korean
gimbaps from the now de rigueur Japanese gunkan makis.
But recently, there has been a whole new breed of restaurants cropping up around the country.
Each representing a few hitherto unknown cuisines of Africa and Latin America. Each hoping to
break the Italian-Chinese- Japanese cuisine ‘hegemony’. And each making it their mission to
make sure we acquaint ourselves with exotic eats like fluffy injeras from Ethiopia, jellofs from
Nigeria and churrascaria from South Brazil, among others.
And while there have been (failed) introductory attempts made in the past with places like
Ubuntu in Mumbai serving South African food, the recently shuttered Manny’s Square in Delhi
doing its bit for Nigerian cuisine and even a short-lived Brazilian restaurant called Churrascaria
Brazil in Bengaluru, the following are bold new places that are making valiant inroads onto the
experimental Indian diner’s tabletop, straight out of Africa and Latin America…

Latino Vibes
Introducing tongue twisters of dishes like pão de queijo (cheese fritters), escondidinho (steak
topped with mascarpone cheese) and rocambole de espinafare (veggie-filled spinach rolls) to the
Indian diner’s culinary lexicon is this restaurant Boteco—with two branches in Pune and a new
three-months- old one in Mumbai—that claims to be the country’s first all-Brazilian eatery. And
yes, they do a mean version of Brazil’s national drink, the caipirinha which is the refreshing sum
of its cachaça, sugar and lime parts.
Bringing to Mumbai a range of exotic Pan-Hispanic flavours, Luca charts its food expedition
from the mercados of Mexico with a chocolate-laden chicken mole to the balmy islands of the
Caribbean (callaloo with okra) to finally, the sunny beaches of Coastal South America with their
riff on the Puerto Rican plantain classic tostones. Hints of colonial influences show up in dishes
like a ‘Latinised’ Spanish paella and a Portuguese feijoada.
Nestled in the heart of Gurugram’s Crowne Plaza hotel, Wildfire is an all-grills Brazilian
restaurant that takes a pescatarian detour from the usually meat-saturated churrascaria theme
with its seafood dishes like the pan fried red snapper pan fritto dentice and brodo di pesce zuppa
di saffron-redolent fish soup. But that’s not to say that the meat lovers are ignored. Take your
pick from the linguisa pork sausage, the tenderloin fraldinha or perhaps, the minty lamb paleta
de cordeiro.
Helping India discover that there is a whole other raw fish world out there as opposed to just sushi, Lima in Mumbai proudly shows off its Peruvian underpinnings. Offering a range of
ceviche—from a traditional yellowfin tuna tiradito one to a veggie-friendly enoki mushroom
iteration. All this, as you nurse a few of Lima’s signature cocktails like the pisco-saturated Lima
sour, served with a frothy cloud of meringue.

Out Of Africa
Offering up a mindbogglingly large menu of Ethiopian delicacies from the teff-flour made bread
called injera to the national dish of chicken doro wat spiced with the traditional berbere spice
mix and a carom seed and olive oil cake called nech azmud, Abyssinian, the year-old Chennai
restaurant in Alwarpet, has almost everything—including the low-slung furniture and
ingredients—brought in from Ethiopia.
While prima facie there may nothing remotely Nigerian to the look and feel of this Marine Lines,
Mumbai restaurant, a glance at Greeen Onion’s menu will throw up myriad surprises in the form
of the tomato-y jellof rice with a huge hunk of deep-fried chicken, served with fried plantain
slices as accompaniments and the funky smelling, dried fish redolent goat onugbo curry, best
mopped up with balls fashioned out of the log-shaped semovita fufu that’s flecked with pieces of
okra. Straight out of a 1001 Arabian Nights in its décor and like its name Fez alludes, this
Moroccan and North African restaurant in New Delhi’s Chanaykapuri area is a repository for all
things North African from its lamb tajine jazzed up with preserved lemons to its Tunisian stew
served with cous cous.
Interestingly even the QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) concept has cottoned onto the exotic
cuisines’ appeal. For the last few years, Galitos, a QSR in Bengaluru’s Whitefield has been
giving patrons a taste of South Africa and its neighbour Mozambique with is very popular peri-
peri chicken, the kebab-like Afrikaner sosaties and the heart-y mealie pap soup that’s made with
corn meal and flavoured with tomato and basil.
Run by the cultural wing of the Ethiopian Embassy in Chanaykapuri, New Delhi, eating out at
Blue Nile, an über-authentic Ethiopian restaurant cum café is both educational and palate-
pleasing. The staff are on hand to guide you through the nuances of this North-East African
cuisine that has its flagbearers the fluffy injera bread made from rice, teff or corn, the black lentil
rich defen mesir and the begg tibs which is sliced lamb fried with onion garlic and fresh chilli.

(A shorter, differently edited version of this piece was first published in the October 2017 issue of The Week's Smart Life magazine)

A-N-A-T-O-M-I-Z-E: Messob Platter

By Raul Dias

I’ve always believed that Chennai is a great food city for the experimental diner and this fact has been proven to me time and again. And that super muggy April afternoon was no different, as I sat down to a traditional Ethiopian meal at Abyssinian, the eight-month old Ethiopian cuisine restaurant in Alwarpet.
Having eaten Ethiopian food—in Liverpool, UK of all places during my student days there—I had a fair understanding of what was in store for me and my rather clueless friends. Called a messob platter, the main meal is meant for four people. And this is had sitting down at a traditional low table and stool set, with all eating from the same large steel platter.
Onto this, a soft, spongy neer dosa meets appam-like bread called injera (which can be made from an indigenous Ethiopian grass called teff, rice and in our case ragi or finger millet) is first placed as a lining (and more rolls on the side) onto which each diner gets their own daub of yummy dishes.
And thus began a procession of delectable offerings like yebeg bozena shiro, a delicious mutton and chickpea powder-based dish, slow-cooked with Ethiopia’s popular — and spicy — red berbere sauce. Mesir wot, a divine (and beautifully coloured) combination of split red lentils simmered in spicy berbere sauce was next. The simple, yet flavourful fasolia followed, which is dish of string beans, sautéed with carrots and caramelised onions.
The main ‘star’ of course, was Ethiopia’s national dish, doro wat—a thick chicken stew with boiled eggs, a sweet onion base and loads of berbere. Not to be left behind was the doro tibs a very light, fragrant chicken preparation seasoned with rosemary. Balancing all the meat-y excesses was shiro (chickpea stew), dinich wot (curried potatoes) and finally yatakilt wot made up of curried vegetables.
We ended this almost-three-hours-long meal with a splash of traditional, strong Ethiopian coffee into which one can add sugar or salt and Ethiopia’s version of ghee called niter. Accompanying this was the de rigueur bowl of popcorn that no post-prandial coffee drinking session in Ethiopia can ever be complete without!

(This column first appeared in the 25th June 2017 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/messob-platter/article19132504.ece)