Asia's Wonderful DIY Dishes

 

This article first appeared in print and online on 14th July in the Sunday Magazine section of The New Indian Express newspaper https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/food/2024/Jul/13/diy-on-asian-griddles

Asia's Love Affair with Sweet Bean Preparations

 

(This article first appeared online on 28th June and in print on 29th June 2023 in Mint Lounge, India https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/discover/sweet-beans-sweets-desserts-japan-china-thailand-111687922027909.html)

The Boodle Fight Feast of the Philippines

 

(This article first appeared online on 24th November 2022 in Mint Lounge, India https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/discover/feasting-on-a-boodle-fight-in-philippines-111669285087891.html)

Small bites, big flavours: Taste Test of Mayouchi

 

(This review appeared in 6th April 2022 issue of the Mid-Day newspaper, India on page 23 https://www.mid-day.com/mumbai-guide/mumbai-food/article/small-bites-big-flavours-23221682)

Asian on our mind: Taste Test of Gingko

(This review appeared in 1st April 2022 issue of the Mid-Day newspaper, India on page 21 https://www.mid-day.com/mumbai-guide/mumbai-food/article/asian-on-our-mind-23220902)

Prima Donna: Taste Test of Donna Deli

 

(This review appeared in the 10th January 2022 issue of the Mid-Day newspaper, India on page 17

https://www.mid-day.com/mumbai-guide/mumbai-food/article/prima-donna-23208811 )

Super Bowl: 6 of Mumbai's best meal-in-one power bowls

 

(This article first appeared online on 5th October 2021 on ZeeZest https://zeezest.com/food/6-places-to-order-healthy-meal-in-bowls-954)

Holding 'suey'!

With as many iterations as its myriad components, the Burmese dish of khao suey is a well-travelled one.

By Raul Dias

'A sort of Burmese bhel' is perhaps one of the most succinct--if a tad short of being apt--descriptions for khao suey that I recently came across on a pan-Asian, Mumbai-based restaurant's menu card. None of that flowery 'tender morsels of farm-raised chicken, simmered in an unctuous coconut milk broth...' hyperbolic overdrive, menu jargon seem to veer towards these days at most other places. 

For the uninitiated among us (though I highly doubt there would be many), khao suey is a much-loved, and dare-I-say, callously co-opted curried noodle dish of Burmese origin that had been shamelessly adapted and tweaked the world over and here in India in particular. But more on that later. 

Bowls of Sunshine

With its soothing, yet punchy taste, khao suey can easily be classified as a comfort food dish. One that can be scarfed down at anytime of the day like they do in Myanmar and other South East Asian countries. It sees everything from chicken, beef, pork, seafood and even tofu morsels added to a spicy, (mostly) coconut milk- and turmeric-based curry. This bright orange hued curry is then ladled over thin rice noodles to form a soup-meets-stew kind of hybrid dish. 

But hold on! It needs more jazzing up. The supporting acts to the main show take the form of a variety of condiments that range from crispy fried shallots and garlic to halved, boiled eggs, fresh coriander fronds and roasted, crushed peanuts. Each adding textural and flavourful heft to the dish.

As I travelled around Myanmar a few years ago, I realised, that, much like how the word ‘curry’ is misconstrued in the West that divests it of its genericness, khao suey is a similar victim. In the Burmese language, khao suey simply means rice noodles. How one treats those noodles in a dish, creates local variations of what we know commonly as khao suey, the all-in-one meal.

The name game

The dry noodle version of the dish called shwedaung khao suey, that is popular as a street-side snack in places like Yangon, is akin to a crunchy salad. And this is perhaps how the 'Burmese bhel' inference comes into play. While the coconut milk-laden, Southern Myanmarese ohn no khao suey is more in line with the iteration of khao suey we are familiar with in India. 

Crossing the Myanmarese border from the town of Payathonsu into Sangkhla Buri in Northern Thailand via the Three Pagodas Pass, I noticed how easily khao suey had segued into the local cuisine. Known as khao soi Islam, the pork-bereft version (substituted by beef or chicken) is almost similar to ohn no khao suey and is prepared mostly by the Muslim community who prefer adding the locally grown mustard greens in a pickled form to the dish. 

The other neighbour of Myanmar that has its own version of the dish is Laos. This Northern Laotian version also called khao soi is more of a soup made with wide rice noodles, chopped pork and has that unmistakable funky taste of fermented soy beans. All this is topped off with pork rind, coriander and bean sprouts. Interestingly, many are of the belief that the two versions of the shared Singaporean and Malaysian dish of laksa i.e assam (meaning: sour) and curry laksa owe their genesis to khao suey due to their startling similarities. 

Colonial cousins

Perhaps the greatest surprise in store for me on the khao suey front was the rather serendipitous discovery of the Memoni Muslim dish of khausa and how closely it is related to Burmese khao suey. Tasting this truly desi version of the dish at a Memoni food pop-up by a Mumbai-based home chef a few weeks ago, I couldn’t but help marvel at how well the dish had travelled and had gotten adapted along the way.

Often bearing the moniker of the 'sailor businessmen of India,' the Memons, who originally hail from Gujarat, have always had very strong ties to Myanmar since the time it was known as British-occupied Burma. Mainly involved in the pre-independence textile, oil and paper production trade, they would travel to Burma regularly. With a few even settling there permanently and trading from the British set-up port at Akyub, which is in present-day Sitwe.

Many Memons subsequently moved back to India in 1947, with a second exodus taking place in the early 1960s after the Burmese military junta regime, known to be intolerant of foreigners, came into power. Bringing back with them an edible emissary that they named khausa. Adapted to suit their tastes, khausa employs the more Italian-style wheat spaghetti in lieu of rice noodles. This is topped off with a cubed chicken curry made with yoghurt, coconut milk and gram flour. Garnishes take the form of piquant sliced green chillies, ginger juliennes, and crunchy deep-fried samosa dough strips, with a sprinkling of chaat masala giving it an unmistakably desi tadka. 

Sure wins the vote for the most widely travelled and adapted dish, wouldn’t you say?

(An edited version of this article first appeared online in The Hindu Business Line newspaper's BLink section on 5th December 2020 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/takeaway/khao-suey-is-burmas-global-dish/article33249771.ece)

Soy Story!

The close-to-authentic flavours and generous portions of some very affordable Pan Asian food more than make up for the rather dull, uninspiring ambience at this brand new Bandra eatery.

By Raul Dias

Here’s a fair warning for those of us who suffer from even the mildest form of claustrophobia. Take a deep breath before you enter this hole-in-the-wall Pan Asian restaurant that sits tightly wedged between a hair salon and a patisserie on Bandra West’s bustling Pali Naka road. Ignore the four-table setup in the open-air courtyard and descend into its bowels to the tiny, basement level dining room where you will find yourself sitting almost elbow-to-elbow with other diners. And don’t forget to keep the conversation PG13. For at Soy Pan Asian Kitchen, everyone can hear every single stray word spoken…and even the odd one whispered! 
But for us, what spoke the loudest of all was the food on offer. Not once missing the acute lack of any decent liquid sustenance on the menu (barring the ubiquitous canned cola and ginger ale offerings) we dove straight into the savoury section. Cosily ensconced in a bamboo steamer basket, our six, hefty pork dumplings (Rs 290) were each a juicy burst of umami goodness with the perfect dough to filling ratio. The well-seasoned, panko-crusted Japanese fried chicken tori karake (Rs 250) remined us more of a chicken katsu than a karake which are usually bite sized nuggets as opposed to the sliced breast portion we found on our plate.  
Having just returned from the sweltering climes of Bangkok, we were taken straight back to its meandering sois with the very authentic and super reasonably priced som tum papaya salad (Rs190). Tart, sweet and salty—this iteration was packed with all the good things a refreshing Thai papaya salad should have. Falling off-the-bone tender and smothered in a star anise-redolent sauce, the BBQ pork ribs (Rs 390) had just the right amount of smoky flavour, ending with a slight hint of piquant bird eye chili.  
Ten (yes, we counted!) plump prawns swimming in a thick Thai red curry (Rs 450) accompanied by the slightly astringent tasting pea aubergines was almost sublime when paired with jasmine rice (Rs 180), making for a memorable main. Though we wish we could have said the same for the cloyingly sweet chicken pad Thai (Rs 260), which although was enough to feed four, was left relatively intact by the end of our meal.
It would perhaps have done the chefs at Soy Pan Asian Kitchen a whole lot of good to use the surplus sugar of the pad Thai in the bland and watery tob tin crop (Rs 150) water chestnuts in coconut milk that seemed like the more reasonable dessert to call for, when compared to the only other one on the menu. We’re talking about the ridiculous priced mango cheese cake slice (Rs 450) that we’d probably order on a day when we’re feeling particularly self-indulgent!   

TIME: 12pm to 12am
AT: Gasper Enclave CHS, Shop no 3, St. John’s Road, Pali Naka, Bandra West.
CALL: 9619616398

(An edited version of this review appeared in the 7th May 2019 issue of the Mid-Day newspaper, India on page 22 https://www.mid-day.com/articles/soy-story/20890171)