[Rail Paul]

The Wall Street Journal has an article today about how the rapid economic development of India is creating resorts, office parks, and a wide range of clubs.

Quote

At the beach resorts of Goa, Indians are spending their newfound disposable income on vacations -- and quickly turning the area into one of the trendier travel destinations in Asia. Udaipur, a city rich with Indian culture and history, is grappling with strains on its infrastructure from the crush of tourism. And while the technology economy of Bangalore is well-known, the burgeoning middle class in the southern city of Hyderabad shows that this boom is spreading to other parts of the country, too.

Overall, we found that getting around India is a lot easier for novice travelers than it used to be. New airlines translate into more flight options, and more restaurants cater to upscale tourists, meaning you don't have to restrict your meals to the hotel for fear of getting sick. Some four million foreign tourists visited India last year, up 15% from the year before -- and that was on top of a rise of 25% in 2004.

But there are still plenty of hassles, from people who follow you down the street to sell you things, to the continued lateness of trains and some airlines. Indeed, thousands of airport workers went on strike across the country this week in a protest against the planned privatization of airports in Mumbai and New Delhi. (For the most part, flights took off and landed as scheduled, despite the strike.)

Mumbai remains a delight: It is the commercial capital of India, but a capital unlike that of any other major world power. Transportation is abysmal, and the face of poverty is everywhere. But it's the best place to see the emerging young and affluent class in India: the cool restaurants, hip bars, the Bollywood stars.

The Mediterranean-fusion Indigo Restaurant, which was jammed on a recent Monday night, is now selling several $100 bottles of wine a day versus about one a month, at best, five years ago. Artists who previously needed a second job to survive are now flourishing, with prices for paintings on average doubling or tripling in the past two years alone. The number of galleries in Mumbai has quadrupled to 20, says Pravina Mecklai, who owns a gallery called Jamaat.

Some of the money in Mumbai is old wealth -- many of the country's old industrialist families still live here. It isn't uncommon to run into the son or daughter of a big textile baron who is dabbling in movie production. But new money from tech and other sectors is also fueling the club and restaurant scene
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MUMBAI (BOMBAY)
Plus: Although this is where the trendy scene is happening, Mumbai retains the architecture and much of the flavor of the days of the Raj.
Minus: Hopelessly antiquated transportation infrastructure, from airport to taxis to roads.
Hotel: Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, Apollo Bunder, Colaba; Tel: 011-91-22-5665-3366, from $250. A bit lacking in personal service, but the palace rooms are impeccable.
Restaurant: Trishna, Sai Baba Marg, Kala Ghoda; Tel: 011-91-22-2261-4991. Astonishing seafood; tears come to my eyes when I think of the king crab with butter and garlic.
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[Tuckerman]

[quote name='Rail Paul'
Restaurant: Trishna, Sai Baba Marg, Kala Ghoda; Tel: 011-91-22-2261-4991. Astonishing seafood; tears come to my eyes when I think of the king crab with butter and garlic.

[/quote]


Just seen this. At Trishna they tend to push rhe butter and garlic preps on to Westerners who they believe don't want things "too spicy". I fell for this and found my lobster swimming in butter. Yuk. I sent it back and asked for an authentic preparation which was far far better.

[mongo_jones]

i don't know what they do at trishna, but crab-butter-pepper garlic is an iconic dish in the region, not just something foisted on to westerners. however, trishna doesn't have quite as high a reputation among bombay foodies as it seems to do with the wall street journal.

[Tuckerman]

mongo_jones, on Jun 16 2006, 03:04 PM, said:

i don't know what they do at trishna, but crab-butter-pepper garlic is an iconic dish in the region, not just something foisted on to westerners. however, trishna doesn't have quite as high a reputation among bombay foodies as it seems to do with the wall street journal.

I was actually told by the waiter at Trishna to have the lobste with garlic and butter because I would find the other preparations "too spicy". I agreed, not because I was concerned about spice but because I wanted to be able to taste the quality of the lobster "naked" as it were. It was a mistake.

[mongo_jones]

well, wrong reason but right recommendation.

the crab-butter-pepper-garlic is the dish that trishna is known for--and as per foodies the only remaining reason to go there. it is a fixture in mangalorean seafood restaurants and probably the most popular dish among indians who eat at these places. the one such restaurant in delhi, swaagat in defence colony, runs out of its butter-pepper-garlic dishes on a nightly basis. no western tourists there. i think you might be a little over-sensitive about being treated like a western tourist.

[Tuckerman]

The dish was so drenched in melted butter that I found it inedible. There may well be a cultural culinary difference about how much butter is acceptable in a dish. Western tastes tend towards less butter and fat and oil in general.

[mongo_jones]

well, i haven't been to trishna but the crab butter-pepper-garlic at swaagat is one of my favorite restaurant dishes. it isn't overly doused in butter, and i generally don't like things doused in butter or cream. your experience would suggest confirmation of the claim that trishna has indeed gone very far downhill in recent years.

(isn't a lot of european food very heavy on the dairy?)

[Tuckerman]

mongo_jones, on Jun 18 2006, 02:00 PM, said:

well, i haven't been to trishna but the crab butter-pepper-garlic at swaagat is one of my favorite restaurant dishes. it isn't overly doused in butter, and i generally don't like things doused in butter or cream. your experience would suggest confirmation of the claim that trishna has indeed gone very far downhill in recent years.

(isn't a lot of european food very heavy on the dairy?)

Context didn't help. It was monsoon season in Mumbai. It was steaming hot. Even though Trishna's air con was on full blast, eating a pool of melted butter did not appeal as much as it might in, say, a European winter.

[mongo_jones]

actually, we probably ate butter-pepper-garlic dishes in bombay a few days apart. mine was at ankur in fort. a restaurant i'd recommend highly for your next trip, for that dish and others. i found bombay quite temperate in late august. of course, i'd come down from delhi.

[Tuckerman]

There were a lot of Westerners in Trishna. And their air con was on the blink as it was like a fridge in there and they had paper all over the inlets and outlets, presumably to soak up condensation. The waiters were grumpy and the place did have a feel of having gone downhill. Nevertheless when I finally received my spicy lobster it was delicious. They must have first refusal on top ingredients.

[mongo_jones]

from some mumbaikars:

Quote

Trishna has gone very downhill since Bollywood celebs started going there....do not go there unless you want to glimpse a celeb or two.

Quote

But the one written-in-stone decision I have recently taken is - NEVER GO TO TRISHNA EVER AGAIN. It was annoying enough all these years when the relatively simple place I had known from my years in advertising suddenly tarted itself up for tourists and jacked up prices and stopped giving out tables readily.

I don't grudge restaurateurs their success if deserved, and at that time I thought Trishna did, because of the excellence of their crab-butter-garlic, their Hyderabadi dhal and so on, as well as generally raising the profile of all these Mangalorean places. I didn't go there, but I assumed the food was still good. My friend Stan Sesser from AWSJ, whose opinions on food I respect, reviewed it and rated it highly.

But in the last year or so I've been back twice and had one meal that was indifferent and another so bad that I was spitting with fury. The place was identical, same decor, same banquettes, same bemused looking tourists bused in from the Taj on the laughable impression that they were eating the best local food.

Most Mumbai waiters and stewards are smart enough not to impose themselves on their diners, but the oily young man here kept butting in (I was taking a foreign friend, so I think that made it worse), with remarks like "Have wine. Have a whole bottle. The night is young! You should enjoy!" And this despite telling him we wanted to be served fast since my friend had to go to the airport.

The seafood was only passable. A chicken dish we ordered came in a searing hot sauce that obliterated all other tastes. And worst of all, the Dhal Hyderabadi, which had been very good, was now reduced to individual katoris of yellow sludge. And needless to say all this was charged to the heavens and to add insult to injury, they had slipped in a Western style service charge, which is NOT the norm in Bombay. I didn't notice this at the time, just as I bet other local customers don't, so added a tip out of force of habit, and now feel even angrier as a result.

So yes, I'll agree that most of these seafood places are much the same, but Trishna is now definitely much much worse than the others on almost every ground.

the second, longer quote is from a bombay based food writer.

[Tuckerman]

mongo_jones, on Jun 18 2006, 04:12 PM, said:

from some mumbaikars:

The seafood was only passable.

That was not my exeprience. The lobster was fresh, sweet and juicy. The fish was also tender and fell off the bone. The ingredients were fine. I agree about the pushy waiters

[mongo_jones]

the reference is probably not to the ingredients but to the preparations.

[Tuckerman]

Rail Paul, on Feb 2 2006, 06:39 PM, said:

Some of the money in Mumbai is old wealth -- many of the country's old industrialist families still live here. It isn't uncommon to run into the son or daughter of a big textile baron who is dabbling in movie production. But new money from tech and other sectors is also fueling the club and restaurant scene[/i]

This "new wealth" spends in the context in a massive over supply of cheap labour. So restaurants in Mumbai employ armies of people both in the kitchens and in front of house. One can hardly move at Trishna for the number of waiters standing around. A glance into the kitchen at Kandehar saw scores of people working away. These restaurants don't have to take any short cuts with the prepping and cooking and everything can be done from scratch. This does wonders for quality.

[mongo_jones]

yes, but this has always been true, and not just in bombay. and there are plenty of places with armies of people in the kitchen which just aren't very good (and trishna apparently is now one of them). it is "kandahar" by the way, not "kandehar". and that's a restaurant at the oberoi--i'm sure the staffing there (and in other 5-star kitchens) is not very much higher than at the top-tier places in the u.s.. it is the middle and lower level places that employ far more people than their analogues in the u.s and presumably the u.k.

more middle class families do go out to eat now on a more frequent basis and restaurants have upgraded their ambience etc. accordingly. there has always been a restaurant culture but there was a time when going out to eat with your family meant either chinese or mughlai food. the rise of regional cuisine restaurants (and the transformations of those that began as places for bachelors from particular regions to eat "home food") has everything to do with the liberalization of the indian economy. there is a far greater awareness of and interest in food from other regions than there ever was when i was growing up, in college, and working in advertizing.