Has Mumbai now become a centre of quality East Asian food?

My claim, made on these pages, that Mumbai is now the food capital of India has been strengthened after my visit to the city last week.

We all know that Mumbai is the centre of inventive and creative food.

 

I doubt if The Bombay Canteen or O Pedro could have opened in any other city. Nobody of consequence in Delhi would have gone to Masque, despite the excellence of its food, because of its less-than-salubrious surroundings had it opened in the capital.

 

   Both of Alex Sanchez’s brilliant restaurants have South Bombay written all over them. Most Indian cities would not have given Ekaa the chance it needed to establish itself. And as for the wonderful Bandra Born you can’t really take it out of Bandra.

 

   But what has surprised me over the last few years is how Mumbai has now become a centre of quality East Asian food. In some ways, this should not seem so odd. Sichuan food came to India in 1974 when the Mumbai Taj opened the Golden Dragon. Even bogus Sichuan food was born in Mumbai when Nelson Wang started serving Chicken Manchurian at the old Frederick’s restaurant in Colaba. And the first authentic modern Japanese restaurant in India (can ‘modern Japanese’ ever be truly authentic? Who knows?) was Wasabi, also at the Taj Mahal hotel.

 

   But, in recent years Mumbai had lost its mojo. The Thai Pavilion, once India’s favourite Thai restaurant, fell out of favour with regulars after Ananda Solomon retired and the food became dire. There was plenty of junk Japanese in the city but not enough of the real thing. And I rarely ate Chinese food in Mumbai except for a brief period when The China House first opened at the Grand Hyatt. But then standards dropped, it began serving Nepali-Chinese and it fell off the map.

 

   All that is now changing. Let’s take Thai. I know Seefah Ketchaiyo from the time she ran the Thai section of San Qi, the once fabulous restaurant at the Mumbai Four Seasons. In 2012, when I first ate it, I thought Seefah‘s food was fine, but not quite earth-shattering. She has herself recently posted on Instagram, “Back then, to be honest, I always wondered if I could cook the dishes I truly loved. But being part of a company, I had my limitations.”

 

   In those days, the star of the San Qi kitchen was a great Japanese master and Fugu-expert called Chef Kato, assisted by a very good sushi chef called Yoshi, both mentored by Armando Kraenzlin, the legendary hotelier who opened the Four Seasons in Mumbai, Uday Rao, the Hotel Manager and Andrew De Brito, who was the F&B manager.

 

   This team made San Qi India’s best multi-cuisine restaurant and every one of them has now gone on to do even greater things all around the world. That includes Karan Bane, a young chef who worked with Kato, courted Seefah, and then, married her.

 

   Seefah and Karan left the Four Seasons and started their own restaurant in in Bandra in 2016. Though it also serves Karan’s excellent modern Japanese, he has been modest and has let his wife’s Thai food take the limelight.

 

   Seefah, the restaurant, started out with a cult following because of its un-fancy location and decor but soon, word of how good the food was spread all over India. Last year Seefah (the chef) entered Culinary Culture’s list of India’s top 30 chefs.

 

"There is not a single Thai restaurant in Delhi that I would go to. So I treat Seefah’s success as proof that Mumbai’s palate is far more advanced than Delhi’s."

   Four years ago, I asked Seefah if she could make me one of my favourite Thai dishes, Khao Man Thod. The better-known version of this Chinese-origin dish (it has the same roots as Singapore’s Hainanese chicken) comprises poached chicken with rice, and is called Khao Man Gai, but the Thais created an even more delicious version with fried chicken and rice which is called Khao Man Thod.

 

   Seefah did make it for me. It was delicious but she was sceptical about how popular it could be in Mumbai. “You are the only one who likes authentic Khao Man Gai or Khao Man Thod, “she messaged me.

 

   She was, of course, wrong. Her Khao Man Gai has now become so popular that Seefah has had to open a small, mostly delivery and take-away, outlet (what they call a ‘shop’ in Thailand) near the main restaurant and the response has been electric. The day I went, they sold over 1100 orders of Khao Man Gai and those numbers seem set to keep going up.

 

   There is not a single Thai restaurant in Delhi that I would go to. (Banng is in Gurgaon.) So I treat Seefah’s success as proof that Mumbai’s palate is far more advanced than Delhi’s.

 

   When it comes to Chinese food, Delhi has the single best Chinese restaurant in India: China Kitchen at the Hyatt Regency, where Chef Zhang (from Sichuan) keeps raising the bar. When it opened, China Kitchen and Mumbai’s China House were sister restaurants but China House soon declined so much that I stopped going there.

 

   I was persuaded to return last week and was astonished to see how much the food had improved. The Sichuan Poached Fish in Chilli Oil, the Mapo Tofu with minced pork and many other dishes were all very good.

 

   By then I had found another terrific Chinese restaurant in Mumbai. I have known Chef Liang of ITC hotels for two decades now. He made his reputation at the Great Wall Sheraton in Beijing, came to India for a brief visit, fell in love with our country and made it his home.

 

   Liang has moved between ITC restaurants but he finally has his own place: Yi Jing at the ITC Maratha in Sahar. I usually stay at the Maratha, and I am now probably the only person who stays at that hotel and does not order the Dum Pukht Biryani or the Dal Bukhara. Instead, I live on Liang’s double cooked pork, his Gung Ba chicken, and his Hangchow fried rice. I like his food so much that I have persuaded the hotel to serve it to me as part of its room service.

 

   So, from having nowhere to eat Chinese food in Mumbai, I now eat it all the time.

 

   If you take Megu out the mix, there is very little good Japanese food in Delhi. (Though there are Japanese places in Gurgaon which can be interesting.) In Mumbai, on the other hand, there is the almighty Wasabi (now as good as it ever was) and lots of good standalones.

 

   My favourite sushi place is not at a hotel but is a celebrated standalone called Izumi. It is run by Nooresha Kably, who went to Japan, enrolled in sushi schools, and learned how to make the real thing. Nooresha gets the measure of her guests quickly and decides how authentically Japanese they want their food to be. And she adjusts the orders accordingly. (There is also a very good Izumi outpost in Goa.)

 

   And then, of course, there is Lakhan Jethani of Mizu, who I have often written about. He learned his craft in Osaka and is a technically accomplished Japanese chef with a flair for adventurous cooking. Left to himself, Lakhan would probably not put sushi on the menu but that, I guess, is what the market wants so he serves it.

 

   But if you want edgy, authentic, technically-superior Japanese food then there is no place in India like Mizu.

 

   Who would’ve thought it? Go to Mumbai and eat Pav Bhaji, for sure. But once you’ve done that, let your palate explore the flavours of the far east.