Restaurant menus. One of the greatest inventions of the modern era. Imagine telling your foraging ancestor that you could walk into a place, sit down and have tasty calorie-rich foods served to you. If you did that, your great-great-great… grandmother would be wonderstruck. Then, she would throw a rock at you. And then, scoop out your brains for dinner. And then, make a drinking vessel from your skull. The joys of family love in the Hunter-Gatherer age do warm your heart.
If you’ve ever eaten at an Indian restaurant, you’ve encountered one of these menus. Made up only of food items from North India, they are still labeled as ‘Indian’ food. The menu starts with starters. An original thought if there ever was one. High-scale restaurants will label them as ‘Shuruat Ke Liye’. Low scale restaurants will try to write ‘Appetizers’ in a fancy serif font and mess up the spelling. The page will consist of various kebabs. Usually, a chicken one, a paneer one, some deep fried lentil balls and a hunk of roasted cauliflower. The cauliflower comes out of the kitchen only when someone orders a ‘platter’. Some restaurants also have chaats in the starter selection. This prompts many a gourmet to comment why they’d eat chaat at a restaurant when the ‘Asli’ taste is at a roadside eatery. ‘Asli’ is, of course, slang for ‘Causing jaundice and diarrhea’
The soup section follows with the perennial favorite: Cream of tomato. Someday Indians will land on Mars, establish a colony and serve cream of tomato to Martians. Martians meaning the white people who got there first. Like Imtiaz Ali’s wanderlust movies, some restaurants will try to sell old wine in a new bottle by calling tomato soup as ‘Tamatar Dhaniye Ka Shorba’. Other soups will include the so-called ‘Chinese’ soups. The likes of which have never been served in China. It’s interesting how Manchow and Hot ’N’ Sour occupy separate places when they are the Sev Puri and Dahi Puri of the soup world. One’s the other with some noodles on top.
Salads take up half of the next page. Not popular, but the menu features them anyway to lend an appearance of health. If a customer pauses at this section, gallons of collective sweat start forming down the staff’s necks. Chefs poise with Google searches for “Waldorf Salad” at the ready. Their fears are assuaged when the most someone orders is a green salad. Then, they proceed to take the diced vegetables meant for a curry and transfer them to a plate. With a slice of lemon, of course.
The largest section comes next — curries. The menu needs at least 4 pages to list them all. There will be a large variety of paneer dishes when in reality, the same paneer curry will be listed under five different names. Some restaurants will provide the helpful description alongside the curry names. One description will be ‘Soft cubes of cottage cheese simmered in a delicate brown sauce’. Another will read ‘Soft cubes of cottage cheese simmered in a tangy red sauce’. The restaurant menu makes a metaphorical statement about society. Like humans, all paneer dishes are the same, separated by color.
The non-veg curries will have their own sections. The meat served will be chicken, lamb or fish. Notice the absence of two popular types of meat enjoyed across the world. It is an Indian menu after all. Like the country, the menu practices inclusiveness by exclusion. The state you’re in decides the order of the veg and non-veg sections. In Gujarat, the non-veg section hides behind the veg section as an afterthought. In Delhi, the non-veg section roars its head shunting the veg section to the side.
The curry order prompts the rejigging of the eternal debate — ‘How Many Curries to Order’? Being the descendants of CV Raman, Indians have devised a simple algorithm to solve this problem. If the number of guests is less than or equal to 4, order 2 curries. This theory goes to pieces as the number of eaters increases. Should you order 3 curries? Would it be plenty? Or rather order double servings of 2 curries so that everyone gets to try everything? The philosophical debate rages on until one asks the waiter: ‘Itna chal jayega? (Will this do)’. The waiter, depending upon his manager’s instructions to upsell, agrees or disagrees and the order is tailored accordingly. Eventually, the curry quantity is always satisfactory. If it is too much, it will be `packed’. If it is too less, everyone will insist they are on a diet anyway.
Close behind the curries, follow the rotis, naans, parathas, and kulchas. No one has been able to pinpoint the differences between them. Apart from the vague ‘Rotis are Round. Naans are Long’. Some restaurants will make the mistake of having a special Naan. Usually named ‘<Restaurant-Name> Special Naan’. Yes, Indian Menus are not known for being imaginative with naming. Almonds and cashews may fill this Naan. At most 1.7 % of it. Or it’s a mega Naan enough for all guests. Or be a meat-filled Naan, making it a palindrome of sorts. Because it is a ‘Naan Veg Naan’.
The tailenders of the menu, whose contributions are a hit or a miss, come the raitas and papads. These unassuming items have the largest margins. Sprinkle some tomatoes and onions on an Rs. 2 papad and sell it for Rs. 50. Pure profit. They are the quiet, diligent employees every manager loves to have. Low-cost, non-demanding and their contributions are always a bonus. Be Like The Raita should definitely be a motivational poster in offices.
The showstopper of the fashion show: Desserts, arrive at the end. The usual suspects are all there. Gulab jamuns, rasgullas, ras malais and icecreams. Indian restaurants are still stuck in an era where only three flavors of ice cream exist — vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Sometimes, restaurants will even mix and match desserts together. Like gulab jamuns with vanilla ice cream. It’s as if restaurants innovate to make people diabetics faster.
The dessert order comes with clear instructions of ‘Baad Mein Laana (Bring it at the end)’. As if the waiter would be dumb enough to bring dessert as the first course. Then again, you shouldn’t trust Indians to act sensibly without giving instructions first. Strange things have happened in India when people were left to their own devices. Remember Roadies?
