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| With chef Amit Chowdhury at Masala Kraft |
There are a couple of things which are common between Chef Amit Chowdhury, the executive chef of the Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai, and me. We are both Bengalis who are married to Parsis. One more thing, we both love food. But that would apply to everyone I know!
It is no surprise that we bonded over the Parsi thali at their Masala Kraft restaurant yesterday. Technically there’s no such thing as a Parsi ‘thali.’ A Parsi festive meal is served course by course unlike in a thali where everything is served at one go. A thali works well as a hotel set meal though.
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| Parsi Thali, Final Course, Masala Kraft |
There were the usual suspects – farcha, patra fish, pulao dal, salli chicken, etc. I liked the fact they used boneless juicy chicken thigh pieces instead of the shredded chicken breast that you find in the Parsi cutlace. The farcha was more juicy than normal too and easier to manage as they were smaller in size.
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| Khara papeta |
There were lesser-known Parsi dishes such as the veg ishtu, kolmi nu patio & dal ni pori. And dishes that you normally get only in Parsi homes such as khara papeta, sev & mithu dahi.
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| Mithu dahi, sev, dar ni pori |
There was the ‘Mumbai Dabba’, which was served by a member of the service staff who was dressed as a dabbawala. I can imagine foreigners, including food writers, flipping on this cliche. Starring in the dabba was lovely sukha alu, masala bhaat, amti (dal), prawn kalvan, bombil fry, pandara mutton with very tender mutton in a thicker than usual sauce and sol kadhi. Both Parsi and dabba meals come in veg and non-veg versions.
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| Where are the Netflix scouts when you need them? |
I told Tanishka from PR about my early days in Mumbai when we would order dabbas at work and the cost of each would be shared by two. Turned out that this was from a time before she was born. Gosh!
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| Splitting the Mumbai Dabba with Tanishka at Masala Kraft. |
Talking of memories, I remember reading an article in the TOI in 2003 where the then executive chef of the hotel, the legendary Hemant Oberoi, spoke about the launch of Masala Kraft in the place of Tanjore and new initiatives such as the dabba meal & Parsi menus.
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| Mumbai dabba |
Things have turned a full circle and Masala Kraft is is being shut down next week. It will make way for Loya, the new North Indian food bar-forward restaurant from the Taj group. The vision for the restaurant is still being chalked out and it would not be fair for me to share some of what we discussed about this.
There is a promotion going on till the 30th of April at Masala Kraft called the Final Course. It Masala Kraft top sellers from the current menu and vintage dishes such as the Parsi thali and Mumbai dabba which had gone off the menu. You could try it out if you want to relive memories of the place. Or discover what it was all about if, like me, you had not been there for me.
Finally, I think that there were some learnings from the Masala Kraft story. While it had started with a bang, one has not heard much about it in recent times. A marquee hotel such as the Taj Mahal Palace has to have north Indian dishes. There is no doubt about this. This is what its international clientele is familiar with.
However, there is a need to introduce dishes that represent the local food culture. And this cannot be a perfunctory effort. And, given the rise of solo diners or two-person tables, offering set meals would be much appreciated.
Let’s see how this is handled in Loya.
I feel that hotels need to focus on local food and set meals apart from North Indian dishes #hosted
