Mumbai Food: Relish Chindian cuisine from Kolkata's new Chinatown at this eatery

Chef Cham Hun Chakap plates a portion of chilli chicken Chilli chicken is one of the spicier dishes that can be traced back to Tangra But the food of the Kolkata locality is often a lot sweeter than other IndoChinese dishes because thatrsquos how the Bengalis prefered it This can be evidenced in something like honey chilli potatoChef Cham Hun Chakap moves around the kitchen with the assurance of a wellset batsman completing a comfortable single down to deep midwicket He is running the show behind the scenes at a restaurant in an upscale Powai hotel which is hosting an event called Tangra Festival The dish that the chef is whipping up for us is chilli chicken possibly the most ubiquitous item in the culinary spectrum of IndoChinese dishes And he tells us that it was invented in Tangra the new Chinatown in Kolkata considered by many to be the Mecca of this particular cuisineTangra does indeed occupy a unique spot in the countryrsquos foodscape It all goes back to about 100 years ago when the British mdash along with Kolkatarsquos older Chinese community in Tirreti Bazaar mdash established the area setting up leather factories there to manufacture boots and other goods for soldiers at the battlefront during World War I Business picked up further during World War II But then the British packed their bags in 1947 So the Chinese community took over the tanning operations Their life ambled comfortably along only to be turned upside down by the IndoChina war of 1962 when many indigenous Chinese people immigrated to safer havens like Canada Australia and Taiwan And suddenly the community in Kolkata found its numbers to have considerably dwindledFood to the rescueWhatrsquos worse is that the ones who were left behind and who had picked up the mantle of the leather business from their predecessors found themselves on the wrong side of the law after the state government deemed the tanning industry to be an environmental hazard in the midrsquo90s A large number of factories thus faced closure with some being shifted to the nearby neighbourhood of Bantala Many of the owners faced overnight financial ruin So to get out of the soup they found themselves in they turned their attention to another business that had been gaining momentum in the area over the rsquo70s and rsquo80s mdash restaurants serving ldquoChineserdquo dishesldquoInitially these restaurants were serving the authentic cuisine of the Chinese mainland But that did not suit the palate of Kolkatarsquos Bengalis who found it to be too bland So the restaurants were running in losses in the beginning till their owners decided to alter the recipes adding Indian herbs and flavoursrdquo chef Cham says adding that this formed the genesis of what we call Chindian cuisineIllustrationRavi JadhavThese dishes of course bore as much resemblance to trueblue Chinese food as idlisambar does to tandoori chicken Instead of being stirfried for instance most of the preparations were gravybased The spice quotient was also so much higher than a Shanghai local would put his chopsticks down to fan his mouth after one bite Plus while something like a Peking duck is roasted over a length of time Tangra food was geared to suit the purposes of the quickservice restaurants there This automatically also meant that the meat mdash including the fish items mdash was almost invariably diced into pieces instead of being served whole like some of the dishes in mainland ChinaPanIndian acceptanceBe that as it may the cuisine gradually started spreading to other parts of the country Nelson Wang a Tangra local who opened SoBorsquos China Garden in 1984 is widely credited with having invented chicken Manchurian a dish which if you say is Chinese you might also say that the giant panda is Indiarsquos national animal Punjabis also caught on to the trend developing a brand of SinoLudhianvi dishes And with time IndoChinese food became a mainstay of restaurants in various cities including Mumbai where lunch home menus reserve equal space for ldquoChineserdquo dishes as they do for stuff like chana masala and aloo matarThe credit for this goes to the original restaurateurs of Tangra who Indianised their indigenous dishes But things are no longer hunkydory in the Kolkata neighbourhood says Dominic Lee a fourthgeneration Tangra local ldquoMany of the smaller restaurants are finding it difficult to sustain themselves with only the bigger eateries which have space for parking constantly managing to upgrade themselves because they have the requisite capitalrdquo he tells us adding that the recent controversy around dubious meat being supposedly sold in the cityrsquos restaurants has led to a further dip in fortunesNonetheless he continues the legacy of the cuisine has left a permanent imprint on the history of Indiarsquos food Take chilli chicken something so popular that itrsquos travelled all the way from the humble Kolkata locality to the swish Powai hotel where chef Cham is making us his version of it But when he is done in a matter of mere minutes he recognises the look of doubt on our face after we have had a taste ldquoI have to make a blander variety because most of our customers are from the West and they wouldnrsquot be able to handle something too spicyrdquo he explains revealing how IndoChinese cuisine of the Tangra variety is a preserve of only our own countrymenLooking for it anywhere else in the world would be like looking for a needle in a haystack for all practical purposesAwesome sauceA huge contribution that Tangra has had is popularising the concept of chilli sauce ldquoYou will find it in all the kathi roll shops dotted around Kolkata But before we added it to our food to suit Indian taste buds people had no clue about itrdquo says LeeTill May 27 7 pm To 1130 pm AT Emperors Court Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre Hotel near Chinmayanand Ashram PowaiCall 8291165421Catch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday 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