Is Indian the new Chinese?

Do you remember when Chinese food was exotic? It was one of those special meals to go out for that only the more daring adventurers would undertake. It had that mysterious menu with eerie foreign words like moo goo, kung pao, and lo mein. It slowly started catching on and the friends you knew that had tried it were still alive. Maybe this stuff was OK to eat.

After a few years it became more commonplace and the three places you could go turned into thirty. It became increasingly difficult to pick a favorite one, they all kind of tasted the same. But then the monumental Chinese Revolution happened, and all was well again. This revolution was the advent of the Chinese buffet. They could cook lots of it in advance, it held pretty well and it didn’t really need to be all that good because you had volume and selection on your side. What’s better than a mediocre dish of Hunan Pork? Mediocre egg rolls, hot & sour soup and chicken on a skewer to go with it!

Right now, can you name a good Chinese restaurant? Would you take out of town guests there? Buffet revolution aside, what happened to Chinese food? Did it get commercialized, franchised and turned into a commodity? Did it (d)evolve into “cheap eats” that only allows for so much quality or originality to be added? I can name a couple of decent restaurants, but I don’t plan taking out-of-towners there either.

So, how did this happen? Did our tastes evolve past it, was it no longer “cool or trendy”, did it become a commodity that is only allowed to be prepared uniformly or did our quest for value drive out the true chefs?

Do you remember when Indian food was exotic? It was one of those special meals to go out for that only the more daring adventurers would undertake. It had that mysterious menu with eerie foreign words like tandoor, tikka, naan, aloo and makhani. It slowly started catching on and the friends you knew that had tried it were still alive. Maybe this stuff was OK to eat.

After a few years it became more commonplace and the three places you could go turned into thirty. It became increasingly difficult to pick a favorite one, they all kind of tasted the same. But then the monumental Indian Revolution happened, and all was well again.

So what do you think, does the same fate await Indian food? Have we outgrown it or is it becoming a commodity as well? Leave me message, drop me an e-mail, let me know what you think….

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