I don’t mein chow

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve nothing against good Indian Chinese food. At its best,it’s a magnificent invention,a testimony to the adaptability of Hakka recipes,to the brilliance of Indian Chinese chefs (and,in many cases,their mothers). And it’s finally getting the respect it deserves,treated as a comprehensive tradition in its own right; there are,now,five or six speciality Indian Chinese restaurants in Manhattan alone.

But once,just once,I would like to get real Chinese food here in India. No,I’m not getting ambitious: I don’t mean trotters or wind-dried pork belly or swallow’s-nest soup,or snake hot-pot. Nor do I mean the American variant of Chinese food — scallion pancakes,sesame chicken,or the various dreadful things they do with fried artificial crab meat. I mean the sort of stuff that you could get when stumbling off a bus in a Chinatown in North America: comforting,carefully-cooked,and somehow,undeniably other.

An odd consequence of the very ubiquity of Chinese restaurants in India is that real Chinese food seems impossible to get. For years,good Thai,decent Japanese,even pretty authentic Korean has been around; but that’s because we never had any preconceptions about what green curry,for example,should be like,and were ready to try it on its own terms. But every urban Indian knows what Chinese food tastes like,so why should anyone try to buck that trend?

Because real Chinese is brilliant stuff. For years,for example,I have been trying to replicate a dish of Chengdu spiced lamb I once ate at a low,formica counter in a small shop in San Francisco that also did unknowable things to electronics,a shop that I was never able to find again. Till last week,when I had something called “Grandma’s mutton” at a place called Fu in Delhi’s Greater Kailash,which was,indeed,cooked similarly — not stir-fried in a wok like everything Chinese we’re capable of imagining,but slow-cooked,heavy with zeera,tasteful all the way through. As I was eating it,I began to glow with anticipation: is India finally ready to imagine Chinese food that isn’t brown gloop or overcooked noodles?

For the longest time,getting anything like that has been near-impossible. In Delhi,I’ve been trudging to Middle Circle of Connaught Place since I was in college to get my fix of twice-cooked pork. (Boiled first,then quick-fried,in case you were wondering. The secret is to keep the strips of pork thin.) What started as a starkly under-furnished hole in the wall,with a menu only in Chinese,is now a full-fledged restaurant,with air-conditioning and distressing décor and,amusingly,has started subsidiaries that sell Indian food in China. Even more amusingly,the owners sampled the Chinese food already available and eventually decided to call themselves “The Chinese”,a subtle reminder that no one else really was.

Besides The Chinese,only the occasional restaurant in the occasional 5-star has come close to getting it right,but you and I know,somehow,that 5-stars don’t count. Another kind of star does,however,Michelin’s: and news that London’s starred,and extraordinary,Hakkasan,which takes traditional Chinese recipes (with a Hakka lineage) and mashes them up with contemporary cooking techniques,is opening in Bandra tells us things are looking up. And should cause us to make the trek there.

But Hakkasan won’t be cheap; and the fact that it’s riding on fame purchased elsewhere in an area crowded with expats gives us further clues. The time when we’re getting ready for the Chinese food they eat in China is closer,but isn’t quite here yet. Perhaps that’s why Fu,the place where I had my epiphany,bills itself very carefully as “better than Chinese”. Plus it hedges its bets,with Indonesian and Malay stuff also on offer.

But this much is true: it is better than Chinese. At least,it’s better than the Chinese that turns up at your door 20 minutes after you call your local multi-cuisine dhaba. Maybe there will be a day when tea-smoked duck,too,will be on that menu. I’m willing to make all the payments in yuan,and cede the People’s Republic a small island of their choice in the South China Sea,if the Party can somehow make that happen.

mihir.sharma@expressindia.com