AN ENDURING LEGACY

For the Chinese community in India, food serves as a unifier and a means of retaining their cultural identity

- PRATIKSHA ACHARYA

With my meagre pocket money when I was in W college, Matunga's lush, green locality promised quite a few culinary gems. Besides the popular haunts like Cafe Madras, Ramashray and the student-favourite DP's, a hole-in-the-wall establishment always stood out. Chinaman, with its lacklustre tables and dimly-lit ambience, has always been a hit with students, thanks to its vast portions of atomic-orange coloured triple schezwan rice, chilly chicken and more. It was desi Chinese in its most authentic form, and the only cuisine I was familiar with. I made peace with it.

Until I found myself poring over a 25-page-long menu at Ling's Pavilion in Mumbai's Colaba, one of the older Chinese establishments frequented by tourists and faithful patrons alike. It was here I got my first taste of authentic Chinese food (or at least as close as you could get to it in Mumbai).

India has always had a longstanding love affair with Chinese food before the pan-Asian cuisine invasion, even though, in the process, we have adapted it to our tastebuds (more sauce, more masala and a lot of orange food colouring). While the love for Indian Chinese hasn't wavered, a more aware and welltravelled food enthusiast is on the hunt for the real deal. Shunning the comfort of a good plate of hakka noodles and chicken manchurian, there's now a growing demand for Cantonese and hakka food, minus the Indian embellishments. But how hast this change come about?

CHARTING THE COURSE