No rest for the chopsticks

Indian diners are levelling up from panAsian mash-ups. Japanese ramen, Korean buns, Malaysian curries, authentic nasi goreng. We're finally getting the real deal

- VIR SANGHVI

It is not immediately obvious because we think it already happened a long time ago. But the truth is that Far-Eastern food is finally taking off in India only now. Contrary to what we may sometimes think, there has been very little authentic East Asian food in India until now.

What we do have in India is our own Chinese cuisine, which is now effectively, a branch of Indian cuisine. Over the last decade, we have also seen a boom in junk sushi, consisting mostly of sushi rolls made with cooked fish.

But now, there appears to be a boom in real South East Asian cuisine of the sort we have not seen before. In Mumbai, such restaurants as Izumi and Mizu serve food that is at least as good or better than the five-star places. The Izumi in Goa is arguably even better than the original in Mumbai. At Mizu, a young chef called Lakhan Jethani, who has worked in Japan, does adventurous and authentic dishes of the kind you won't find at many places in India, and is technically skilled (his chawanmushi is perfect). Both places are always full, of course: Indians love sushi.

In Bengaluru, the most difficult restaurant to book is Naru Noodle Bar, a small Japanese restaurant. It was opened by Kavan Kutappa, who developed a love for Japanese ramen when he studied at the Culinary Institute of America. It is hard to get good quality ramen in India. In Japan, the best ramen places rely on specialist noodle makers who make the ramen to order. Kavan ended up importing a ramen machine from Japan.

When he opened, Kavan's restaurant had a counter with only eight seats. When the demand got so ridiculous that he would have been booked out for a whole year if he had accepted every booking that came in, he expanded his restaurant to 20 seats.