The Inaugural Food Lovers Issue

Our Search for the BEST in Indian Food & Restaurants

The Indian food scene is shaped by numerous unique cultures. Each Indian region, city, state or even a street has their own secret and special Indian recipes. What has resulted is a fine art of cooking and blending, fresh authentic spices and herbs to produce an intoxicating assault on the senses. The texture, vivid colours, mouth-watering aromas and exquisite tastes demand one’s complete undivided attention and must be a perfect match between authenticity and presentation.

Indeed, for immigrants, losing their food culture is almost like losing a piece of themselves. Having left beloved family homes of their youth, they can only warm themselves before the remembered tastes of home: hot rotis fresh from the charcoal oven, succulent sabzis, and unmatched dhals, among a dozen other favorites. Immigrants, when they leave home, pack their icons, their beliefs and imagery of the dishes they have eaten. Unwritten recipes link mothers and daughters like unrelenting poems that serve as reminders of remembered tastes that are then recreated or yearned for.

North Americans have always been mesmerized by India’s exoticism, but nothing expresses North America's fascination with India, more than the runaway success of the British film "Slumdog Millionaire," a rags-to-riches tale based in the Mumbai slums. It won eight Academy Awards in 2009. Foodies are characterizing the upswing of Indian food as having its "Slumdog Millionaire" moment. Those of us who enjoy Indian food know that the fare served up in the many Lower Mainland Indian restaurants is some of the best.

Our restaurant reputations extend all the way back to India, since many Indians who have never been to the Lower Mainland are raving about the food we have here. Indian food in the Lower Mainland represents a wide range of subcontinent cuisines that vary from restaurant, chef to chef. It is also unique in the way restauranteurs have embraced the products and produce available here and incorporated them into new dishes that have become local specialties. Whether it is fine-dining places, buffet halls, curry corners, or fast-casual atmospheres Indian restaurants are exploit the niche of Indian food with a whirlwind of options to fill your appetite.

Food studies are indicating North America’s adventurous new palate for spices has made Indian food the flavor of the moment and the mainstream media is replete with articles about every Indian food recipe imaginable. "The North American palate is no longer bland," says Andrew F. Smith, editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink of America, who predicts that Indian food will take off in the next decade the way sushi bars did in the 1980s and Thai food did in the '90s.

What does this mean? It means that rather than asking obvious questions like what is coriander and garam masala, the mainstream culture is becoming more interested in the regional varieties of dishes. It also appears, with this acceptance that second and third generation South Asians are becoming more comfortable with their own foods and even craving the foods they were brought up with. “Food outside the home is trending to become more like something your mother would create in the kitchen.” This does not dilute the notion that Indian are becoming more adventurous themselves about new techniques and new versions of Indian cuisines. Rather, the food scene in India and abroad is very exciting and evolving. “Indian food roots have a love for original food, but younger generations are also developing a taste for fusion flavours.”

Indian food is a virtual cornucopia of rice, bread, legumes, and vegetables – all which we are just beginning to discover. With the ever-burgeoning Indian restaurants, our traditional treasures will remain intact, especially with how savvy restaurants are presenting real regional cuisine to diners. But, as Indian’s continue to globe trot, they are continuing to redefine Indian food by cooking within different concepts and absorbing local influences. Non-Indian preparation techniques and non-traditional ingredients are being combined with Indian spices to create further innovations. The truth is that Indian cuisine is not static, it's been evolving wonderfully over thousands of years, absorbing the influences of migrants, invaders and travelers and getting all the more enriched. New opportunities may be represented by the incorporation of new food elements into consumption patterns. Indian restaurants are booming, as are catering places, take-out joints and even traveling chefs who can come to your home and cook up a regional feast.

Just like eating at home, and as briefly noted before, some of the best eats hail from local Indian restaurants, where you can enjoy food acclaimed from the far north to the far south of the Indian sub-continent. Sarah Nunny, a food industry analyst has noted, “The attention given to food and cooking, points to an obsession with all things gastronomic. With restaurants offering the exotic alongside the traditional, there is something for everyone. The media has played a large part in making food fashionable. Even for those consumers who don't want to cook from scratch, there is now a natural progression from trying cuisine in a restaurant.

So turn the pages and discover some of our local treasures. We have uncovered some of the best Indian food in the Lower Mainland – all in tribute to DARPAN’s INAUGURAL FOOD LOVERS ISSUE. Bon Appétit!