No business like the food business

If you want any indication that the restaurant business is booming, just walk into Manu and Sonia Mohindra's office. The Mohindras run a hotel and restaurant consultancy called Under One Roof Hotel Consultants, and have to their credit tony outlets like Shalom, Tabula Rasa, Italics, hotels for Maples as well as some projects in Dubai.

Says Manu proudly, "We have done over 350 restaurants since we started this consultancy 11 years ago." The couple, who both worked in the hotel business before setting up this office, are true-blue foodies. Spend an hour with them and the conversation is all about different cuisines in different parts of the world and of course the restaurant business in India.

Manu, the more ebullient of the two, throws this statistic at me when I ask him how the restaurant business is poised in India. He says, "Just in the Manhattan area in New York there are 4,116 liquor license restaurants. In the entire NCR area there are just 470."

He has another statistic up his sleeve: "There are about 1,000 restaurant chains in the US that are each worth a billion dollars. In India there isn't even one." Adds Sonia, "The need of the hour in India is to corporatise this business and make it scalable."

Being in the food business, is it possible to be partial to one cuisine? Manu initially shrugs off the question but Sonia provides details of what her husband and business partner like to eat.

"Manu likes anything from the Orient. His funda is that the food from there is light and fresh. He doesn't like starch at all. I never get to eat rotis at home as Manu doesn't like it at all. Sometimes I have to ask to be able to have rotis in my own house." Her own personal favourite? "I enjoy Italian food."

The couple keep up this banter even as Manu, by virtue of being a professional chef, takes over in the kitchen and, without batting so much as an eyelid, turns out a full meal in a matter of minutes. Says Sonia, "With Manu, it's never about cooking just one dish." When food is your bread and butter, maybe it's better that way.

FAVOURITE RECIPES

CHICKEN, SCALLION WITH DRY CHILLI

200 gm chicken
100 gm scallion
4 gm dry red chilli (whole)
20 ml sesame oil
10 ml Xaosing wine
5 gm cornflour
10 ml dark soya sauce
10 gm garlic
8 gm red chilli paste
Salt to taste

Marination for chicken
1/2 egg
1 gm black pepper powder
3 gm cornflour
3 gm refined flour
Salt to taste

Marinate the chicken by mixing all the ingredients.Cook in slow fire for about four minutes. Take a wok, add oil and throw in the dry red chilli. As soon as they colour add the garlic. Add all the ingredients and cook for a while. Now throw in the cooked chicken and toss in high heat. Finish scallions and a sprinkling of sesame oil.

BRAISED BROCcOLI WITH TOFU

100 gm tofu
200 gm broccoli
10 gm garlic
15 ml vegetarian oyster sauce
10 ml dark soya sauce
10 ml Xaosing wine
5 gm cornflour
10 gm red chilli paste
Salt to taste

Clean and cut the broccoli into one inch pieces. Blanch and keep aside. Cut the silken tofu into one inch cubes and keep aside. Saute the broccoli with garlic and seasoning. Add the wine and soya . Quickly blanch the tofu and place in the middle of the sauteed broccoli. Make a sauce with garlic, chilli paste, soya sauce, salt and cornflour. Pour on top and serve hot.