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Savour, sans the Indian twist!

This Chinese New Year, Anam Rizvi tells you where to head for an authentic Chinese fare

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A typical meal on Chinese New Year
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It’s by no accident that before any other international cuisine, Chinese claimed a stronghold in India. Kolkata is home to the oldest Chinese community in the country, the earliest settlers having reached the shores of Bengal as early as 1778. It’s also probably the only place where you’ll find Chinese dishes made from traditional family recipes. A case in point is Eau Chew where the Jospehine noodles are on every gourmet’s check list. Celebrating their New Year tomorrow, Chinese families will enjoy the comfort of authentic dishes.

Chomping on chilly chicken which sizzles with red chillies, gobbling gobi (cauliflower) manchurian  pickled with orange food colouring and wiping off plates of golden fried prawns is how most Indians enjoy Chinese cuisine. But restaurant owners and afficionados of the cuisine reveal that authentic recipes use spices sparingly and oil rarely.

Vendors frying onions and chillies with noodles and adding a dash of red chilli sauce to the potent mixture is another common sight at many street corners where Indo-Chinese food is offered. How did Chinese food get this tangy twist? “One needs to adapt to the environment one lives in. Our food is bland and we don’t fry it much; even when we make a stir fry, we do it very fast. We don’t deep fry food. As Chinese have been living in Kolkata for a long time, dishes like manchurian and chilly chicken, which are not a part of our original cuisine, have evolved, ” quips Paul Chung, President of the Indian Chinese Association.

Hsieh Ying Xing, owner of Big Boss, a ten -year-old restaurant in Tangra points out, “Indo-Chinese food is a recent phenomena and developed only about 30 years ago.”

On Chinese New Year, dishes like mafa and  kak choi–fried sweet dishes made of flour cut in pretty designs; prawn wafers, black eggs with Chinese five spice, Nien Kow–a dessert made of sticky rice, and Pot Pan–another sweet made of rice, are prepared. There’s more to it than just the taste. The Chinese worship the Kitchen God during Chinese New Year and prepare Pot Pan with sticky rice so that when he reports to the higher court, he won’t be unable to open his mouth and say anything. Steamed fish is also an important part of the preparations, because as per Chinese traditions fish symbolises fertility and it’s name in Chinese means savings.

Home to India’s only Chinatown in Tiretti Bazaar and Tangra, Kolkota is one of the few places in India where you can find an authentic Chinese breakfast. People actually reach the street in Tiretti Bazaar by 5 am for pork dumplings, shrimp dimsums, fish momos and fried rice balls, and by 8.30 am it’s all over!

“To experience authentic Chinese cuisine, Tung Nam in Chattwala gully is the place. It is not a fancy eatery, but the food is very good. The yam wanton, wanton soup, noodles, rice noodles and the ham choy are my family’s staple order,” says Gloria Chiang, an interior designer based out of Kolkata.

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