Beyond Indus tries to do something different from the masala kraft formula; it seeks to capture the cuisine of pre-partition Punjab, Sind and Rawalpindi.
On a trip to Chennai I went to a restaurant with an intriguing name, Beyond Indus. It is situated in a swank new hotel the Taj has opened off Mount Road, named the Taj Mount Road.
Beyond Indus tries to do something different from the masala kraft formula; it seeks to capture the cuisine of pre-partition Punjab, Sind and Rawalpindi.
It is an extraordinarily attractive restaurant, full of light, and a delicate fusion between traditional architectural motifs and modern stone minimalism.
The young chef comes from a family that has its roots in Sialkot and that is reflected in the rather interesting haleem he makes, almost as green as the mint used in cooking.
In Hyderabad, the fresh mint and the birasta (fried onions) are used as garnish. I cannot fault the meal, which was delightful, including a Lahori murgh which reminded me of the murgh I had in the Khoa gullies in Lahore a few years back.
The masala is complex. The kababs were beautifully prepared, skewered on charcoal, as they should be. However, I thought there were certain dishes that should not have been on the menu.
There is an unfortunate tendency to confuse Pakistani cooking with Muslim cooking.
Take, for example, the shikampuri kabab: a superior form of shammi, the meat is finely minced and has yoghurt in the middle.
However, it owes nothing to Sind or Punjab, but to Hyderabad where it is named after a village called Shikampur. What would have been more authentic would have been the chappli kabab, a frontier specialty, practically unobtainable here. It is the subcontinent’s answer to the burger.
In fact, there was too much of the Punjabi, and hardly any Sindhi, dish on the menu which I thought was sad. Sindhi cuisine is an unexplored delight.
Unfortunately, many have it confined to Sai bhaji and daal pakhwan; breakfast fare associated with the famous Colaba eatery, Kailash Parbhat.
There is a lot more to the cuisine than that. For example, there is the Seyal Pallo, a river fish found in the Indus, rich in phosphorous and delicious. It is eaten with the same reverence the bhadralok of Bengal reserve for the hilsa.
The salan is made with a base of onions and tomatoes and it is generally eaten with chapattis.
There is the dodo chutney, millet flour with spices mixed in it and cooked unleavened. The Sindhi kadi is also different as it uses tamarind and besan instead of tomatoes and onions with a variety of vegetables, beans, yam and potatoes.
Anyway these suggestions don’t detract from the excellence of the restaurant. It is also good to see that the Taj is concentrating on regional cuisine which has been successful, if Southern Spice and Konkan Kitchen are anything to go by.
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