If you’re a hoarder like me, you know that even though some clothes and other possessions need to be expelled from your cupboard, you can’t bear to part with them because of the nostalgia they rekindle in your heart.
It’s the same feeling that my daughter has when she looks at her old pyjama set with disbelief that she was once so tiny, “this has childhood memories mama, you can never give this away”.
In all honesty I am more attached to some of my kids’ stuff than even they are. On my 50th birthday, they gifted me a new set of Ladybird books (because I had misplaced the original and was upset about that) that I used to read them every night when they were young. The Enormous Turnip was my all time fave to read to my kids. When in season, I give them turnip to eat everyday and remind them of the book (resulting in a lot of eye rolling and sighing every time!).
Just like my attachment to the shalgam book, there were a few dishes on my restaurant menu that I was emotionally attached to. To be clear, they were delicious dishes, but our customers didn’t always see where I was coming from. As they say (really, as I say), the customer is not always right :).
To start with, my favorite Sindhi Seyal Bread was unfortunately not a mover and shaker at Food For Thought. I like to think it was because it was difficult to explain the dish to customers. ‘Bread tossed in onion- tomato- ginger masala’ didn’t cut it. When we had just introduced it, some customers would ask for a Jain version of it, but that’s something I refused to do. How can I tell them it’s one of our most popular Sindhi dishes if they haven’t had it in its gloriously original avatar. What’s bread mixed with tomato without onion, ginger, or garlic? It’s not Seyal bread, that’s for sure. Not on my watch!
So it chugged along for 11 years, despite repeated requests by my staff and my husband to remove it from the menu. All because I couldn’t fathom anyone not liking something I have grown up eating. Bah, what do they know anyway! Needless to say, every time someone did order it, I would go out to see who this angel with a very discerning palate was J. 9 out of 10 times, it was a Sindhi customer who had come to relive nostalgia. One customer even said to me that it tasted just like his nani’s and it brought back many memories for him.
“That’s my validation enough to keep it on the menu for 11 years,” I said to my husband. The 10th customer was someone who had left his ordering to the server’s discretion…“it’s very tasty sir, try it.” And try it he did, or had to.
On one of my travels, I came across a dish called Piadina at Camden Market, London. Needless to say, for someone growing up in the 70’s on Chhayageet, only one song came to mind and it was sung throughout lunch, “Mere piya gaye London, wahan se laye hai Piadina…”. But I digress…
Simply put, it was a thick paratha, stuffed with your choice of fillings, folded over and cooked on a grill till crisp. My family and I loved it so much we had Piadina for lunch and dinner at that stall. Our favourite was the steak & arugula and we couldn’t get enough of it! The two young brothers who ran the stall were aghast that this Indian family only wants to order b**f Piadina!
When we opened PLENTY, I added Piadina to the menu, offering a choice of steak & cheese and grilled veggies & cheese. The explanation for Piadina became a nuisance for the servers every time they took the order for it. “Sir, it’s like an Italian quesadilla”. The customers were not impressed with it. Because it actually did look and taste like a quesadilla so what was the big deal with the strange name?? Did they care that the dough had yeast in it so it was not the same as quesadilla dough? Did they care that it was synonymous with pleasant memories of my family walloping 6 Piadinas on a beautiful sunny day in London? NO, they didn’t. How can they not like it when my family and I loved it??
Eventually it self-destructed itself out of the menu.
“PLENTY has the best Ramen this side of Singapore,” said one guest. “Most authentic Ramen,” said another. “Perfect texture of the noodles,” said our customers frequently.
“Biggest nuisance”, “Most time consuming”, “ Just not worth it”, said I.
Yes, we did a lot of research while coming up with the recipe of the noodles for our Ramen Bowl. No, we did not just dump haka noodles in boiling water and serve it! An alkaline solution was made and added to flour to make a stiff dough. Since it was kneaded by hand for the first year, till we bought a dough machine, it was the bane of the kitchen staff tasked with making it.
The rolling and cutting was done with a pasta machine, which by itself was not an easy process. One person had to hold the machine tight on the counter like his life depended on it (pretty much like Dravid held on to his wicket for dear life in any test match he played), while the other person would then put the ready dough into the machine to roll it out. Many a pasta machine gave up and broke down because of the stiffness of the dough. The day the noodles were being made, you could say bye bye to those poor chefs for practically the entire day. Half the day went in making the noodles, the other half went in resting and icing their hands.
The next step was the shoyu eggs. We had to boil the eggs to that perfect stage where it would get that jammy yolk - not too oozy, not too hard, when you cut it in your bowl. So we boiled them and then dumped them in ice water till cooled. Not done yet! The boiled eggs were then marinated overnight in a soy sauce solution to get that brown hue.
Not done yet. Next were the non-veg and veg broths. Hours of roasting chicken bones, simmering them in the stock with loads of ingredients for another few hours. The veg broth made separately, simmering again for hours till reduced and packed with the flavor we wanted. The veggies or chicken that were put in the ramen bowl were also another element to be prepped and cooked.
Customers who had eaten Ramen on their travels were always willing to order it…and then continued to order it because it was so good :). But there was another segment that did not want to try it because it was ‘just a soup’. The number of orders we got for it did not seem to justify the time and effort that went in making it. And eventually, we had to axe it from the menu, much to the relief and glee of most of the staff.
Whenever my kids or my friends visited a new country, I would request (/order) them to go try some obscure street food item and come back and tell me about it. On one such occasion, my son returned from Budapest and told me about this “delicious, flaky thingy” called Langos. If nothing else, the name intrigued me and research started on recipe development of the famous Plenty Langos. After many trials (and a general fattening of everyone involved in said trials), sonny boy finally gave his approval.
“It’s almost like the one I had!” I’ll take it.
So Langos went on the menu. Again, it was important to educate the customer about it. Many things get lost in translation if you cannot explain properly what the dish actually is. And boy did that happen here too. Hungarian flatbread, said the menu. Like a deep fried pizza, said the server. Bhatura, said the customer. We tried many iterations of it, starting with the basic sour cream and chives, then sour cream and bacon, and even coming up with a dessert Langos, apple cinnamon.
Nope, no interest from the customers. So off with its head. At the end of 6 months, when we realized we had sold only two per week, we decided to show it the door.
Apna Cream Centre ka Bhatura zindabad.
There are so many factors that motivate us to add a certain dish to our menu. Sometimes we are driven by our own love for that dish. Sometimes nostalgia, sometimes a memory attached to that dish.
Whatever the reason, we have to be ready for any creation to be rejected by the customer regardless of our personal reasons. We may connect with the dish but does the customer? In any case, that’s often the funnest part of running a restaurant - the experimentation. The chance you take thinking you know what customers will like, sometimes before they tell you themselves. Spoiler alert - You win some, you lose some.
As I tell my kids, “ You do you, the rest will take care of itself.”
Need to do a Plenty pop up ! Really missing the food !
I really have to remember to not read these notes while I am already hungry !!