Guess who's ditching the dhabha?

Away from home it's difficult to come by food that reminds one of mom's cooking, writes Meeta Bhatnagar.

This one's a little hard to gulp. Away from home - it's especially difficult to come by food that reminds one of mom's cooking.

Inadvertently therefore, one is willing to dish out preposterous wads of cash just to get a smack of that memory every once in a while.

Restaurants with generically obvious names as rasoi, khaana khazaana, dhaaba, madras café, roti etc are therefore only round the corner in any neighbourhood that has a significant number of Indians. They are also respectably popular among Indian Americans and to some extent, even among counterparts from other cultures inquisitive of a taste of India.

Of late however, many members of the community in Atlanta and its neighbouring areas have willingly ditched the desi dish for a bite out of the Mexican rice and bean bowl. The reason put forth by them is the categorical lack of the authentic Indian tang and feel of the food served at many of these restaurants.

For, although most food joints claim to be true to the Indian palette, they are in reality a puzzling jamboree of cross over meals that are neither here nor there.

This leaves a lot of people, especially those who have parents and older members of the family over on vacation feeling disappointed and bamboozled.

For instance, at a known metro restaurant, a simple masala dosa or the rice crepe becomes somewhat of a mind boggling 'guess who' epicurean game when it is presented to you in four portions with broccoli and mashed potatoes and insipid, lukewarm likeness of what should ideally be 'sambhar' along with a minuscule serving of a green paste that is supposed to be the accompanying chutney.

In contrast, some restaurants offer what they call the 'Indian Chinese' cuisine with much élan. Strange as it may sound, this option is actually welcomed by a lot of people simply because it doesn't claim to be anything other than what it says.

It is Chinese food cooked the way it is in Indian restaurants - so when you see something like gobhi Manchurian on the menu or aaloo pad see-u, you are not really shocked out of your senses.

Since these restaurants have to cater to the taste buds of all nationalities (they wish!), almost all the food, even the one that is represented with two or three huge red hot chillies on the menu card (meaning very spicy) is anything but smoking hot.

Most importantly, it is felt that although weekend buffet meals are reasonably cheaper, it is the a la carte menu that promises more than it actually delivers.

Whether this is just a matter of opinion, or a bid to survive among other more viable options for food lovers, the drive behind offering only fleetingly Indian savour to patrons has in fact nose-dived for some diners that have had to shut shop due to a thinning clientele.

Of the many beneficiaries of this dismal trend are hood Indian grocers. They have taken to keeping and selling a wide variety of assorted and unrelated victuals like semi-cooked samosas, chapattis, vadais, pakoras and home-made (or so they say) curries and delicacies.

These are in fact becoming ever popular with working couples keeping tight schedules and meeting really, over an evening meal. The microwaveable khaana option is both simple and manageable given the time and effort parameters.

Still, one misses the magic of good old Indian epicurean delights that can be relished only in a diner setting. Aside from the wistful ambience and twittering surprises like paan at the end of the meal or khoya on the gajar halwa, it is the addictive enormity of a full course meal that is difficult to recapture at home.

There's a reason why the Indian curry has taken England by storm. That reason is known to us, it has been sampled by us. And so, we miss it.

Even as this doddering in-between ambiguous serving has made some Indian restaurants pack up, one also feels sad seeing the as yet unexplored potential of the sumptuous Indian food offering go unacknowledged.

Between 25 states and innumerable indigenous recipes, surely we can give the Chinese a run for their money even gastronomically. Considering that food practically is our national excuse and pageantry for everything ranging from hospitality to affection to ceremony to pompadour to pride- we should be able to do better than like it or lump it!