|
|
|
East meets East at the new Indo-Chinese menu at Tiffin
Indian and Chinese spices come together on the menu at Tiffin.
East meets East at the new Indo-Chinese menu at Tiffin
It’s a good thing that Munish Narula re-opened the Tiffin, Etc. space next to his original Tiffin at 710 Girard Avenue in June. This Monday night, his fine Indian restaurant and to-go spot was filled with seated habitués and take out diners, a common sight for this Tiffin.
Part of being packed stems from the fact that Narula – an always-tweaking restaurant conceptualist and CEO – added to Tiffin’s menu the comfort food cuisine of the Indo-Chinese and its hot and spicy sauces like Szechuan, Kung Pao and Manchurian.
Narula didn’t just come up with adding the tastes of Calcutta’s Chinese immigrants who brought their flavors and recipes to bear on Indian culture. “The idea has been floating around for about a year,” says Narula. “At one point, we were looking to do Indo-Chinese as a separate restaurant concept in another part of the city – South Philadelphia in fact.”
That South Philly location never materialized though and Narula, anxious to get this new concept into play, turned his Northern Liberties hot spot into a one stop shop for all of his menus, Indo-Chinese included.
“It’s still solidly Chinese cuisine,” says Marula of his new addition to Tiffin. “When they arrived in Calcutta they brought their recipes and cooking techniques to what was available locally like coriander and cumin. The new tastes are quite amazing. The Chicken Lollipop drumsticks served with chili sauce is subtly spicy. The Kung Pao sauce with spring onions, cashews and dry red chili is an ever-so-slightly-sweet collaboration with its chunks of tofu or slices of fish. The Szechaun sauce of garlic, celery, green chiles and chopped ginger was gentle, zesty and played to the flavor of the plentiful large shrimp. And the Manchurian sauce with its soy-chili sauce was numbingly hot yet still allowed the flavors of its sliced chicken to come through.
The Indo-Chinese menu has been such an immediate success that Narula will be expanding selected dishes to all the Tiffin locations as specials and eventually as regular menu items.
Narula isn’t ignoring his other enterprise so to care for Tiffin. His high-end Indian eatery and lounge, Tashan, after being named a semi-finalist for the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant, is doing something that Narula never wanted to do. Starting tonight he’s launching “Dinner At Home” a home delivery service (don’t call it “take out”) featuring specially designed containers, utensils and other handsome touches. “Dinner at Home” also offers several new classic Indian dishes to go with Tashan’s in-house menu.
“It’s not Tashan’s complete menu that we’ll offer but just menu items and new tastes that we think will travel well,” says Narula with a smile. See, we really never thought his stylized Tashan would offer such delivery. “It wasn’t in the cards until I started hearing from my customers that delivery was something they wanted. In that regard, you have to listen to the consumer. It’s smart to give in sometimes.”
- barstool scientist
- Booze
- Brew Revue
- Chef Salad
- Closings
- Coffee
- Contests
- Dealage
- Dirty Dishes
- Don't Front
- Eat This Immediately
- Field Trip
- Food and Art
- Food and Holidays
- Food and Movies
- Food and Music
- Food and Politics
- Food and Sports
- Food and Web
- Food Blogs
- Food Books
- Food Events
- Food News
- Food TV
- Gifted
- Happy Hour Hopper
- How-To
- In Print
- Interview
- Meal Ticket
- Menu Time
- Not So Quickfire
- Notes from the Weekend
- On Wheels
- Openings
- Patio Drinking
- Philly Beer Week 2010
- Photos
- Private Chef POV
- Product Placement
- Recipes
- Snack Time
- Stiff Drank
- SUPPER
- Tea
- Testing
- Ticket Stubs
- Top Chef
- Vegan
- Vegetarian
- Video
- Weekly Candy
- Weird Regional Foods
- We're Here to Help
- Where'd We Eat?
- Drew Lazor's Ill-Advised Rant Factory
- Pregame
- Ill-Advised Ranting
- The Week Without Meat
- Philly Beer Week 2009
- Real Big
- Where'd I Eat Last Night?
- Top Chef Masters
- The Good Word
- Next Iron Chef
- Arterial Terrorism
- Food and Radio
