Geetanjali Krishna: The virtues of 'organic' growth
Last year, I’d had an interesting chat with a young fellow from Udaipur who believed in the old adage that we were what we ate. A proponent of local, organically-grown food, he had fed me crumbly amaranth and cinnamon cookies and luscious date laddus that made me realise that if not this old saw, another one was definitely true — the proof of the pudding definitely lay in its eating. That is why I was happy to see recently that Manoj Prajapat and his little organic café, Millets of Mewar, had made it to the very top of Tripadvisor’s list of restaurants in Udaipur.
Given that Prajapat and his three friends, Sunny Gandharva, Nirmal Prajapat and Anoop Singh Poonia – the quartet that started this health food cafe in October 2011 – are all in their early twenties and have little by the way of capital funding or restaurant experience, it has been a long but rewarding journey. “Before we opened our cafe, we spent some time just walking around, seeing the town’s restaurants and cafes,” said Prajapat. This made them realise that most restaurants in Udaipur seemed content having a great view of the lake and good décor. “They all seemed to have copycat menus,” said Prajapat. Another trend the boys picked up walking around Udaipur was that shopkeepers as well as restaurateurs would stand outside their establishments and exhort passersby to come sample their wares. “At first it did seem as if their ploy was successful. But we just could not bring ourselves to do this,” he said. Whether it was their menu, décor or marketing, they knew they were going to be very different from the rest of the pack.
“We knew our food would set us apart,” said Prajapat. For the last seven years, Gandharva and he had run a health food catering service and also held workshops for budding chefs. For this, they had invented scores of recipes using old-fashioned grains and local ingredients. “We created Idli and Dosa with Varai (little millet); herbal tea sweetened with apples; rotis made with mixed flour including millet, bajra and maize. We also experimented with natural sweeteners such as dates and jaggery for our cakes and cookies,” he said. “Today, we are proud to serve innovative dishes made from locally-sourced ingredients. Our Amaranth cookies have been a big hit and so have some of our herbal teas and juices.” Moreover, they included several gluten-free dishes, given the rising instance of gluten intolerance. The best thing? They kept their prices low at Rs 200-250 per head, as they wanted customers to feel comfortable in eating there everyday, not just once. Reading reviews of the little café on social networking sites, I found that these strategies seemed to have worked well. Many reviewers had talked about the guilt-free yet pleasurable experience of eating some of the goodies.
Given that marketing is the mantra of today, I was struck by the fact that Prajapat and his friends haven’t even advertised their café. “All we do is chat with all our customers about our food philosophy. What’s really helped is the Tripadvisor rating. Thanks to it, we get reservations even from five-star hotel guests now!” he said.
Inspired by Prajapat, I also filled my pantry with the likes of ragi porridge and millet flour. The porridge, tinged unpleasantly green, was a meal fit only for the bin. Then I thought of all those contented diners singing paeans to millets in Prajapat’s little café in Udaipur. I guess we all are what we eat — but we still need a good recipe.