Kanika Datta: Quickies and mousies

Arugula. No arugula? Chicken scallops, salmon, slices of roast pork, asparagus and baby corn are already heaped on the plate. But I search for those aromatic leaves, also known as "rocket leaves", with all the petulance of a sophisticate (in my case a decidedly fake one). Then I spot them between bowls bearing two kinds of lettuce leaves and three kinds of olives.

Just 15 years ago, all of the above would have been hard to find anywhere in Delhi. If anything, Nirula's popular all-you-can-eat buffet was the nearest thing we came to haute cuisine for salaried professionals. For me, the bacon bits alone were bliss.

Today, forget the upscale hotels: arugula, zucchini (endearingly called "jugni" by local vendors), red and yellow bell peppers and all manner of exotic fruit and vegetables can be had at super markets and even off the hand carts. In certain markets, avocado is no longer an alien term. And most self-respecting kirana shops can offer bottles of olive, gherkins, pickled onions, corn, imported or made in India, your choice. The more swanky ones could offer you pâte, blue cheese, caviar, oysters… Till the culinary vigilantes stepped in, it was possible to get a Kobe beef steak, if your wallet stood the strain.

As for eating-out choices: Indian-Chinese, Mughlai and Indian fast food may - rightly! - remain staple favourites but rising incomes and global exposure have meant that conservative Indian palates are finally willing to experiment. Japanese? Vietnamese? Lebanese? Anglo-Indian? French? Italian? Spanish? Burmese? Nepalese? Parsi? Naga? Goan? You want it, log on to food apps for restaurant reviews, guides or home delivery.

In the early days, though, this progress up the foodie ladder created its own ignominies for the experimental novice. In 2000, when a London-returned colleague recklessly ordered couscous at a newly-opened Lebanese restaurant, we suspiciously scrutinised the dish when it arrived. It looked like sabudana and tasted distinctly underdone to our inexperienced palates. This was duly pointed out to the waiter. "Yes, sir," he replied with a condescending kindness, "couscous is meant to be al dente."

Uh-huh.
A furtive look at an online dictionary later revealed that the term meant "firm to the bite" (though on the evidence of the couscous at that restaurant I strongly believe undercooked would have been a good approximation). Ordering Japanese food for the first time, I suffered a patronising maître d' explaining the difference between sushi and sashimi. Not that this spared me the embarrassment of breaking into helpless tears because no one told me to not apply the grated green ginger quite so liberally.

Wine. The transition from Golconda and Bosca made anything even a tad more sophisticated than foreign plonk taste like nectar. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Medoc, wines that were full-bodied, young, mature, rounded and God knows what else. Heck, I didn't even know the distinction between table grapes and those grown in vineyards.

Given these serial, public humiliations, it was heartening when Vir Sanghvi, whose food columns I eagerly read to bone up on culinary knowledge, told me that chefs in five-star restaurants in the nineties would ask him what truffles were. In the early noughties, a woman colleague was alarmed when an earnest waiter offered her a quickie at a newly opened Italian place. He was suggesting the quiche. A young lady at a pizza delivery outlet suggested a government pizza; the menu listing a gourmet pizza cleared up that mystery.

So it wasn't just me, you see. Urban India's march to multi-cuisine sophistication has been so fast that, despite the occasional snoot, the service industry struggled to keep up too. Only recently, a waiter in one of Calcutta's oldest Park Street restaurants urged me to try their "appricot mousie" (apricot mousse). I did, just to express silent solidarity with this well-meaning young man. It was pretty awful - but at least I could vouch for the fact that it wasn't al dente.

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