Traditionally, vegetarians haven’t made for exciting dining companions for us happy carnivores. You’re at an Indian restaurant, about to dig into your juicy, slow-cooked seekh kebabs, when the boring paneer pasandas and navratan kormas roll on to your companion’s plate.
Matters are slightly better in a Thai or Chinese restaurant, with a variety of stir-fried veggies, and rice and noodle dishes on the menu. But it is about as bad as it can get in a Japanese restaurant. While you go the whole hog —salmon, tuna, beef (if it moves, it’s food)—it’s a rather sorry sight to watch the vegetarian next to you bite into cucumber and carrot maki rolls.
Mesculine Asparagus Panchino Salad with Ricotta Cheese at Prato (Photo by: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint)
Let’s face it, things from the soil can never exactly become epicurean delights. Right? Not quite. Today, with diehard non-vegetarians waking up to cholesterol and coronaries, vegetarians are having their chlorophyll-healthy day in the sun.
Four Seasons in Mumbai, which opened its doors to the city’s gourmands in May, did its research well. They found that to keep customers happy, they couldn’t just be cooking meat. Friends of Giancarlo Francesco, the hotel’s Italian executive chef in India, had warned him before he moved here. As the wizened chef says today, “You can make as many vegetarian dishes as possible and it’ll never be enough.”
Though the cuisines available at Four Seasons may not traditionally lend themselves to experiments with leaves, shoots and roots, the menus at all their restaurants, including the Italian, Chinese and Japanese, offer almost as many vegetarian options as non-vegetarian. The chefs here wield their magic knives to whip up innovative vegetarian dishes using exotic as well as common vegetables and giving them a gourmet twist.
The veg sushi options no longer begin with cucumber and end with asparagus. Take your pick from the chef’s special sushis—hummus, baba ghanoush, mango, okra, tomato and avocado maki roll, and the delicious tomato sushi topped with yazu pepper puree. The Italian menu at Prato has equally exciting options.
Vegetable sushis at San Qi, Four Seasons (Photo by: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint)
“Till a few years ago, vegetarian dishes were merely for the person considered less of a gastronome,” says Magandeep Singh, sommelier and host of
Around The World In 85 Plates, a food show on NDTV Good Times. The self-confessed carnivore now makes sure he gets at least a few vegetarian dishes on his table every time he eats out. “Restaurants serving international cuisine are getting more creative with their vegetarian cooking. Even about three years ago, all you got was boiled vegetables tossed in sauce,” he says.