Book: Bombay Dreams – a Decade of Traditions Reborn

Bombay Dreams – a Decade of Traditions Reborn

I am eager to start cooking from this book, which focuses on one of the more underrated of the world’s cuisines – that of India. Bombay Dreams – the first restaurant from Dining Concepts – opened on Wyndham Street in 2002. The restaurant group now has more than 20 establishments ranging from Italian (Lupa, Al Molo) to steaks and burgers (BLT Steak, Carnevino, BLT Burger, Prime Steakhouse), to French (Bouchon) and, of course, Indian. With text by former South China Morning Post writer Andrew Sun and recipes by Bombay Dreams chef Velusamy Muniyandi and master chef Irshad Ahmed Qureshi, this book has many of the dishes you’d expect – but, even better, it also has many you wouldn’t.

You know without even looking at the menu that any non-vegetarian Indian restaurant in Hong Kong is going to serve tandoori chicken and lamb rogan josh. (Restaurants in India have a lot more variety.) But this book also has recipes for palak patta chat (spinach leaves dipped in chickpea batter then fried, topped with spiced potatoes and served with mint chutney, tamarind chutney and yogurt dressing); rava idli (semolina dumplings); tandoori lobster; and taaze phalon ki tandoori chaat (marinated fruit cooked in the tandoor).

My one criticism is of the design: whoever thought it was a good idea to put lavender text on a purple page, or black text on dark green, must have preternaturally keen eyesight.