Veena Arora, Chef de Cuisine at The Spice Route, The Imperial, likes to add a twist to the tale, says Saimi Sattar
The Spice Route, the south Asian speciality restaurant at The Imperial, is synonymous with the sprightly and energetic Chef De Cuisine Veena Arora. She is sure to ask the guests for their preferences and prepare dishes which might not be featured on the menu. “Guests know what they are ordering and sometimes they want food outside the menu too. I don’t mind giving in to the demand as long as it is possible,” says Arora.
The restaurant, and along with it Arora, has traversed a long way. When she joined the Spice Route it was nearing its completion — and she has stayed on — for a good 23 years. “One of these walls was being painted and the other was being built,” she recalls about the restaurant which reminds one of temple architecture with its numerous pillars and carved wooden beams.
And that is certainly a long time for a person who had no intentions of staying on or for that matter taking up a full-time job in the food business. For Arora, things fell into place more of their own volition rather than by her design. Arora was born and brought up in Thailand in a small town named Phathalung situated in the southern part of the country, close to the sea and the Malaysian border. She was all of 18 when she started cooking in a restaurant that her brother had opened. “Unlike India, people open small restaurants in their homes in Thailand. We had the bedroom upstairs and on the ground floor we had put out tables and chairs. Food was cooked right there — which is the way that it should be. The guests are sitting right in front of you and all your shyness goes away,” she says.
Despite having gained the confidence, she had no intentions of joining the profession full-time. Following marriage, she settled in India in 1980. But then life has its twists. “An engineer friend, who worked at what is now The lalit and at that point was called Holiday Inn asked me to join as a Thai food consultant for their Thai restaurant, Silk Orchid. I told him that I don’t want to join and he replied that if I didn’t like it, I could leave. After a month, I started to enjoy it,” says Arora who was awarded the Best lady Chef by the Ministry of Tourism in India for her outstanding achievement and contribution to the promotion of tourism in the country in 2012 by former President of India, Pratibha Patil.
Arora worked at the Holiday Inn for two years and also opened the Blue Elephant restaurant which replaced Silk Orchid in 1996.
Almost at the same time as the Blue Elephant, The Spice Route was also being set up at The Imperial. “One of the chefs who knew me asked me to help them set it up and I did it for two months. When I wanted to leave, the management prevailed upon me to stay,” she says.
Arora started the restaurant and drafted its very first menu. “It is my baby as I have been a part of it from day one. When I joined, this wall was being painted and one wall was not there. So now, I keep thinking that when I leave, it will be tough,” she says, almost sighing. Her children, who were young when she joined, are now independent and established.
Arora is known for her food promotions. Her summer festival where she works with mangoes of all varieties are a hit with the clientele as she creates a new menu every year. In winters, the promotions are centred around sea food. Currently, The Spice Route is doing a promotion around noodles which features everything from flat noodles from Thailand to vermicelli made from lentils. “This time I planned something different where I used used popia skin (spring roll sheet) which is cut and deep fried and then stir fried with vegetables,” she says. The effect that is achieved is interesting where the crunch fried sheets pair well with that of the vegetables.
Arora emphasises that noodles, if made from the right ingredients, are healthy. “Rice noodles are blanched so many times that there is hardly any starch. It is in fact better than eating rice. A plate of Mee Goreng with sea food is actually a whole meal,” she says.
Arora prefers to source her sauces as well as lemon grass and galangal from abroad. “The one grown here does not give the flavour. Indian-grown lemon grass is chewy and fibrous while you can ingest the Thai one,” she says, signing off.