When cantonment meets colonial...

A trip down memory lane gets Ajit Saldanha nostalgic about how back in the heydays, food ruled the roost over finery and service

Many moons ago, I was consumed by envy when my older cousin Prema accompanied the grownups to the movie, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? at Plaza theatre, followed by dinner at Blue Fox. Sidney Poitier has since shuffled off this mortal coil so you could hazard a guess as to how long ago this happened. Displaying the weary sophistication of a 14-year-old Mumbaikar she rubbed salt in my wounds by saying, “Such a bore, Jith, the movie’s ok, I guess, but I don’t know whether to have the prawn cocktail or the sizzler at Fox.” This was name-dropping on an epic scale, which drove me to fits of tearful pleading to be included in the orgy, but my parents were unmoved.

“When you’re older, dear,” I was coldly informed and that was that. Desmond Rice was then the major-domo of the hottest spots in town and when I finally got to taste the sizzler at Fox, like most things one anticipates too eagerly, it was an over-rated pleasure. It was served on a hot plate that floated in a sea of butter and spluttered incessantly throughout the meal: it was rather like dining with Mamata Banerjee in a bad mood.

Like Alice, Blue Fox has gone and the era of prawn cocktail and mixed grill is toast. But what never ceases to amaze me is the number of suckers who wake up with a new concept in the fine-dining space. I too have walked that route and while the scars have healed with the passage of time, I still feel the pain on a rainy day. Recently a shrewd Sindhi friend of mine called me up to ask for business advice to which I modestly responded that I would sooner give Sunny Leone tips on Victoria’s Secret lingerie.

“Oh no yaar, it’s not for me,” he replied, bringing me down to earth rapidly. “My son wants to open a restaurant serving dim sum with Tom Yum foam, no idea boss, something called molecular gastronomy. I told him, yaar, we Sindhis should stick to what we know, our business is other people’s business, but you know what kids are like nowadays…” I blame technology; most millennials today are too busy Instagramming their food to actually taste it.

The rest are designing apps that deliver “awesome” experiences at your doorstep without a clue about the nuts and bolts of cooking; they can text at the rate of 90 wpm but don’t know the difference between jeera and fennel.

Some years ago, the Last of the Mohicans, Dewar’s Bar, downed shutters and for some old Bengalureans, it marked the passing of an era. Dewar’s was one of those iconic places you went to on a sultry summer evening in an old pair of jeans and the rumpled, faded T-shirt that your significant other had declared an endangered species. Located on the unfortunately named Cockburn (don’t ask) Road, it was famous for serving “spare parts”. For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to liver, kidneys, and brain and who knows why they have been christened thus. Your upmarket friends left their designer wardrobe and inhibitions behind or munched chastely on omelettes and toast while you gorged on the funnies.

The décor was Cantonment meets Colonial: lovely, old haldi-stained marble-topped rosewood tables with quaint rattan chairs painted a lurid green. The bar was festooned with a secular selection of ‘God pictures,’ flanking a portrait of Queen Elizabeth nestled cheek by jowl with the fiercely moustached proprietor sporting his customary toothy grin. In the ’60s, the bar was run by a pugnacious Irishman, Dinky Carrera, a former Warrant Officer in the British Intelligence Corps. Booze was ordered by the quarter, so if any single malt snob tried telling Dinky how Dewars was pronounced “Do errs,” he was likely to snap, “You’re a wanker, not a doer, mate!” Not many were prepared to argue the point since Dinky was a pretty good boxer in his prime.

Liver Fry, firm pieces of mutton liver, not the squishy sort, with hot, buttered toast, followed by green peas masala, was a popular starter, followed by Brain Dry, sautéed in potent garlic, pepper, green chilli and curry leaf masala. Egg podimas and omelettes were popular as was avalakki and peanut masala. Die-hards
would line their stomachs with dosa and head curry or paya and our favourite Anglo Indian waiter, Francis, would coyly suggest the bad word (ball) curry. “No beef, sir, we use pure mutton kheema in our balls,” he would primly vouch. The reason I mentioned fine dining in my opening paragraph is that I feel several of our upmarket restaurants would do well to adopt Dewar’s service manual: quick, friendly and eager to please, no monkey suit or smarmy attitude. My apologies to readers who were looking for insightful comments on weighty matters of state and have had to make do with bar memories. Dewars was the haunt of the adman, Peter Colaco, architects of the calibre of Nikhil Arni, the actor Ashok Mandanna and Bangalore’s favourite cartoonist Paul Fernandes were among the regulars; for being a second home to some of our best and brightest, it should damn well make the cut.

(The author is an old Bengalurean and impresario of comedy and musical shows who considers himself fortunate to have turned his passions — writing and theatre — into a profession.)