For a nation for whom eating out and trying a different cuisine had meant a very Indianised version of Chinese food for over half a century, it is startling to realise the popularity that foods from South East Asia and beyond have acquired.

For a nation for whom eating out and trying a different cuisine had meant a very Indianised version of Chinese food for over half a century, it is startling to realise the popularity that foods from South East Asia and beyond have acquired.

For a nation for whom eating out and trying a different cuisine had meant a very Indianised version of Chinese food for over half a century, it is startling to realise the popularity that foods from South East Asia and beyond have acquired.

Indians are lapetoing (gobbling down in Hindi slang) lahpet (a Burmese fermented preparation) and fawning over pho. They are going ga-ga over nasi goreng and are dazzled by dim sums. In a nation where foreign food trends tend to come and fade out soon enough, how did flavours from the mystic East become a fixture on the dine out scene?

We have seen burgers and momos rule the roost as haute cuisine once (remember the queues when McDonald’s opened new outlets in many cities?), but fade into a budget staple now, or pastas and pizzas become a kiddie (or wedding banquet) phenomenon.

But through this all, it has been pan-Asian—despite it being an over-encompassing term wrapping a region as disparate and spread out as Myanmar (Burma) on our borders all the way to faraway Korea—that has made the wok so woke in India’s eat-out scene.

For a nation for whom eating out and trying a different cuisine had meant a very Indianised version of Chinese food for over half a century, it is startling to realise the popularity that foods from South East Asia and beyond have acquired.

One reported estimate put the number of pan-Asian restaurants in Indian cities a couple of years ago at over 750. It’s not a metro phenomenon at all, with Thai places in towns in the farthest corner of the country, and Vietnamese coffee and Korean chips becoming de rigueur every other place.

But why has pan-Asian food succeeded where most other international cuisines have barely made a ripple? If the reason can be put in one simplistic phrase, it is this: same, same, but different.

While most Indians aren’t equipped to take to different cuisines quickly—a spice-toned palate often finds less fiery schools of cooking rather bland—the advantage pan-Asian has is the familiar overdose of flavours.

This is an inherent disadvantage continental foods face in India: many Italian restaurants in India try to make up for this with an overdose of cheese, garlic, or pepper.

But when it comes to food from the Far East, the story takes a turn into the ‘strange familiarity’ territory. Even if you take Thai food, for example, the essential herbs and ingredients like lemongrass, galangal, and kaffir lime leaves may appear exotic to Indians.

But the similarity stems from their full-bodied flavour, as well as many of the ingredients that do go in and find common ground, such as ginger, pepper, coriander, basil, and coconut milk.

This trend acquires extra muscle when one moves into other foods from this area, like Malaysian or Singaporean street food.

The spiciness quotient of a nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice with a fried egg on top that is ubiquitous in Indian fast food courts and cloud kitchens), or say a Malaysian khao suey (where the coconut milk taste balances out the spiciness) makes Indians feel comfy, especially those from India’s coastal regions who find the ‘coconutty’ taste familiar.

‘Chinese’ has been another contributing factor. Thanks to Chinese immigrants flooding cities like Kolkata (then Calcutta) in the late years of the 19th century and through the 20th century and opening up eateries, Chinese food had penetrated even small towns across the country—a trend that has now moved into dhabas, food trucks, and street stalls in even the smallest of towns in the Hindi heartland.

This has also meant a familiarity with the likes of fried rice, noodles (or chowmein, to use a term popular on Indian street food stalls) and sweet corn soup, directly contributing to an acceptance when Thai or Vietnamese outlets came knocking with similar items.

There are other factors, too, at play. The prosperity of post-nineties India also meant more and more youngsters started going out by themselves, unlike India of the 1970s and 1980s, when dining out was a family deed and only for special occasions.

Obviously, youngsters were more open to trying new foods, be it sushi on a conveyor belt or the Korean dishes they had seen on their favourite K-dramas in recent years.

Today, ‘pan-Asian’ in India is no longer limited to Chinese or even Thai. Marquee names like Mamagoto, Viet Nom, and Burma Burma are chains present across the country. Back in 2023, Bomras in Goa was adjudged the second best restaurant in the whole of India. Their cuisine? Modern Burmese food.

Today, pan-Asian cuisine is expanding even further—chains like PF Chang, which recently started operating in the country, offer ‘modern Asian cuisine’, while the likes of Yazu, a beach club in Goa’s Sinquerim, is known for its ‘high-energy Asian cocktails’, whatever that means. Nasi and Mee, which has outlets in South Indian cities, claim to specialise in South East Asian ‘hawker style’ cuisine.

Today, every self-respecting coffee shop in the country has to have at least one variant of Vietnamese coffee as well as matcha tea.

The latest entrant is Cambodian food, with Khmer Kitchen in Bengaluru and Zammaya in Delhi. Ankit Gupta, Founder of the Burma Burma chain, summed it up best in a chat with THE WEEK recently: “Good food trumps all. You don't need to term it as vegetarian, non-vegetarian, Burmese, non-Burmese, right? As long as you're giving good food ... there will be a market for it.”

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