Vanyavilas: The Food 

The fire sparks towards the stars. Jazzy sweet notes from an Indian flute float by. In the center of the open courtyard of a jungle retreat, a fire pit contains the fire that lights and warms the night. Gold, crimson and royal blue pillows soften the sandstone banquette carved from the courtyard walls. Above, royal blue Indian trees of life are painted inside scalloped arches. Sleek tables and hand-crafted linens complete Vanyavilas’ rustic-luxe dining room.

An Indian feast spreads out before me. Called a thalis, its traditionally from Kerala and the time-honored Indian way of having a little of this and a little of that. Served everywhere from truck stops to fine restaurants, they are now popular throughout India, with local favorites added to the mix. Indians eat thalis by scooping up tastes on a bit of bread—mixing and matching at will.

At Vanyavilas the thalis arrives on a round copper platter. A semi-circle of seven little copper bowls are filled with seven delicacies and sit around a mound of rice. Pickles, chutneys and breads complete this grand tour of Indian cuisine. A distinct gravy and masala, an Indian spice mixture, sauce each dish. Each masala is made up of three to more than ten different spices. Spices are roasted on a hot griddle to enhance their flavor before they are ground. Every day. Fresh. Then a gravy based on either yogurt or coconut milk, or on sautés of leafy greens or a tomato-onion-garlic-ginger mixture is flavored by a masala.

The thalis before me starts on the right with a dal—a spiced pea, bean or lentil stew served with most Indian meals. This dal is of small black beans that have been cooked overnight in ghee—butter rendered into pure oil. Ghee gives adds a nutty flavor to this lightly-spiced dish.

Cauliflower comes next. Spicier than the dal, its tomato-etc. gravy has a cumin, coriander and turmeric masala. Baby eggplants follow. Their soft, sweet flavor melts into a yogurt-based gravy with a masala including black mustard seeds and coriander. In the next bowl, a creamy paneer picks up the flavor of spiced greens. Paneer is a cottage cheese that is pressed into cakes resembling soybean curd. Like bean curd it absorbs the flavors around it and is a protein staple of India’s many vegetarians.

In the mostly vegetarian south, a thalis would have more vegetables and dals. Here in Rajasthan, the next bowls are filled with meat. First lamb. With the most elaborate masala, it combines many spices and several hot peppers in a gravy of tomatoes-onion-garlic-ginger sautéed in ghee. The results are rich, complex flavors that distinguish the choice lamb.

Vindaloo Chicken holds the hot spot with a pureed vegetable and hot pepper gravy. It is, however, full of flavor—not just heat. Happily, the Vindaloo sits next to a cooling yogurt dish. With a light masala of coriander and cumin and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds, the yogurt is there to cool the heat of the hot dishes.

Fascinated by the fine Indian food, it was hard—but not impossible—to indulge in the western fare Vanyavilas offers. I did, but not until after I’d visited the chef’s garden and seen the beautiful lettuces. No where else in India, except at other Oberoi hotels, would I dare eat lettuce. Salad-starved, I ordered one with every Indian meal. I’m not disappointed. Others order all western meals and give them rave reviews.

*****

Yesterday, I visited the kitchens with Vanyavilas’ enthusiastic chef and staff to explain their workings. All stainless-steel-shiny, it had the normal hot and cold preparation stations, besides the not-so-normal chocolate room and tandoor oven. The chocolate room, a small room behind a glass door, is covered with white-ceramic tiles. Special air-conditioning keeps the temperature at perfect chocolate-making levels. The chocolate for my Chili-Chocolate Ice Cream is concocted here. And as if that weren’t enough, they also make the sensuous morsels the "turndown fairy" bequeaths me each night while I am at dinner. Chocolate rooms? Could they be the next kitchen ‘must-have’ for over-the-top foodies?

The kitchen’s heart is the tandoor oven just as the naan—a yogurt-yeast bread—is the heart of à Vanyavilas meal. The tandoor is jar-shaped, the size of an old pickle barrel and central to northern Indian cooking. Naan means "leaf" in Hindi and is shaped like an avocado leaf. After mixing the dough, the cook leaves it to rise in a warm place by the tandoor. When an order arrives, he pulls off a golf ball size portion and slaps it between his hands—tortilla-making fashion—and tosses it onto the convex interior wall of the oven. Just moments later, he pulls it off with a long iron spike, puffed, slightly-blackened and ready to eat.

Naan is the staff of life at Vanyavilas’ divine restaurant. Drenched in ghee or butter, it goes with everything—maybe even Chili-Chocolate Ice Cream. 

 By Kate Crawford  May 2004

LINKS WITH ATTITUDE 

The Vanyavilas web site.