Where’s the Chateau Indage?

An Indian wine bar! I love it. I couldn’t wait to go to Tabla Wine Bar to order a Sula Chenin Blanc from Maharashtra or a sparkling Marquise de Pompadour from Chateau Indage, India’s largest winemaker. Indage recently bought Tandou, one of Australia’s top l0 wine producers so it could meet India’s growing demands for wine. I just read a clip that the  Hyderabad Wine Club welcomed Napa Valley’s  Christopher Creek  winemakers who were exploring the Indian wine market. Who would have thunk it?  India, once dry,has the potential to be an humungous wine market. Millions drink despite religious and social taboos. Last January in Madrid I met Subhash Arora, who founded the Delhi Wine Club in 2002; he was tasting Spanish wines for his membership. He calls the wine explosion “The Indian paradox.” India is already a food power – will Indian wine be next?

Disappointment. Tabla doesn’t sell Indian wine. But wine and curry is still something of a novelty. When I haunted London’s pre-Chicken Tikka restos (which popped  up after the tandoor oven arrived in the ‘60s)  the tipple was Barley Wine and Russian Stout, two high-alc beers that made the hot spices combustible. Since then Indian food has escaped the all-embracing curry label of the British Raj and become a series of regional cuisines and nothing will do but an uptown drink– even Toronto’s oldest established Indian Rice Factory is going to offer wine. You can still have a swell butter chicken at Lahore Tikka House in Little India on Gerrard on a Styrofoam plate and a soft drink in a plastic cup. But as Indian food’s reputation for variety and complexity is growing, so restaurants are going mainstream. In London, not one but two Indian restaurants have two Michelin stars. In Vancouver, there is the wonderful Vij.

And so my relationship with Indian food is changing. To me Indian food has been the mnemonic for pleasure, hot, spicy, easy to eat, and a glittering thread to India, a  fragrant empire , source of so many spices, cinnamon, turmeric, nutmeg, cardamom, saffron, that transformed our own food from mere grub to something enticing. And spice made Venice, the queen of the spice trade, dazzle like a spangled sari.

But now I’m going to have to take Indian food seriously, to discriminate among subtleties of style and substance - to intellectualize a sensual pleasure. Indian food is as various as European food, each region has its own ingredients and nuances and fusions made as colonizers came and went on the subcontinent. The British may have invented the term curry, adopted Chicken Tikka as their own, and popularized tea drinking, but they are just one among many peoples to shape Indian food. The Portugese influence on Goa, a gastronomic hub of India, was profound. The famous hot and sour Vindaloo is an adaptation of a Portugese meat dish. When the Portugese colonists found wine vinegar unobtainable, they substituted bitter tamarind and black pepper and then spiked the dish with lots of the red chillis they imported from South America. Oh dear. I realize once again how little I really know about Indian food although I’ve spent my life loving it and perusing Madhur Jaffrey and recently, Lizzie Collingwood’s comprehensive Curry, A Tale of Cooks and Conquerers.

Do I want to pick apart food I simply enjoy? A little knowledge creates doubt. The first time I went to Tabla, I had a great time. Second time, I’ve grown picky. On the other hand, perhaps the food isn’t as good as it was the first time.

The menu covers the waterfront. Is hummus much eaten in India? “More and more” replies the charming owner,  Rajinder “call me Raj”  Dua . I skip over modern fusion, battered brie with tomato chutney and turn to Thali, a selection of dishes. Most of them turn out to be from Goa which is on the West side of India although Tabla’s cooks are from the North, which to my literal mind is as if Norwegian cooks were making Provencal food.  

The food comes in large cut-out bowls: the basmati rice is perfect, I think a little crispy lemon peel is on top. Bowls of raita, tomato ketchup (which the Indians invented), and pomegranate sauces are tasty, but I wonder which dish they are meant to enhance.

Would it be Chicken Xacutti, chicken in an orange-coloured coconut milk sauce? Or the shrimps in a similar sauce, or the Lamb Vindaloo, which has potatoes? The chicken and shrimp are overcooked while the Vindaloo is not half fiery enough. I have a hunch that dumbing down Vindaloo is part of upscale Indian for wine bar customers. Sad.

The most satisfying dish is a marvellously smokey Eggplant Bhartha, roasted and minced eggplant with green peas.  Now I wish I had picked Palak Paneer which has little chunks of cheese swimming in spinach. Palak Paneer costs $9.95 here. That’s more than the whole buffet, including Palak Paneer and Eggplant Bhartha, costs at my fave lunch place Mount Everest on Bloor west of Spadina. And the quality is the same. Hmmm. Maybe it’s the price point as much as the cooking that’s got up my nose.

Mr. Raj’s pick of wine for the meal is an Oz winner: Kingstone’s Shiraz 2005 which is Russian Stout by any other name. We end with a carrot and rice pudding and a mouthful of vanilla icecream that has something magical added to it. I would have liked to ask what it was but the service at Tabla, while perfectly polite,is hit and miss.

**Tabla, 2711 Yonge St 416-487 8223 Food: dinner for two $100 Wines by glass $10 up. OK wine list. Wheelchair accessible. Lunch Mon-Sat 11.30-2.30pm Dinner 7 days 5-10. 11-30-10 pm.