The first time I ate at an Indian restaurant was in 2011. My college classmates who were both working in Singapore then brought me and my mom to Little India and regaled us with the prospect of enjoying biryani, masala and assorted curry-based dishes. Suffice it to say that I was not prepared for such a “hot” lunch, given my low tolerance for spicy food.
The explosion of spices must have left such an impression on my olfactory sense that I haven’t set foot in another Indian restaurant since then. At least, not until two months ago when I was asked by another journalist to try Swagat, a homey restaurant located on Rada Street in Makati.
I prepped myself by repeating internally: I have survived covering Malacañang for almost a decade. Surely, I will survive giving Indian cuisine another try.
There are not that many Indian diners in Metro Manila that are doing good business, unlike, for example, Japanese and Korean restaurants. But Swagat, which means “welcome” in Hindi, has been serving authentic Indian dishes to locals and expats alike since 2003.
“Some people think that to achieve authentic Indian food, you just have to make your dishes spicy even if they are not tasty. But that is the exact opposite of Indian cuisine. We use a lot of essential spices that make our food tasty, even if they are on the spicy side,” said the soft-spoken restaurateur Komal Khanchandani.
Take the restaurant’s chicken tikka masala, which uses more than 20 ingredients. The vast array of spices used is one of the things that people may find intimidating when cooking Indian food, and has led to resorting to shortcuts for some restaurants.
The essential ones include the black and green cardamom, which are fragrant and sweet, with mild eucalyptus notes; clove, which is a common spice with strong, almost medicinal flavor; cumin, which adds a characteristic smoky note to Indian dishes; coriander, one of the oldest-known spices in the world with aromatic citrus notes; mustard seeds which are staple in curries with their nutty flavor; turmeric, which is slightly stronger when fresh and has a host of health benefits; and saffron, the most expensive spice which by weight is more valuable than gold.
“It is tiring to cook Indian dishes, but seeing our customers coming back regularly makes it worth it,” said Komal, who, along with her husband Sanjay, has called the Philippines home for more than 20 years now.
Swagat, which for Komal is her own contribution to introducing Indian cuisine and culture to Filipino customers, has an extensive menu of over 80 dishes. These include machchi (fish) masala, green chicken curry that is paired best with roti, and the flavorful (and my personal favorite) rogan josh which uses goat’s meat cooked similar to local caldereta.
“These are recipes that I grew up with. Sometimes, customers would ask us to make the food less spicy, and we adjust accordingly,” she said.
Already, Swagat has a steady stream of expat customers who troop to Rada to satisfy their craving for authentic Indian meals that remind them of home.
And there is room for expansion not just for Komal’s diner but for other Indian restaurants as well. There are about 50,000 Indian nationals living in the country, while more than 90,000 Indian tourists have visited the Philippines last year.
Fourteen years since Komal opened Swagat, the same dare is posed to every diner: Don’t pay if you are not satisfied with the food. And, on that late night trip to Rada Street two months ago, we happily paid our bill.
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