Rarely will you get to eat Pathare Prabhu food at a restaurant. It can only be found in homes of people of that community. Among the best is from the kitchen of Rahul Velkar, where you will find a rich heritage of his forefather's cuisine
Text & Photographs: Farzana Contractor
Rahul Velkar has a very impressive lineage. He comes from the original settlers of Bombay, the Pathare Prabhu community and counts the highly respected Rao Bahadur Narayan Dinanath Velkar (died May 17, 1870) among his forefathers. Narayan Dinanathji was the first Indian Municipal Commissioner, well educated and responsible for many social reforms in those days. As a land owner of large tracts of property, he was second only to the Jeejeebhoy family.
Managing family land and businesses, which include a lot of land, even villages and petrol pumps, buildings and houses, was, and is, Rahul's main preoccupation. That is, until he started Mr. Chow's, a high quality Chinese takeaway company, in 2007. To give you an idea of Rahul's geographical link with Bombay, let me give you just examples. Their family gave away 3,000 acres of land in Borivali to create the Borivali National Park! Likewise with Shivaji Park land at Cadell Road. It was family-owned and they parted with the land in 1923. Phenomenal stuff, huh?
The land ownership part is surely intriguing, but what is charming is the link the family has had, for generations, with good living. Fine dining has been the Velkar forte. Elaborate entertaining, their way of life. And Rahul carries forth the tradition with as much passion and finesse. All things food is Rahul's mantra!
"It was early in life that all the food influences started," says Rahul. His earliest food memory is the most delicious home-made mayonnaise he would eat with snacks when he returned home from school. "My mum, not one to waste food, used the whole egg in her mayo. But today, I myself make the best mayo using only yolks," gloats Rahul, also reminiscing about the mayonnaise served with chicken lollies at the now defunct Paradise restaurant at Colaba Causeway.
He talks of restaurants he frequented as a kid, which of course were favourites of his parents. Rendezvous at Taj, Cafe Royale at Oberoi, Society at Ambassador, Gourdon and Bombelli's! "My mum would order the marquise cakes by the dozens and send them to relatives at Diwali," says Rahul. No wonder the child was influenced by French food, which till date is his weakness. Also, he just cannot get himself to eat mayonnaise from a commercial bottle!
But American chop suey and Manchurian chicken he craves for, especially when he comes home from a long overseas trip. "That's one childhood taste that has stayed with me. I eat at the best of Chinese restaurants here and abroad and have since learnt that Chinese is different all over the world, but give me an American chop suey, with fried egg complete, and I get jelly knees!" Ah, childhood food memories!
Rahul's dad was not fond of intense travelling, but London was his beat. Summers were always spent there by the family. For two reasons, one, he had friends there and two, he was a heart patient and needed his annual checkups. This is the reason London and eating out there is also on Rahul's agenda. He is very conversant with London restaurants. He is a Michelin star buff, but not just for the heck of it. He knows about food and knows what he likes and which chef he favours. Gordan Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Alyn Williams, Alain Ducasse, Philip Howard. But the chef of all chefs for Rahul was the late Joel Robuchon. "He was a legend, I loved his cooking technique, the way he used ingredients, remarkable!," says Rahul. One meal every London trip, at Heston Blumenthal's Dinner by Heston at the Mandarin Oriental, is a given for Rahul. "His liver pâté, in the shape of an orange, is to die for!" The other restaurants Rahul recommends in London are L' Escargot and Kai in Mayfair, the latter being a Chinese restaurant. Bangkok, though it doesn't compare with food in London, is also somewhere Rahul likes to eat, but he never caught the New York bug. "Too far, crossing the Atlantic is such a bore," says the father's son!
Fusion, molecular or for that matter, Italian is a no-no for this gourmet. It's French cuisine all the way. Which is why his son, Krish, and indeed all of Rahul's friends will have him cook either of the two cuisines for them, Pathare or French. Pathare, his cooks have now perfected so he doesn't need to get in there, but French he is totally hands-on. He can make a mean coq au vin. And the traditional French cheese souffle, with a perfect upper crust! He uses Blue Stilton, though. Salmon mousse is also his speciality. But duck liver is his weakness. The last time he ordered some foie gras from Peterborough market! That was his first cousin, Kunal Vijayakar's, influence. The two, apart from being related, are great friends, thick as thieves! They grew up together and their common love for food had them bonding even more. They meet and eat at least two or three times a week and are on the phone almost every day! Kunal's dad and Rahul's mum were siblings. "And though we are a large and extended family, I am closest to Kunal," says Rahul. The two families also possessed impeccable taste where what they ate out of, was equally important. Kunal inherited a beautiful and elaborate silver cutlery set, which even had snail tongs and lobster picks. He promptly gifted it to Rahul, knowing how fond he was of entertaining. Nice to have a cousin like that!
Cooking may be a big pastime and love affair for Rahul, but it's baking which he is really passionate about. "I am really good with cakes also, but my sister who is 19 years older than I is way ahead of me. Her marble pudding, no one can quite match. Or her apple cake, as for her caramel custard, it is just perfect." I can understand where all this is coming from. Right until his teens Rahul lived in a joint family in a large bungalow, right next to Mahalakshmi Temple, which incidentally is right opposite where he now lives in a high rise. The house had three kitchens. One for vegetarian cooking and the other for non-veg, since his paternal granddad was a vegetarian. The third kitchen was the most interesting; it was his mum's personal kitchen. From where she dished out European fare! The kitchen had the works in it, including a Kenwood Chef and a Belling oven. Just to highlight the serious cook she was. If you had a mum who was so involved with food and cooking, the children are pretty likely to pick up the love for it.
Another culinary influence in Rahul's life was Matheran. The red mud hill station, where vehicles are not permitted, located just outside Bombay, is where the Velkars have another beautiful house. The family made frequent visits there. In winters, especially, they were there for weeks. Again the emphasis was on eating, as it would be when a large family gets together. "It was not just our family, but a whole lot of other families, mixed communities. Parsi, Muslim, Hindu. There were the Chudasamas and the Madhavjis and the Habib Bank people of Pakistan. Every day there would be dinner in some house or the other. In ours it was usually French and Continental. Again, there we had separate veg and non-veg kitchens. In fact, the Indian was cooked in the mali's kitchen, which was part of the house. Even today, when I am there and in the mood for misal or vada pav or bhakri, it comes from his kitchen. And let's not underestimate him, he has a restaurant in Matheran!" Rahul lands up in Matheran about six times every year between September and March, with friends in tow and any and every culinary ingredient he may need. Out there it's usually BBQ or the tandoor that has his attention.
But to finally get to what made a serious land owner, busy as hell managing ancestral properties, opt to get into the food business, Rahul explains, "Food was always in my blood. My good friend, ex-Oberoi hotelier, Sandeep Talaulikar and I were already running a tavern kind of a place on a three-acre plot in Dahisar called Velkar Farms. We served amazing Awadhi cuisine, top quality, which unfortunately we could not sustain at prices that we had on the menu, the overheads were simply too high. So we handed the place to my friend and big time caterer, Sudhakar Shetty, but it still eluded viability. So after giving it a shot for two more years, we shut it down. It was a lovely place designed by my mama, Prakash Mankar, the man who gave India many of its beautiful restaurants such as Mela; Outrigger, Oberoi; Café Royale; even Fariyas in Lonavala. I was rather saddened. That's when Sandeep and I got down on planning a hotel in Goa. To be honest, running a hotel was not something that excited me, but then Sandeep suggested another option. He said, there wasn't really a high quality kind of Chinese takeaway in Bombay. And it was much needed. This was in 2007 when if you really wanted to order good Chinese food home you would opt for food from a restaurant like Golden Dragon or China Garden. Expensive and not geared for takeaways. That's how Mr. Chow's was born. Upscale but affordable, good quality Chinese food delivered to your homes. Within months of setting it up, we had three outlets; at Bandra, Prabhadevi and Colaba."
So, Rahul did put his Sophia College Hotel Management degree to good use. Not only that, but once Mr. Chow's came into his life, he went and did a course at the reputed Blue Elephant Cookery School in Bangkok and also worked and trained in full earnest at restaurants in Shanghai; Summer Pavilion at The Ritz and another called South Beauty. "That was a good experience," he says, "I learnt a great deal. Prawns with Caramelised Walnuts is a Ritz Carlton recipe as also Minced Chicken with Aubergine. Popular dishes on Mr. Chow's menu."
Now, gen next is all ready to take the reins. Krish, his son, is looking into the marketing of the company. "I have told him marketing also includes understanding tastes and nuances of the food. He is good, but is convincing me to make bold changes. I guess he knows what the young kids want today. Contemporary, pan-Asian food, light and easy. So now it's about finding a balance between classical and modern recipes. But we are ready, been going through many tastings…," signs off Rahul Velkar, foodie, gourmet, cook, generous host, entrepreneur.
Quotes
"I eat at the best of Chinese restaurants here and abroad and have since learnt that Chinese is different all over the world, but give me an American chop suey, with fried egg, and I get jelly knees!"
"Upscale but affordable, good quality Chinese food delivered to your homes. Within months of setting Mr. Chow's up, we had three outlets; Bandra, Prabhadevi, Colaba."
