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Five-star Chinese Food Without The Price Tag!
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ANJAN Chatterjee�s is an inspiring story. He is India�s most successful restaurateur. And, to my eye, he looks the part. He is a cheerful and sunny man, handsome in a rugged Bengali manner, well-groomed, stylishly dressed, he has impeccable manners, is a gracious host, and he is impressive with his knowledge of the restaurant business � from importing Chinese sauces to the price of fish in Kolkata! Chatterjee pioneered the hugely popular Mainland China restaurants in India. They are the only chain of stand-alone fine dining Chinese restaurants in the country. He has seven already: two in Bombay, and one each in Pune, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. By the end of this year, he will open the eighth Mainland China. It will be in New Delhi, which has as many foodies as Bombay does, and a little more than Bangalore. Naturally, Chatterjee is excited. Over lunch at his newest restaurant, the Mainland China at Andheri west in Bombay that he opened in May, Chatterjee told me about his simple mantra for success.
Mainland China
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The Mainland China restaurants in Bombay, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune are enterprising restaurateur Anjan Chatterjee�s success story. MARK MANUEL had lunch with him in the newest outlet of the popular chain, at Andheri in Bombay, and discovered his winning mantra.
But first, the lunch. A menu was carefully and lovingly planned by Chatterjee�s director of operations, Phiroz Sadri, an ex-Taj man. Mainland China is staffed by a whole lot of hospitality industry professionals who are ex-Taj. Which is not surprising, because Chatterjee himself was once in the Taj Bombay, looking after the Rendezvous, Menage-a-Trois, Apollo Bar. But I didn�t know him then. Sadri ordered Silken Tofu Prawn Delight, Steamed Chicken Rice Paper Rolls, Steamed Crab Claws with Shrimp Paste, Jasmine-flavoured Smoked Duck, Prawns with Eggplant, Shangsi Crabmeat Soup, Bhekti Burnt Garlic with Seasonal Greens, Lion�s Head, Yuling�s Hot and Numbing Chicken, Pan-braised Lotus Stem with Celery and Woodear, Lobster in Pickle Chilli Sauce, steamed rice and rice noodles, and Coconut Dumplings, Almond Curd Dew and Toffee Walnut for dessert. If that sounds like the entire menu, I can assure you that it is not. But it was a lot of food. I tucked in with the hearty appetite of a man who knows no tomorrow. Chatterjee played around with his chopsticks and talked.
It turns out he was always interested in food. And in cooking. As a boy, he helped his mother in the kitchen. He had a great fascination for being in the kitchen, but never thought of becoming a chef, though the idea intrigued him. After graduating, he wanted to try his hand at something new and different, and catering was just evolving. His father was a research scientist, the rest of the family was into education, they were not okay with the idea of young Chatterjee getting into catering college but they were sympathetic. He passed out of the Calcutta Catering College in 1982 and came to Bombay to work at the Taj Mahal Hotel for a year and half. This is where he built up all his contacts for the restaurant business in the future. Chatterjee says he worked at the Taj until he was unhappy with being in a large organisation and having no big role to play, then he quit, looking for something to do.
For a while, like the rolling stone that gathered no moss, Chatterjee channelled his creativity and enthusiasm in other pursuits like marketing and advertising. He sold space for the Ananda Bazaar Patrika for two years and then moved on. �There was no way for me left or right, and because I was interested in advertising, I did a course through Jamnalal Bajaj and then did jobs with O&M and Lintas,� he explains. All the while, he was freelancing as an ad-man for friends, and encouraged by his success he set out on his own and started Situations � which is today a Rs. 100 crore agency holding some of Bombay�s big advertising accounts with it. The foodie Bengali in him, meanwhile, was clamouring to surface, and in 1991 with the help of his friend C. Y. Gopinath, Chatterjee looked for a place to market what he calls �Kolkata food�. He found a place at Mahim, refurbished it with his wife�s help, and started Only Fish, his first restaurant, under his new company Speciality Restaurants Private Limited.
I will cut the story short now: between Only Fish in 1992 and his first Mainland China in 1995, Chatterjee�s company grew as more of his friends who were ex-Taj joined him. He was starting one eating place after another in suburban Bombay, there was Mostly Kebabs, Just Biryani, and Sweet Bengal, but it took Mainland China to really make him. He tells the story simply: �There was not single stand-alone Chinese restaurant serving my kind of food, which is Cantonese, so I decided to start my own. I thought of calling it Mainland China and having all the regions of China covered in its menu with stress on Canton, which has the tastiest food.� A place at Saki Naka, which is the boondocks of Bombay�s suburbs and no place to start a restaurant, fell into Chatterjee�s lap and he opened his first Mainland China there. �I suffered initially, then the restaurant stabilised, and I began to dream of taking it all over India,� the enterprising restaurateur says.
Chatterjee followed up Bombay�s Mainland China with similar restaurants in Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, and another in Bombay. He is now working on the Delhi one. I ask him what is his success formula. �Very simple,� Chatterjee replies, �I give five-star value without the price tag. I have a mission. The people who dine at any Mainland China restaurant must have a good time. If they don�t, they will never come back.� And he has an impressive team of chefs and managers again who are mostly ex-Taj working with him on this mission. Chatterjee sources out the chefs himself. �A chef can impress you with his bio-data, but I am interested more in how he cooks,� he says. His executive chef, Rajesh Dubey, has worked on standardising the Mainland China chain�s signature dishes in all the restaurants. �Ninety per cent of the menus are same, we know what sells, and we maintain consistency. A Mainland China is like a McDonald�s in that respect though Chinese food is not the same as a Burger and French Fries. We want to offer the same food everywhere,� Chatterjee says.
Let me tell you a little about Mainland China�s food. It is Cantonese food. (Meaning, you will not find paneer in the menu and definitely no American Chopsuey!) Eating it, you will get the meat and fish flavours intact, they will not be overburdened with spices. �Everytime you eat, it will be happiness,� says Chatterjee delightfully. �There is yin and yang in the food, harmony and balance, you will exit the restaurant not feeling full.� Mainland China imports all its ingredients from the Hoisin sauce to the pancakes from China. The rice, vegetables and other basic items like the perishables, it buys locally. The fish comes from Kolkota, from B. C. Ojha, who supplies the best bhekti, prawns and sweetwater fish in India. He gives the food 7 to 8 marks out of 10, then says, the restaurant chain is working towards a 100 per cent common menu with standardisation to the core in everything from spice levels to balance of tastes and noodle thickness. �I am looking at creating a brand with the food, not just a restaurant in terms of customer focus, and my idea is to run a professionally-managed company with the appropriate systems and values with with guest-sensitive staff.�
Anjan Chatterjee came to Bombay with 600 rupees in his pocket. His success, and his fame, have not changed him, he says. At heart, he is still a simple man who despite the great food available at his many restaurants, prefers to have his Bengali Maccher Jhol and Bhaat at home and who socialises with a close circle of friends. �I don�t get dictated by the car I am driving or the house I am living in,� he says simply. He travels half the month on business. And wherever he is, he tries to have a meal in a Mainland China restaurant. �Cantonese food is still my favourite cuisine,� he says, �and where do you get it better than at a Mainland China?�
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