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Tian Stairways To Heaven!
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IN a five-storey art deco style building in Juhu of curious design, has come up Bombay's newest restaurants, bars, cigar lounge and night club. There are actually two main restaurants but they serve four cuisines. A Chinese restaurant called Tian on the first floor that also has an Indonesian menu. And a Japanese restaurant called Teppanyaki on the third floor that also serves Korean food. In addition to these, the building has a wine cellar and cigar lounge called Ciggaros on the ground floor. A Tattami Room with a low seating table for eight, tattami mats and promises of exclusive Japanese tea ceremonies on the second floor. A nightclub called Mongo Bar on the fourth serving Mongolian, Moroccan and other barbecue menus. And another bar called Chillax, an open-air one in a terrace-like garden under the stars on the roof. The owners of the place, the brothers Kishore and Mahesh Luthria, who also own the jinxed SeaRock Hotel in Bandra, call the place Tian. "In Chinese, Tian means heaven," Kishore Luthria told me the afternoon I was there for lunch at their Pan-Asian restro-bar.
I will give you a little backgrounder on the place. Tian is situated on Gulmohur Road in Juhu that connects Mithibai and N.M. Colleges with the Lokhandwala Circle further north and roads leading beyond, into Versova and Four Bungalows in Andheri west. The Luthrias who are also in the property business, had constructed the building as an office property meant for retail outlets. "Unfortunately, some new law on leased structures came up and we decided to keep the building ourselves and open up Tian instead," said Kishore. It is curiously shaped, like I said, more like a triangular parallelogram, and stands on the edge of Gulmohur Road. "A tough shape to work on," agreed Kishore, "and we took an awfully long time to agree on the concept of Tian, on having different restaurants on each floor, what kind of cuisine we would serve, and where we could locate the kitchens. With so many levels, we decided to keep the menus flexible so that they could be served on any floor. And we chose Asian food because that would be easy on the kitchen set-up and the cuisines would also blend."
The presiding deities at Tian are not the Chinese Gods Fuk, Luk and Sau, who bring happiness, prosperity and longevity to homes and establishments, but the chefs Walter Chen and Janet Ma. Both are Calcutta Chinese, and not from the mainland; though it does not really matter as long as the chefs have their fingers on the pulse of Bombay's tastebuds, I think. Walter and Janet are like that. He is an old Chinese hand, having started off his career at the wok in the famous Fredericks Restaurant in Bombay at which the great Nelson Wang later apprenticed. And Walter's expertise runs into the cuisines of all China's provinces, including the little known food of Beijing, some Thai, some Indonesian, and a hotpotch of Japanese and Korean. The real Japanse expert is Janet, another Calcutta Chinese, built in the happy roly-poly mould of all good chefs. Between them they have so far produced dinners of all Tian's many cuisines that even Japanese consular corps personnel and Korean tourists have appreciated. And that must be quite a compliment because the Japanese are notorious for being among the most difficult and demanding diners of the world.
The Chinese and Japanese foods are the most popular, obviously. Chinese is everybody's favourite. Japanese, there is some skepticism, but as a novelty, it is doing very well at Tian's Teppanyaki Restaurant. Chefs Walter and Janet do Japanese food the traditional way, though there is no sashimi, the sliced raw fish. "The fish is slightly off, it goes," Chef Walter explained. You can ask them to Indianise your Japanese meal for you with more spices, some garlic. It will still be Japanese food, even the visiting Japanese like it this way. They import all the basic sauces, the speciality Japanese sauces, the Chinese and Indian they buy locally. Most of the main ingredients, the produce like pork and lamb chops, even beef, is supplied by food contractors. The fish they are particular about. It comes from Sassoon Dock in the morning and later in the day, a fresh catch from the Versova fishing village. Right now, Tian is partially opened, and the existing restaurants serve a mixed Pan-Asian menu. Everything on the menu moves well. I am waiting for it to be fully Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Korean and Mongolian, then I will be able to mix the cuisines, see if they blend, then recommend what to eat and what not to.
Tian, 48, Gulmohur Road,
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A multi-storey building serving multi-Asian cuisines, that's how MARK MANUEL describes Tian, the new Japanese, Korean and Chinese restaurant in Bombay.
They decided to start Tian in February last year, settled the basic design and began work by April, and opened the place up in December. Suburban Bombay and more importantly Bollywood, loved Tian immediately. Opening night, half the film industry was there. Even now, three months later, and with two of the restaurants working full-time, Tian's favourite customers are from the entertainment world. Don't be surprised to find Jackie Shroff sitting at the table next to you. The afternoon I went there, no film stars were having lunch. I believe that is because they are creatures of the night. Afternoons they have meals on the sets of whichever studio they are shooting at. For lunch only Tian Restaurant, which serves Chinese and Indonesian food, is open. Lunch is between 12.30 and 3.30 p.m. And it is a slow and leisurely lunch, the waiters sleepily taking down your order, then somnambullstically going in search of the sauces for your food. Go prepared to spend some time. Or better still, go at night, when the building is lit up, and chances are you will have Govinda struggling with chopsticks on the neighbouring table.
Kishore, who looks after the food and marketing of Tian (brother Mahesh does the accounting and administrative work), decided my lunch order: Coconut prawn soup or Beijing spicy fish soup, Mooshu Chicken, Crystal Prawns, Peppery Prawns, Baked Pineapple Rice, Chin Chao Kai (shredded chicken with fresh greens, red pepper in garlic flavoured sauce), Veg Noodles in Peanut Sauce, Prawns in Hoisin Sauce, Lemon Fish with Brocolli, Five Treasure Vegetables Stir-fried with Sesame, and Banana Toffee with Ice-cream. I will not go into details about the food yet, or the tastes; for that I will have to visit Tian again and again. But I will say it has a range of food that no other restaurant in Bombay can match. There's something for everyone. And I did not even look at the Indonesian salads, the Thai curries, the sushi and teppanyaki, the nabemomo one-pot Japanese cooking (like the Chinese fire pot, but with different sauces), the grilled Mongolian meats. Nor did I sample the Giekkeken and Hakusura Japanese sake, the Australian, Chilean and French wines. Or have a cigar that Tian gets from cigar king Chetan Seth of Delhi.
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