Being Unapologetically Indian with Masalawala & Sons | Docs - video Dailymotion

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Roni Mazumdar is a culinary trailblazer. The mastermind behind popular NYC restaurant, Masalawala & Sons, Roni is ready to disrupt your idea of what Indian food really looks like. Largely impacted by colonialism, the richness and diversity of Indian food has never been accurately represented in the West. Roni is changing that. Together with Chef Chintan Pandya, Roni co-founded Unapologetic Foods, a visionary restaurant group in NYC that boldly offers unapologetic Indian cuisine. The duo present authentic Indian dishes from  lesser-known regions, shedding light on unexplored Indian culinary traditions. While making waves in the NYC food scene, Roni Mazumdar never forgets his roots. His first restaurant, Masalawala & Sons in NYC is an ode to his father, Satyen Mazumdar, and the cherished dishes of his childhood.  Credits Director Keshia Hannam  Producers Stephanie Tangkilisan  Editor Ruolin Luyo  Director of Photography Alison Boya Sun Prakhar Deep Jain  Translation  Masuma Khan  Editor-in-Chief Keshia Hannam  Head of Production Stephanie Tangkilisan  Producer Joy Jihyun Jeong  Post Production Coordinator Skolastika Lupitawina  Assistant Editor Rendy Abi  Color Nadya Shabrina  Sound Ezound Studios  Original Theme Song & Music by Fabian Mansur  Additional Music by Captain Qubz – Close to Me - Instrumental Version Suraj Nepal – Rhythm of Soul ft. Rohit Manandhar Suraj Nepal -–Mood  Additional Archival Material Esquire Food & Wine Magazine Forbes Getty Images James Beard Awards National Geographic Traveller India The Juggernaut The New York Times  Special Thanks Roni Mazumdar Chintan Pandya Satyen Mazumdar

Transcript

00:00 Growing up, I've always taken food like this for granted myself.

00:06 And all over India, we all still do it.

00:10 But truth is, that's really what we have all been craving.

00:13 And to my biggest surprise, that line only grew.

00:22 It's called Masala Wala and Son.

00:24 That's right.

00:25 Why?

00:26 Because how it's a story of a father and son working together.

00:28 But more importantly, it's a snapshot of the time that we're really talking about from

00:32 India when I grew up, which is the 80s.

00:34 And sons was a moment when a lot of little small neighborhood shops used to call themselves

00:39 that.

00:42 If you come here and you have a Bhapa Ilish, Ilish is Hilsa, it's a type of herring that

00:47 is steamed with mustard and poppy seeds.

00:51 It's the most glorious dish that you're ever going to have in your life.

00:54 You come to my home on a special occasion, that's what we're eating.

00:58 And you serve that here at Masala Wala?

01:00 Exactly the same dish.

01:03 I heard that people are trying all these inventive ways of getting reservations, like creating

01:08 multiple profiles to be able to get in at midnight when the reservations drop.

01:12 We've seen it all.

01:13 It's my anniversary.

01:14 It's my mom who's coming in from out of town tonight.

01:16 This is my only night.

01:17 I have to go there.

01:18 How do you feel about that frenzy?

01:21 It's really, really humbling.

01:23 The expression that you're seeing through food right now, it took many years to build

01:28 up to that.

01:29 So when I first started, it was actually at the restaurant called the Masala Wala.

01:34 In 2011, it was my father and I.

01:37 And the reason I was doing that was because my dad was retiring and I thought it would

01:40 be fun for him to not be feeling old.

01:44 My dad's always been the breadwinner, but now he was about to retire and I could tell

01:49 looking at him that he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do next.

01:52 And as a son, I felt, what can I do?

01:56 I said, I think we should open up a little restaurant.

01:58 He said, it's the stupidest idea I've ever heard.

02:00 No one in our family has ever run restaurants.

02:02 I'm like, but dad, you love to cook.

02:04 You love to feed.

02:05 He's like, so does everybody else, all Indians.

02:07 And I could tell he actually wanted to do it.

02:11 He actually was just scared.

02:15 And lo and behold, we did.

02:16 And I was like, I'm not going to do it.

02:29 But somewhere deep down inside, I felt a little bit defeated because I felt that the food

02:34 that we actually wanted to serve, we couldn't.

02:38 I think too many of us, first generation immigrants, have a real problem.

02:43 We don't have a rich uncle somewhere who writes a check.

02:46 We don't have a fallback strategy.

02:48 Yeah, it's a survival mechanism.

02:50 Of course.

02:51 And therefore, that survival forces you to make decisions in a different way.

02:57 That was in 2011.

02:58 Yes.

02:59 And then 2017 is when you opened the first batch of the next set of restaurants.

03:04 I didn't know if it would be a batch.

03:05 It was just one restaurant.

03:07 So what happened in those six years?

03:09 Learned.

03:10 Learned a hell of a lot of stuff.

03:11 From the original masala owner?

03:13 Oh, without a doubt.

03:15 I was involved in every possible thing of what the restaurant was, from what the menu

03:21 is, what the price points are, why are certain things working and not working.

03:25 And it sounds like for a long time, people weren't ready to receive the kind of specific

03:29 regionality and imagination of Indian food that you were wanting to create.

03:36 There are inherent problems of a perception that exists with our cuisine that I think

03:41 we needed to shake and break through.

03:44 And sometimes we don't even know what our own truth is because you're too afraid to

03:47 explore a lot of those things.

03:49 So 2017, I finally felt, wow, I think I have a real ammunition.

03:55 I think in many ways, the essence of a restaurant has always been to please others.

04:00 And for once, this no-name, God-forsaken group arrives where the chef just says, I'm not

04:07 here to please anybody.

04:08 I'm just going to do what I believe is what I really want to cook, what I enjoy eating.

04:14 And it scared the bejesus out of me.

04:17 So maybe somewhere, we've all been craving it.

04:20 We've all been waiting for it.

04:22 It just hasn't happened.

04:23 So when somebody took the plunge, that's when the floodgates opened.

04:27 The winner is Chintan Panchayat.

04:32 Thank you.

04:51 I mentioned that Indians didn't make-- people don't know that still, that curry is not a

05:08 word that we have in our language.

05:11 But the idea that it made everything about our country exportable and labelable and categorizable,

05:19 that is what has become the common and associated food with India.

05:26 None of our restaurants actually, we don't use the word curry.

05:28 And I have nothing against it.

05:30 It's OK.

05:31 It's chicken tikka masala is OK.

05:32 I'm not here to judge.

05:34 I'm here to share.

05:36 The screw-up is, even what we have grown up to believe as Indian food-- oh, this is Punjabi

05:42 restaurant.

05:43 It's not really Punjabi restaurant.

05:44 No Punjabi mother is pouring heavy cream and calling it a korma.

05:47 This is not how we're grown up.

05:49 That's Mughlai meets something else.

05:51 And it's an invented cuisine that we have embraced as Indian.

05:55 And even the inception of Indian cuisine has such a tie-in with colonialism.

06:00 I think when we talk about our cuisine, we are going back and looking past what all those

06:07 moments of colonializations, insecurities, moments where we felt so small.

06:13 I think the conversation Unapologetic Foods is having is not just about food at all.

06:18 I think it's about our purpose and our identity.

06:21 That's what we're really fighting for.

06:24 Take me to your childhood, your hometown of Calcutta.

06:29 Are the dishes that are served in your restaurants directly what you had?

06:43 Absolutely pristine because of the climate, because of just how life is.

06:48 I ate what my parents cooked, what my uncles and aunts were cooking.

06:52 I didn't have access to a lot of ingredients, various kinds of cheese, et cetera, that today's

06:58 India has.

06:59 This is a serious meal.

07:00 This is Rani's ancestral house.

07:26 Rani is born here, brought up here only.

07:29 He's grown here from up till age 12.

07:34 But unfortunately, my parents, they are passed away.

07:38 Today, if they had seen Rani like this, they would have been the happiest person in the

07:44 world.

07:47 All of us around the world believe that beauty only comes when you go to the richer part

07:54 of the country.

07:56 But there's another side of the country, as we call the forgotten side of India, that

08:02 has tremendous beauty of its own.

08:05 That person standing on a roadside, slinging a biryani.

08:12 You smell it right there.

08:13 You see the steam and you see the crunch that you can almost just taste it by looking at

08:17 it.

08:18 You just pick it up, put it into your mouth, and it's heaven.

08:21 The truth is, we have never fully celebrated that part of India outside of India.

08:27 Thank you.

08:29 It's a different feeling.

08:33 And on the streets, you don't want chili chicken in a restaurant.

08:44 See this?

08:45 These burnt moments.

08:48 That's what makes it real.

08:52 Most of the people say Indian food is really niche.

08:56 It doesn't have a market for it.

08:57 Do you know why we say that?

08:59 Why?

09:00 Because we've always served something that has not even been Indian food.

09:03 So we lost many audiences from all over.

09:08 So if we never served our cuisine, how do we know if people would have loved it or hated

09:12 it?

09:14 The purpose of Unapologetic Foods is we've done nothing special but simply removing the

09:18 curtain and telling the world, "Look within us.

09:21 We're not afraid.

09:22 If something is broken, so be it."

09:29 If you notice, to me, I looked at this wall and I always imagined all the kids who are

09:34 playing outside and people, street artists, what they end up doing.

09:37 So that's why the wall seems a little bit aged and you'll see certain portions right

09:42 over here, little holes, things like that.

09:44 It signifies the part of India that we wish to portray.

09:48 And also that is what you see when you go to India.

09:49 You see these rich colors and whole walls of colors.

09:53 And it's so different to what has become Western minimalistic aesthetic that is deemed to be

09:59 sophisticated.

10:00 If you look at even the lettering, look at the smudges here, look at the handwritten

10:03 imperfection.

10:05 I think it's not a quest to be perfect, but in many ways, imperfection also is a moment

10:11 of our homes.

10:12 Because you've lived.

10:13 Yes.

10:14 That's what it represents.

10:15 The imperfection represents being alive.

10:20 I think about this with my family in Bombay.

10:23 Everything that they do, you are never eating by yourself.

10:27 You never ever eat by yourself.

10:29 It's always with a family member or a partner or it's such a natural way when you make something,

10:35 you make enough for multiple people.

10:37 Even if you don't all eat, somebody comes home three hours later and warms it up and

10:40 eats it.

10:41 And that's also important.

10:43 There's nothing we look down upon in my family.

10:45 Then you know when you go to someone's house and there's food that's just enough, my family

10:53 cringes.

10:54 Totally.

10:55 Oh man.

10:56 You made four portions for four people?

10:57 Really?

10:58 Wow.

10:59 Not 12?

11:00 Because they were going to eat one, you really want to shove another one down their throat.

11:03 Exactly.

11:04 The third one you're going to pack for them to take home.

11:05 To take home.

11:06 Yes.

11:07 We celebrated food and we celebrate it in so many ways.

11:11 If you look at how we show caring, love and affection, it's through food.

11:17 Do you notice that change living here in the US?

11:20 There is an overemphasis on what you say versus how you live, which is quite different I think

11:25 to the way that many Eastern cultures grow up.

11:29 Let's look at two scenarios.

11:30 I gave Christmas cards to my father for the next 20 years or I found him a sense of livelihood.

11:37 Exactly.

11:38 I mean you literally created a restaurant empire so that your dad felt fulfilled, right?

11:44 That is a very generous act of love.

11:50 I always think about it.

11:51 There are so many different families, individuals who have left their mark and somewhere immigrants

11:56 like us disappeared.

11:59 No one would have ever known that they've been there.

12:01 You can call that legacy but you can also call that changing the very fabric of a city

12:06 that we're living in.

12:08 I always say this that in the effort of helping my father find his dream, I ended up finding

12:12 my own.

12:23 This is Chef Chintan.

12:24 How are you guys?

12:25 The man behind the food.

12:27 How long have you known each other?

12:30 Five years and eight, nine months I think.

12:32 We talk about this that even what is the meaning of ethnic food.

12:37 We basically took all the rest of the world, piled them together and we said this is ethnic.

12:42 So inherently you made it to be inferior.

12:45 I always had an issue with how you can charge $32 for a French chicken breast but if you

12:51 charge more than $17 for a curry, people are up in arms.

12:56 And what that says about the value of each culture.

12:59 Have you been intentional about trying to change that or did that come without it?

13:02 I think to answer your question, it's not intentional.

13:06 Just to give you a perspective, the dish paneer, we have an open challenge and not out of arrogance,

13:12 it's about respect for our culture that if you can get a better quality paneer than what

13:17 you'll eat at Dhamaka, get that paneer, get your receipt from tonight and we'll pay you

13:22 cash.

13:23 We're not joking.

13:24 No, we're not joking and I don't convince people to eat something.

13:26 I'm like if you believe in our product, if you like it, just come.

13:31 Well, this is my father.

13:35 This is the real Mr. Masalawala.

13:37 Hi uncle, how are you?

13:39 I'm good, how are you?

13:41 How did you feel uncle, knowing you were going to retire and that Ronnie was going to open

13:47 a restaurant?

13:48 Did you want to open a restaurant?

13:49 First of all I said no because I work very hard.

13:52 Finally he convinced me.

13:53 I said okay, I'll go there.

13:56 And when I started I was so excited.

13:58 A lot of people are coming, I love them, they love Masalawala, I'm so happy.

14:04 I'm really grateful to myself.

14:06 After that, after opening.

14:07 After, not before.

14:08 Not before.

14:09 What is this that we have here?

14:12 That's the papdi chaat.

14:13 So crispy thin wafers, three kinds of chutneys, so there's yogurt, tamarind and mint and then

14:20 you top that with some pomegranate and off you go.

14:23 It's a classic sweet snack.

14:25 So here you're going to find a lot of the dishes from Bihar, Meghalaya, Odisha, places

14:29 like that that even as Indians, even myself, I have so much to still learn about.

14:34 And here you have, this is our paneer tikka.

14:37 Now I would caution you and I would tell you that this paneer might just be the best paneer

14:42 you've had in America.

14:43 Wow.

14:44 And I don't say this about all the dishes, not at all.

14:47 This paneer, this is a special milk, the chintan sources and it's a house made paneer.

14:53 When we opened Dhamaka, we actually for a few weeks stopped serving paneer because the

14:58 store bought version, the ones you get in wholesale, were so bad that we felt that it

15:03 didn't really reflect what we were about to share.

15:05 So he says screw it, we're just not going to do paneer until we really figure out what

15:09 our real version of paneer should be and that's what you have here.

15:13 I almost can feel what you're saying because paneer here tastes like tofu.

15:17 You know, it's like kind of like...

15:18 It's rubbery, chewy because of all the chemicals and it's not really the paneer that we've

15:21 grown up with.

15:23 Wow.

15:24 A little bite of a cloud, I told you.

15:28 Very soft, right?

15:29 Yeah.

15:30 So this is the biryani and there's a beautiful way we open it.

15:32 Would you like that now?

15:37 Most of the biryani that we have in this country is not really biryani, it's pulao.

15:42 Yes.

15:43 Because we're actually stir frying the rice.

15:44 You take a lamb curry and rice and you just kind of stir fry it.

15:47 You're garnishing it so it looks like it.

15:49 But this is the real way.

15:50 This is the original biryani.

15:51 The original dum biryani.

15:52 You just smell it.

15:53 I can smell it, yes.

15:54 So you didn't retire Masala Wala in the end?

15:58 No.

15:59 Still I'm working.

16:00 I'm very strong and energetic.

16:02 Only for my son.

16:04 How do you feel about being the literal face of these restaurants?

16:09 And do people recognize you when they see you?

16:11 Are they like, I've seen you before?

16:13 You're the Masala Wala on the wall.

16:16 Yes.

16:17 All the customers when they saw me in the restaurant, they know my face.

16:21 They say Masala Wala is on the wall.

16:24 But I'm too old.

16:25 When I pass away, everybody will see, this is Masala Wala.

16:28 It's your legacy.

16:29 Yes.

16:30 You have a beautiful relationship.

16:32 Yeah.

16:33 Love each other a lot.

16:34 Exactly.

16:35 We express it through this.

16:36 Yeah.

16:37 Actually you have a good understanding, I have no other way.

16:40 I cannot proceed without him.

16:42 He cannot do anything without asking me, Dad, I'm doing this.

16:45 I'm like, okay, go ahead.

16:46 You know better than me.

16:47 Perfect.

16:48 Symbiosis.

16:49 Yeah.

16:50 Well, thank you for having us.

16:51 Thank you so much.

16:52 Masala Wala.

16:53 Thank you, thank you.

16:54 Thank you so much.

16:55 Beautiful.

16:56 Beautiful.

16:57 Thank you.

16:59 Thank you.

17:00 Thank you.

17:01 (upbeat music)

17:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Being Unapologetically Indian with Masalawala & Sons | Docs

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