The Brahmin Idli goes to Paris ( Muthuswamy ) :- ( Arya Bhavan Matunga, Opposite Matunga Railway Station, Mumbai - Tel 022 24159449) when industrialist Mukesh Ambani and wife Nita wanted to host a Diwali party at their Rs1,600 crore home Antilla in Mumbai's Carmichael Road, the self-effacing Muthuswamy was the natural choice. The five feet something caterer, clad in a white mundu and shirt, is a regular fixture at parties thrown by the richest couple of the land.
Muthuswamy is also sought after by other biggies of India, including the Ruias and Mittals.
When big-time diamond merchant and film producer Bharat Shah wanted to throw a party in Antwerp to celebrate the wedding of his son a few years ago, guess who he turned to for catering the food? Not the Hilton or Radisson but Muthukrishnan Reddy aka Muthuswamy of the Matunga Labour Camp, celebrated for his light-as-air idlis and tangy sambhar.
Muthuswamy, 58, accepted the order with his characteristic alacrity and flew down to the land of De Beers with an entourage of ten cooks and a lot of cooking vessels. He rustled up the pleasantly pungent rasam vadas, fluffy idlis, crisp dosas, perfectly spongy panniyarums. The aroma of freshly ground coriander, tamarind and curry leaves wafted in the party hall, and Muthuswamy had the guests, including the who's who of the diamond trade, licking their manicured fingers.
The man who started his career 30 years ago by supplying milk in the Matunga Labour Camp-Dharavi area later graduated to selling idlis and dosas at the ramshackle Uma Shankar Hotel in Dharavi, he has since come a long way.
He has catered parties all over the world, including Belgium, Italy, France and South Africa. In fact, until sometime ago, he would export ready-to-cook idlis and other foods to a company in South Africa, which in turn exported them to Paris, Rome and other European capitals. He has stopped his export business because of logistical issues.
The waiter had told me that Brahmin Idli is cooked in Ghee. So I knew it would be soft - I just had no idea how wonderfully :-) Each idli looked like a mound of creamy kulfi! The dish was served with the usual accompaniments of sambhar, coconut chutney and tomato chutney. But there were two more small bowls - one was of what I suspect was podi and the other was molten ghee. When mixed together, they formed a spicy mixture that did wonders to the idli. The Sambhar was delicious and the chutneys, simply heavenly.
Ravi
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Posted by: Ravi Narasimhan <ravi.narasimhan.in@gmail.com>
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