CRI听力: India Series Report 4: Incredible Indian Spices in Beijing

Anchor: If you are invited to enjoy an Indian meal by a friend, what do you expect? With the increasing number of Indian restaurants in Beijing, the incredible Indian spices have become more and more popular. However, Indian cuisine is not simply about spices.

Zhang Wan takes a closer look.




India is known as the 'the home of spices'. Although it's quite certain that no one knows exactly how many varieties of spices are used in Indian cuisine, the incredible Indian spices are becoming more and more popular among people from around the world.

"It's really amazing to have Indian food. The food is lovely. I am from Guilin, south of China, but I enjoy spicy food."

"This is excellent food. We have lots of Indian restaurants in Australia. The food here is very nice."

They are Kate Chang and David Jellings, who are having lunch with friends at an Indian restaurant - the Taj Pavilion. It is considered one of the most popular Indian restaurants in Beijing.

The restaurant features predominantly Indian decor surrounded by wooden carvings on the walls under a huge dome in the centre. Besides the silk paintings on the walls, there are also many small Indian style windows, which make you feel as though you're in a traditional Indian house. M.H. Pastakia is the general manager.

"You see we have these windows in our restaurant, they are actually made in a certain region called Rajasthan, where they use camel bone to make windows. The beauty of this is it never changes color. Most of our decor came from the region Rajasthan. We have those brown statues here."

Pastakia says he came to China in 1991. After six years of working at an Indian restaurant, he realized it could be a better option to start his own restaurant in Beijing. Since his first restaurant started operation in 1998 at the World Trade Center, he has already opened three restaurants so far in the capital city.

According to Shoeb Samad, director of Indiatourism - an Indian tourism promotion office in Beijing - in addition to the increasing number of Indian restaurants in China, many five star hotels have been coming to the his office, seeking support and cooperation in organizing Indian food festivals.

"The reason is of course between the close cooperation between Indian and China, we're getting more and more closer day by day. Now lots of Indian come to China, not only for business but also coming as tourists. And Chinese started to like Indian food, you could see many Chinese guests enjoying here (Taj Pavilion)."

When it comes to Indian food, many Chinese would say it's spicy. But Ragesh Vats from India says this is not true, because most women and girls in India don't like spicy food either. Actually different regions in India have different flavor preferences.

"If you go to the south of India, the food is totally different. They don't use much oil. They boil most of the staff. And here in China, we used to eat Baozi, you'll also find the Indian kind of Baozi there."

Ragesh Vats says there is something in Indian cuisine that you cannot miss, namely sweet food. Indian people love sweet food so much.

"Many Indians are vegetarian, but in order to fulfill the nutrition requirement, they consume lots of milk and milk products. They also make lots of sweets with milk."

He adds that because most of the places in India are very hot, people sweat a lot.

Therefore, they hope to get enough energy by eating sweet food.

For CRI, I am Zhang Wan.