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`KHANDVI MILLE-FEUILLE’ AT BRICS ALL VEG BUFFET!
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`KHANDVI MILLE-FEUILLE’ AT BRICS ALL VEG BUFFET!

Eating is Fun / Eating is Yuck! - A variety food column, Life & Living, Sept 19- Sept 25, 2026 September 18, 2026 , by

I MUST confess being a vegetarian most of the time (with only occasional interest in such things as fish/bhindi (ladies finger which is the vegetarian version) or a good prawn curry with “ukde tandul”…served with mango miskut and chemnim mango slices as complementary. However, currently I’m aroused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s crème de la crème BRIC’s summit vegetarian buffet for leaders who are come from hardcore meatarian countries! Really a mean thing to do — to showcase his own pet vegetarian menu as prepared by his own favorite cooks from Gujarat, presumably.
Still, apart from the meanness of it and never mind that Europeans are actually taking a keen interest in things vegetarian — and where else is it better than in India? I don’t think Russian Vladimir or Chinese premier Xi Jingpin are interested in vegetarian menus….still, I was wondering about the all-veggie menu and there it was with familiar item numbers wrapped in some nice bit of creativity …like “khandvi mille-feuille.” It was one of the appetizers I understand and as we now know khandvi is as Guju as you can get. It’s a very savory delight with or without its French notes this time, what were they? Primarily khandvi is lightly steam cooked gram flour dough spread out thin on a clean table and cut, rolled elegantly, to arrive at a tempting result of golden rolls garnished with feathery coriander greens. It’s lightweight appetizer like no other and I love it! You need patience and deft experienced touch to turn out khandvi perfectly, I guess the PM’s favorite cook Badri Meena must have played a role in the perfect artistry of the exotic Frenchified version of the “Khandvi mille-feuille” (of a million folds or something like that)…sigh, I wish I was there to taste it! Another time, maybe.
To satisfy your curiosity, here’s the rest of this much-talked, argued about BRICS summit all-vegetarian dinner buffet, imposed on VVIP and VIP guests? The other appetizer was Khumb Galouti, then Paneer Lababdar, Gucchi Marmik, Carrot Bean Poriyal, Takkali Belle Saar, Millet Pulao, Beetroot Raita…and for desserts Old Delhi Fruit Cream with Jalebi with Shahtoot Phirni (that’s mulberry firni, must be something really delicious). Khumb Galouti is of very expensive morel mushrooms from Kashmir presumably and the Millet Pulao was of pearl millet/bajra millet…the millet Gujaratis are crazy about come the winter months. Bajra or grey green pearl millet is considered ideal millet for wintertime meals in traditional Guju households. Nowadays they do sumptuous kichdi or “kichdo” and I’ve no doubt it’s one of the PM’s favorite fare along with such piece de resistance fare as “khakra-chundo,” “handwo,” “dalia kichdi”… as only his Guju team of cooks can prepare it. He may not take media people with him but he takes his kitchen team when he travels abroad for nobody wants to suffer stomach upsets while out of familiar territory. .
The PM doesn’t do sweets and fryums anymore, one hears. Well, if the prime minister of India does not feast on sweets and fryums, we may take a leaf out of his diary of what to eat and what to stay away from! From the sound of it he is fond of south Indian fare idli-dosa-upma for breakfast and various sabzi of green to go with wholewheat or bajra flatbreads of Gujarat…the much loved popular “methi thepla” are of course shallow fried affairs and if you eat too much methi or fenugreek in fresh leaf or dry leaf or seed form, you will end up smelling of the bitters of life.
If you notice the PM approved menus feature expensive mushrooms – considered by many as “fountain of youth” and longevity food (even the Chinese think so). There’s nothing Guju about mushrooms, especially those of the Orient, I guess somewhere along the way Narendra Modi’s palate must have acquired a taste for them. I mean, why wouldn’t you eat mushrooms if you can afford to buy them everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner! I would…say button mushrooms for breakfast, morel pilaf for lunch and three-mushroom combo soup for dinner. Is it more desirable to smell like mushrooms? Earthy, dark and mysterious? Ask your palate, okay. The world of mushrooms is indeed very fascinating and nowadays many are cultivating oyster mushrooms to make a good living, yes, in Goa.

MODI, A POET PRIME MINISTER


DO you know your current prime minister is a bit of a poet too, more than a bit some say and he has a couple of books devoted to Gujarati poetry (like say his earliest collection titled “Aank Aa Dhanya Che” as in his eyes are blessed for it’s a beautiful world or something like that) and then there is “Ramata Ram” and some more, which I must look up one of these days. Although I’m a Guju Patel by birth I’m not too familiar with Gujarati literature, and always now and again it teases me to find out some more…alas, my Guju world is limited to Guju food only! Such things as “valor-ni-dal dokri” (spiced up field beans or cluster beans spiced up pasta-styled dish), or maybe “bhinda-ni-kadi” (buttermilk curry with ladies finger in it) or “kichu” which is savory steamed rice flour.
Gujarati cuisine features some very desirable steamed flour recipes and all are temptations, as also I would say they qualify as health food – providing not relished with too much lacing in of desi ghee or ghani cold pressed groundnut or sesame seed oils…my favorites are “kichu-no-lot,” “bajra-no-lot” and “patuda-no- lot.” Steam-cooked flour temptations all! Some time go to Gujarat to savor them all.
Which reminds me Maharashtra too has somewhat similar “junka” and “pithla” – both savory gram flour temptations to eaten with flatbreads of rice or jowar (the millet most popular in Karnataka and down Konkan coast too). I really wish over and over again that our traditional flatbreads would make a comeback by way of traditional preventive healthcare! Nobody wants to bring them back in a bottom-up movement to improve eating habits…and I have said this nauseatingly enough here in this column which is now more a health-conscious than before, for over 30 years — I have to remind myself of this.


ALL this for now. Which reminds me there’s a new south Indian eatery down town Panaji and it’s called De Dosa Bar…more upmarket than any other similar place, but the menu lists some desirable fare such as the classic benne dosa and a very decent rava dosa. Much of it comes with a trio of chutneys of onion, garlic and tomato – and yummylicious sambar. Look it up, prices are high, they yet have to streamline themselves better. Great filter coffee here (Rs50 per “dabba-vati” and as usual with this prized southern coffee I wish it would come sweetened with “coffee jaggery” instead of sugar packets). For they prices they can also improve portions! Hey, even south Indian fare is going upmarket in Goa now and I don’t know if that’s good or bad news. Especially Udupi fare which has sustained working class folk for years and years and years in Mumbai and elsewhere in so many urban metros of India.
This is happening more so after the Café Bangalore success story. I don’t like the fact that they have chucked their earlier eco-friendly leaf-ware for tupperware now…funny, at this come lately Voam Hospitality’s De Dosa Bar bits of banana leaf turns up only as amusing ornamental value — here and there on stainless steel plates as if to deceive the eyes! I like their regular upma and idli, and suddenly it is this “thatte idli” which is becoming popular; there are rice favorites like lemon/tomato/curd rice too (Rs120-150) on the menu along with the southern favorites. Look up the quaintly named de Dosa Bar for a slightly novel eating experience of south Indian fare! There’re chaat item numbers too – palak patta chaat (Rs175) and bhalla papdi chaat (Rs170) whatever that is.

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