Foods in Indian restaurants in America are not as tasty as food in India itself

After living in the US for a decade, I was always puzzled about what’s exactly wrong with Indian food here in Indian restaurants.

Whenever I travel back to India, I always feel that there is a huge difference in the taste.

One day my wife complained about vegetables, specially okra. She said it is not as tasty as compared to what we get it in India. That rang the bell.

So vegetables itself are tasteless, so how do you think your food will be tasty ?

Even if you bring the best chef from India and make him cook in the US, it will be still tasteless. I have tried multiple restaurants around various cities including NJ and CA restaurants which are known as “authentic” Indian restaurants, but none of the restaurants can beat the taste of India.

Initially I thought it is because of the change in land and India may have fertile land than the US, but that was not true. US has even more fertile land than India.

In US, the farmers market is taken over by big corporations and there is always a pressure to grow bigger in size and number. Consumers want to buy all the fruits and vegetables all year around and at the same time they want to pay minimal prices.

Picking larger tomatoes, for example, costs the grower less because it takes less time and labor to yield more product.

Some vegetables and fruits are genetically modified to suit the business needs.

An onion grown in India is far more tastier than a giant onion grown here in the US. Same applies to other vegetables as well. They are big in size but tasteless.

Infact I find Indian food in Europe and Dubai tastier than Indian food in the US. I can say the same thing for Mexico as well. They have better taste in their vegetables.

There are few other factors as well which affects the taste in food. Like spices sold in Indian grocery stores are on an average 3 to 4 months old and it has already lost 20% to 30% of its taste.

Another factor is the costly labor here in the US and living in a society where canned or readymade food is more cheaper than fresh vegetables. So, many restaurants use some ingredients which are already canned or bought from other stores to save time and money. Conveniency has taken priority over quality here.

In India, since labor is cheap, it is preferable to make everything from scratch which yield better taste and it is fresh.

Most Indians in the US, cannot wait to travel to India and enjoy that aroma and taste of Indian food of their respective states. It is a quite different feeling to go to your home town and eat the food which you used to eat while growing up.

It is always my pleasure to go back to Ahmedabad, my hometown, in India, and enjoy the taste of my food, something which I will never find it here in the US.

Thanks for reading...