CENTURION: The Indian team’s food preferences, while touring abroad, are well known. When they toured the Caribbean, they took a chef from India to make food to their liking.The BCCI, in the past, has allowed the team to have a chef on board for overseas tours. Having arrived in South Africa without one, it hasn’t taken long for the players to desperately look out for Indian food.
In Cape Town, they were content with South African cuisine, which is not different from what you find in Europe. But, days before the second Test began in Centurion on Saturday, they checked with the caterers if they could get an Indian chef on board. The Open Food, which handles catering for the players, brought an Indian chef who cooked for them on Day One.But Express understands that it was not to the players’ liking, which in turn, made Open Food knock on the doors of Geet Indian Restaurant, based out of Pretoria.
“I think they were probably tired of having the local cuisine. They tried the sea food in Cape Town and they didn’t have a problem with that. But since arriving here, with the menu mostly comprising of steaks, pasta and other continental food, they requested for Indian food with the right mix of grains and spices. Even the chef we brought in, couldn’t make them happy. So we directed them to Geet,” the manager of Open Food told Express.
Although the Indian team gave their preferred menu to Geet Indian Restaurant, they have been subsequently been told to make their own choices. “They handed us a menu which had a mix of rice, roti, naan dhaal, chicken, mutton as main course. But after we sent them samples of other items, they have left it to us to decide on the everyday menu.
“We don’t want to bore them by serving only one kind of food. For instance, we serve them grilled kebabs – paneer, chicken tikka, hariyali for starters and the usual Indian main course (North Indian/South Indian variety),” says Geetha Jivan, who is the head chef at the restaurant.Geetha had been expecting this call as last year when the India A team toured South Africa, she took care of their food choices for nearly two months. Now, she might also need to extend her hospitality when the team plays the third Test in Johannesburg next week. “Most of the Indian chefs (at the team hotel) are not happy with this arrangement. Because, even if Indians make it, you need the right spices and the grains. But the ones you get here don’t have the Indian flavour. That is why the players don’t prefer them,” she adds.So far they haven’t made any special requests. The only condition has been to not include beef in the menu.