Flavours of India currying favour among marketgoers
'The response is amazing,' says owner Harsha Deshpande
Korma, butter chicken, tikka masala are dishes that aren't normally associated with the everyday Newfoundland and Labrador diet, but the owner of Flavours of India is changing that one chickpea at a time.
Harsha Deshpande says she has been surprised by the favourable reception to her business.
"The response is amazing — they are coming back and telling us they love our food," said Deshpande as she prepared dishes for Thursday's night market at St. Thomas Church in St. John's.
Deshpande, a trained architectural engineering technologist, moved to Newfoundland from India — via Ireland and Vancouver — in 2008.
She has always cooked traditional Indian dishes for friends in the area and eventually began making meals for work functions and parties.
She attended her first market in April and has been hooking people on the flavours of her homeland ever since. Some of her customers are hesitant at first, she said, but they quickly warm up their palates to the food she prepares.
"They get one spoon and they say, 'Can I have more?'" she said, while preparing a spinach paneer curry. "It is very exciting and it is so nice to see them."
Business has been good. Deshpande said she will likely hire someone to help in the coming weeks if sales continue to climb. In the meantime, she's solicited the help of her husband, Akhil Kumar, to prepare for the night market.
Kumar is quick to downplay his role, though, and says it's just an extended version of what happens at home.
"She tells me what to do and, you know, that's the easy way to get around," he said with a laugh.
Kumar said he's witnessed a change in how her food has been received — while the spiciness curve was steep for some, people are coming back and asking his wife to try new things while turning up the heat.
Aside from the food, Kumar is also proud of how his wife's business has grown.
"She was a little bit bored in the house, doing the same thing morning and evening, but she's finding this exciting and I'm fully supporting her."
