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By Priya Krishna
Priya Krishna visited the Bungalow 3 times. During her last two visits, she wore a disguise that fooled only the restaurant and also her aunt, whom she passed on the sidewalk.
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This is Priya Krishna’s first time serving as a food critic, along with Melissa Clark, for The New York Times.
Are we done with the butterbird era of Indian restaurants?To have a spicy point from 1 to 10 to begin with? To have to listen to the redundant expression “pan naan”?
That’s what I asked myself as I dipped a Parle-G cookie in chai in the Bungalow and saw that the dining room was completely packed, the line to get in stretched along First Avenue, and the bar was just a state room.
It wasn’t like that. When I started working in food journalism 11 years ago, hard-to-reach restaurants in New York City were typically Italian, French or “New American. ” At those places, my friends and I were occasionally the only people of color sitting in the dining room. We were used to being abandoned in the middle of the meal or sitting next to the bathroom.
What a difference a decade makes! Some of New York’s most sought-after tables can be found at restaurants, such as Semma and Dhamaka, which serve lesser-known regional dishes from all over India. Looking back last Friday, you may have gotten a dinner reservation for four at coveted venues like Lilia, Carbone, and Torrisi in the coming weeks, but there wasn’t a single vacancy at the Bungalow.
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