Indian couple bring street food to NP
Madhuri Thota and Santhosh Tukkapuram are on a mission to bring the flavours of Hyderabad to New Plymouth.
The smell of their kitchen will be familiar to people who have been wandering through crowded Indian cities, where street vendors fry panipuri in large wok-style pans filled with boiling hot oil.
Indian street food is a delicacy that can be enjoyed at any time there, as big cities of the subcontinent such as New Delhi and Mumbai have carts selling food 24/7.
Thota and Tukkapuram have opened My Rasoi to let people in the region try the same flavours they experienced in their households growing up.
They travelled from Hyderabad in South India to Auckland 10 years ago, to chase a more prosperous future, she said.
She studied business administration while working in hospitals, and he worked in a media company.
In 2019, they moved to New Plymouth but soon found out that the Indian restaurants in town sold more Westernised curries, such as butter chicken, rogan josh and chicken tikka.
Thota and Tukkapuram wanted New Plymouth to relish the same flavours that they enjoyed so much growing up in Andhra Pradesh, so in December they opened My Rasoi.
When the tried the food on their desi chaat (Indian street food) menu, it brought back memories of tasty, cheap street food from a vendor on a 12-hour train from New Delhi to Varanasi.
The couple served a delicious tamarind chutney and a chaat masala water that hit the right level of spiciness – they both accompanied the mighty panipuri, a light, crunchy, golden sphere.
On the desi chaat menu, customers could also order vada pav – a snack that filled cravings with its mix of deep-fried and fresh carbs. All the items on the street food section of the menu cost $12 or less.
Thota said the restaurant used the recipes that her mother and grandmother handed down to her. “It’s hard to maintain it, but we will stay authentic.”
They would not use the granite grinding stone her grandmother had for making spice mixes and chutneys though, she said.
My Rasoi, like many Indian restaurants, had a menu with 100 items, which included Indo-kiwi fusion options. “So if a family want different things, they can get it from the same place. We have lots of plans, because we just started,” Thota said.