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Dishes connect India native with home
(Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, MO) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 11--Fragrant spices waft from the kitchen as you walk into Taj Mahal restaurant in downtown Columbia. There's no mistaking the source of the exotic and enticing mixture of spices: Susheel Gill is making Indian cuisine.
Gill wears many hats at the cozy restaurant on Fifth Street. Visitors are frequently welcomed to Taj Mahal with a smile from Gill before being escorted to a seat in the restaurant's dimly lit dining room, where soothing Indian music plays in the background.
Gill, a native of India, said the restaurant is an opportunity to showcase the extraordinary tastes of India and knows that success in his type of business not only lies in the art of fine cooking but also in warm and friendly customer service.
"I visit and talk with my clients," he said. "I give my customers my best because if their expectations are not met, they don't give second chances."
For Gill, running Taj Mahal is realization of a longtime dream. A former maintenance worker at University Hospital, Gill saved and planned for his business for years before finally launching it in 2002.
With Columbia's easily found world cuisine, including Thai, Mexican, Chinese and Japanese, Gill said he works hard to provide excellent customer service and innovative dishes to help his business stand out.
Nichole Warner, left, and Sunny Khehra eat lunch Thursday at Taj Mahal. Gill gathered his cooking expertise from two chefs he hired from Washington, D.C., when the business opened. He often alters his meals to suit the tastes of his customers.
"Everything just has to stay right," he said. "Food has to be kept at the right temperature all the time, cleanliness is of utmost importance, and you can't forget to smile. Food business is demanding and laborious."
He takes criticism seriously, and whenever a customer is not satisfied with the food, he doesn't rest. He guarantees to refund the cost of any meal if a customer is not totally satisfied.
"I want to see them come back," he said.
Gill, 45, said Columbians are still in love with his dishes that are flavored with spices such as cumin, coriander, ginger, fenugreek, red pepper, garlic, cinnamon, turmeric and cardamom because of the personalized service he gives them.
Taj Mahal features a variety of traditional northern Indian dishes, including lamb korma, lamb sultani, chicken tikka masala and chicken curry. It also offers fresh bread leavened in a special oven or fried and exotic drinks such as mango lassi, a blended beverage of ice, yogurt and mangoes.
For new customers, Gill said he is always on standby to explain the menu items and help them make choices. He has also designed his menu to give brief descriptions of the dishes and the ingredients he uses.
"I knew Taj Mahal would be a great place to eat the moment I walked in," said Sela Tydings, a regular customer. "When I first visited the restaurant, the workers were exceptionally patient with all my questions, they were willing to explain everything on the menu, and we had a satisfying and delicious meal in the end."
The main difference between American food and Indian food is the use of spices, Gill explained. A typical Indian palate enjoys very hot and spicy food, he said.
"There is nothing in the American conception about the nature of hot," said Siddharth Hazra, a student at the University of Missouri-Columbia who is from India. "I have consumed food from American brands that advertise themselves as painfully hot, which are not even on my mild scale."
Sonny Singh, an employee at India House, a restaurant that serves similar dishes, said that people have clung to the idea that Indian food is spicy and hot, and potential customers have been scared away.
"What they don't know is that we have improvised some of the dishes to suit their tastes," he said.
Gill has made alternations to most of his dishes to suit the palates of the different cultures he caters to. He believes that altering the dishes is a good way to incorporate the preferences of different palates so that they can enjoy his food.
"I don't serve typical Indian food," he said. "A lot of folks I serve can't handle typical Indian food."
He explained that a typical Indian dish is not only hot but also is oily. He has observed that oily dishes turn off many of his customers, and to attract new patrons and sustain the existing ones, he modifies the dishes.
Gill offers an option to spice up a dish if desired.
"It is a fairly decent representation of the Indian flavor in its menu items," said Abhishek Vemuri, a graduate student at MU. "Although it doesn't exactly taste like homemade food, it at least surely reminds of authentic food in India."
Gill never dreamt of being in the hospitality industry when he first relocated to the United States in 1983. Originally from Gammu, a small town in India, Gill enrolled at MU to pursue a degree in computer science.
He landed a job at University Hospital and worked in maintenance there for about 20 years.
He traces his interest in cooking back to his childhood days in India. As a young boy, he watched and helped his mother cook and frequently visited restaurants to watch chefs cook.
"I was just fascinated by how they did it," he said.
Despite his love for cooking, he never dreamed of owning a restaurant. But when he arrived in Columbia, he realized there was no Indian restaurant in town despite the sizeable number of Indian faculty and students.
"I saw the need for an Indian restaurant, " he said.
Gill toyed with the idea of launching a restaurant for several years. In 1990, he attempted to launch one but failed because of family problems.
He never gave up.
While India's Rasoi opened in the mid-'90s, Gill was convinced the community could support a second Indian restaurant.
He saved money and approached relatives for a loan, and Taj Mahal was born at 19 N. Fifth St., the former location of Rooten Tooten BBQ.
"It took me many years to save the money," he said. "It's something I've been wanting to do for long time."
Gill did not draw a business plan.
"I had an idea of how much it would cost and knew exactly what our expenses would be, so there was no need to draw a business plan," he said.
Gill, a rookie businessman, did not get help from any other business owners, either. He only sought opinions of close family members.
Gill finally launched his business in 2002 and called it Taj Mahal, after India's most famous monument of love. He hired two chefs specializing in Indian cuisine from Washington, D.C., and watched them cook every day.
When they eventually left, he knew he had acquired enough expertise to do the cooking himself. Now Gill, who has never had any culinary lessons, and his wife do all cooking at Taj Mahal.
"I feel joy when I am cooking," he said. "The more I cook, the better it gets."
Gill makes the dishes he serves from scratch with the help of his wife, Ranjoo, and flavors them with spices, some of which he roasts and mashes in a pestle and mortar himself. His cuisine, he said, relies heavily on fresh ingredients. He doesn't face any difficulties in obtaining ingredients of his specialties. He said the ingredients are easily available in Chicago, where there is a large Indian community. When he runs short, the ingredients are readily available locally at Taj Emporium and Campus Eastern Foods, the two Indian grocery stores in town.
Above, Gill prepares some tandoori chicken at his restaurant. Below, a bread is cooked on the side of a clay oven heated by charcoal.
Taj Mahal has a lunch buffet daily and serves between 30 and 60 people. The luncheon buffet has appetizers, vegetables, chicken and beef curries, salads, desserts, and breads. The buffet costs $7.95 during the week and $8.95 on weekends, and children 10 and younger pay $4.95.
"The buffet features about six to seven mildly spiced dishes," he said.
Dinners can either be a la carte or a full meal, including soup, salad, vegetable, basmati rice and bread along with the entre. Chicken dishes cost from $8.95 to $10.95, vegetable dishes range from $6.95 to $8.95 and lamb dishes range from $8.95 to $10.95.
The restaurant is open from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for the lunch buffet and 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. for dinner Monday through Sunday. In addition to sit-in dining, Taj Mahal does orders to go and also caters for large events. Vegetarian entres also are available.
Gill said he cooks his food in a special clay oven called a tandoor that is fired by charcoal to give the food what he called a grill flavor.
"It's expensive because it has to be imported from India," he said.
For $10.95 a person, customers can eat a dish such as chicken tikka masala, which is made of tender pieces of broiled chicken simmered in tomato, onion and whipping cream and flavored with five different spices. Gill says chicken tikka masala has become Taj Mahal's signature dish and is favored by many diners.
"It is certainly the best-selling dish that we cook," he said. "It's very creamy and doesn't have a taste of hotness."
The dish takes about three to four hours to cook. Gill marinates the chicken overnight, then cooks it in the tandoor, he said.
"Cooking Indian food is different," he said. "It is more detailed and is not just like boiling vegetables and sprinkling salt and pepper."
Gill enjoys all kinds of food but admits that Indian cuisine will always be his favorite, both to cook and to eat.
Ranjoo, who taught in India before migrating to the United States in 1999, also enjoys the freedom and flexibility the business provides.
Gill now has only two employees, and he overseas the running of the restaurant. Ranjoo also helps with the cooking. Gill has three children, 14-year-old Kezhia, 13-year-old Skyle and 5-year-old Muskaan. But owning a restaurant, Gill said, has come at a cost.
"I have given up a lot to run this business," he said. "I have forgotten about vacations, and I have also given up on playing tennis, my favorite sport."
Gill faces a few challenges from time to time.
"Keeping good help is difficult," he said. "I keep hiring people, but the turnovers are very high."
For now Gill is determined to continue bringing a taste of his native northern India to Columbia. He hopes to introduce three traditional Kashmiri dishes to his menu in the summer. The dishes, he said, are special because they are regional.
"They are mainly Muslim dishes and are only found in Kashmiri region," he said.
Gill hopes to retire in the next 10 years and just take it easy.
"I am just fulfilling my American dream," he said.
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