Our chef

Kantesh Chowdhury

Who or what inspired your interest in cooking?

The art of cooking is a delicate and complex matter. When one masters the proper way it should be done, everything else follows. You do realise that cooking isn't just all about chopping and mixing ingredient in a hot pan, it's the presentation and taste that finally matters. A painting attracts your eyes and you buy it, but a chef has to please your eyes, nose and tongue to get a compliment from you. His or her end result should always be exquisite so, before I knew it, I was standing at the gate of a hotel management college in India and this journey started from there on.

When did you first enter the kitchen professionally?

It was way back in 1999 when I first entered a professional kitchen as an industrial trainee from my college in a 5-star hotel in Delhi. The start was a bit jerky for me as the environment in a kitchen is very different from anything else, but I soon became an indispensable part of it. There's an interesting contrast - you will be sitting there enjoying wine and waiting for your meal, we'll be running around like crazy in the kitchen!

What is your favourite dish to cook/serve?

My favourite dish would be Dum Pukt Biryani. It's a process in which you cook the biryani or any meat item with lids closed and at low flame so that the dish gets cooked slowly and all the flavours are retained. Every spoonful of the dish is always bursting with the flavours of Indian masalas. There's also a few other dishes which you may not have heard of, but I sometimes put them in my Christmas menu.

Favourite ingredient?

Saffron and fresh coriander hold an important place in Indian cooking because of their strong flavour, and I like them using too.

Best meal you have ever had?

It was a restaurant called Dum Pukt in new Delhi. They follow traditional Indian cooking.

Which other chef's cooking do you admire?

Since I am a chef from India I have known most of the renowned chefs from there, and one of those is Chef Imtiaz Quereshi. Someone I admire here is Gordon Ramsay.

If you hadn't become a chef, what would you have liked to work as?

If I hadn't been a chef then I would have been a commercial pilot with some international airlines. I like their way of living, uniform and the respect they get.

Funniest moment in the kitchen?

Funny moments are many but the most recent one was few months ago at Bombay Joe's. There was a curry order from a table which was requested without coriander. I made that curry without it, but my service waiter missed it and garnished it with coriander and went to the table and the guest refused to accept it as it had coriander on top of it. So it came back to the kitchen and so I had to make that curry again, but by the time I poured the curry in khadai the last service waiter went out for break and I even forgot to mention that no coriander should be added to it and so he committed the same mistake and proceeded to the table with the curry garnished with fresh coriander. This was enough for my guest to be red with anger. Well, at that point, my manager was very angry, but after it we were all laughing as we remembered this incident.

Top kitchen tip?

When you cook chicken or meat, you should first cook it over high heat to seal in the juices and then lower the heat and cook till tender. This way you can make your meat more tender and juicier.

What is your own favourite meal?

My own favourite meal would be chicken shashlik with fresh mint and yogurt chutney as a starter, followed by a good Hyderabadi Biryani, and finally sweetening my teeth with rich carrot halwa.

 

We are delighted to feature below some of the extensive cuisine we invite you to experience here at Bombay Joe's -

Delicious Appetiser Selected Main Course Sweet Special

Bombay Joe's,
Punjabi Cuisine,
44 Gray Street,
Broughty Ferry,
Dundee,
DD5 2BJ

Telephone
01382 776448

Opening hours:
Sunday
4pm-11pm

Monday-Thursday
5pm -11.30pm

Friday-Saturday
5pm-12.30am