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Top 5 secrets restaurants don't want you to know
Are you absolutely sure you're getting what you ordered for?
Vir Sanghvi reveals food industry's dirtiest secrets
Are your naans really vegetarian?
Why you should probably give that ice-cream in a five-star hotel a pass.
Vir Sanghvi spills the beans on food industry's best-kept secrets.
1. Most naans have eggs
It is a rare restaurant that makes naan without an egg.
They don't tell you that but they do.
If you're the kind of person who doesn't eat eggs, be very careful where you eat.
Top 5 secrets restaurants don't want you to know
2. That melt-in-the-mouth kebab is the way it is not because it's tender
No one will tell you about it but it is almost always the animal fat that makes it that way.
Animal fat isn't good for you.
Top 5 secrets restaurants don't want you to know
3. When they say lamb, they mean goat
If it says lamb on a menu, it almost always is goat
For some reason Indian restaurants think people will run away when they read goat
Which is bizarre because lamb is a very fatty meat; goat is recommended in the West as a healthy meat.
Fat in goat meat is much less in comparison to beef, pork and lamb.
Top 5 secrets restaurants don't want you to know
4. Most ice cream in Indian hotels is depressingly bad
It is nearly always bought from outside though they'd like you to believe they make it.
Always ask who the manufacturer is.
They work on the assumption that you won't ask.
So many of them buy the cheapest ice cream and serve you.
Top 5 secrets restaurants don't want you to know
5. There's gelatine in most Indian pastries
The curse of Indian pastry chefs is that gelatine is the key to everything.
It is almost impossible to get a good chocolate mousse or cheese cake because traditional chefs will use gelatine and destroy the texture.
One reason why standalone patisseries have succeeded is because a new generation of chefs understand how things are made in the west and don't waste their time on gelatine.