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By Priya Krishna
Priya Krishna visited the Bungalow 3 times. On her last two visits, she wore a disguise that fooled only the restaurant, but also her aunt, whom she met on the sidewalk.
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This is Priya Krishna’s first time serving as acting 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 at the Bungalow and saw that the dining room was completely full, the line to get in stretched the length of 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 the most coveted tables in New York can be found at restaurants, such as Semma and Dhamaka, which serve lesser-known regional dishes from across India. Looking back at last Friday, you may have snagged a dinner reservation for four at coveted spots like Lilia, Carbone and Torrisi in the coming weeks, but there wasn’t a single vacancy at the Bungalow.
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