Comment by kumarvvr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kumarvvr | Hacker News Reader

This pandemic has been extra hard on Restaurants.

In India, an alternative to dining out has emerged in recent years. These are called "Curry Points". (Perhaps they are called Delis in the US, I'm not sure)

See, Indian food is always a binary thing. As in, we eat a base item (Rice, pancakes like Dosa, Chapathi, etc) along with a curry. There are very few cuisines that consist of only one item. And most of them are from other countries. Examples are Noodles and Pizzas, etc.

So a staple Indian dinner is a bowl of rice, with two / three or more curries / gravys etc.

The "Curry Points" I have mentioned, simply sell the curries and gravies. They usually have about 20 different ones. People buy their choice, with each sachet costing about 10 - 20 rs ( 1 USD is about 80 Rs, so about 30 cents), go home, prepare rice or chapathis, which are very easy and quick to make, and have a decent dinner that does not cost an arm and a leg.

A decent dinner for 2 at a good restaurant in urban centers costs about 800 to 1000 (about 10 - 12 USD), but considering average household income in urban centers is about 40,000 Rs. (500 USD) per month , they are not suitable for daily visits.

A similar dinner for 2, with say 4 curries, costs about 2 USD. And that is including costs of rice / chapathis, energy costs, etc.

I don't know if this kind of model existd in the USA or European countries, but the businesses are very profitable. The store front is hardly 5 ft x 7 ft, costs about 4000 Rs. per month (about 50 USD Per month). Some store fronts are simply vans. Curries are prepared at homes and the storefronts are open for about 3 hours in the evening.

Perhaps this could be one answer to closing restaurants.

The US doesn't have nearly as many street food vendors as some other countries. I've never seen anything like a Taiwan night market, for example, where you might find one person selling green onion pancakes, cooked one by one on a griddle, for a price that's low even by local standards.

I wonder whether regulatory capture is happening, either intentionally or organically, by way of licensing, inspection, and food preparation rules that make it hard for anything smaller than a food truck to thrive in the US.

In India, regulation is lax and enforcement is even worse.

However, I have found free market forces weeding out low quality ones. It's not a perfect solution, but it works.

Most of the food prepared in these curry points is usually fresh.

However, they offer a great way to have a sumptuous meal,with many varieties for very low cost.

There are often explicit permits for street vending of food along with inspection requirements and the permits often do rise high. Where there aren't permits there usually isn't the density to support it in the area chronically. Sanitation limits what can effectively be served without a sink and promotes disposability. There used to be ice cream stands about a century ago which had deposits on glass but well, several epidemics gave a very valid reason for the ban as popular as it was in hot summers.

Regardless there are always complaints about food standa or trucks anywhere from traffic to matters as petty as park service trashcan fill rate.

> go home, prepare rice or chapathis

Off topic: This would be a huge cultural change. I have tried it a couple of times with rice, but to me it ruins the meal. I've never seen anyone else do it.

Reason for this culture might be cost of a meal to cost of rice (curries will have lots of good meat). Maybe other things like unwillingness to wait to eat or rice is culturally considered a meal more than a staple. (Buying a cooked chicken to have with bread at home is common). It is interesting. Breaking cultural norms is a way to make $

On Topic: Your idea is sound, the million $ part is fitting it to regulations (or getting around them)

Regulations should not be a problem for a multiple of reasons.

1. For the rapidly expanding middle class, with much disposable income, focus has shifted to quality in the last decade. No longer are dingy kitchens acceptable.

2. Modern restaurants and take-out only kitchens (propping up to server customers of food delivery apps) use modern equipment and generally maintain good hygiene.

3. People are willing to spend a bit more for quality food and it shows in the markets. Cheap and dirty kitchens are being phased out.

4. For decades in the past, India had innumerable 'Tiffin Centers', where the primary target is the daily labourer or office goer, who goes to the center, orders a breakfast, stands on the side, eats it and leaves. In these kitchens, the full kitchen is always in view of the customers. There are no tables or chairs for people to sit, just raised platforms on which the plates are placed and food consumed. This culture of an open view kitchen is very prevalent in India, and is usually self regulating, quality wise.

This system is actually being implemented in farmers markets in the US. I helps them as it makes people more willing to spend their money. One issue I can see from this is that it increases the rate of obesity. Which if you look up the areas where this does occur the obesity rate skyrockets in both men and female. Which would most likely worsen the obesity epidemic in america.

I think it depends a lot on the content makeup of the food.

In India, in a typical meal with rice or chapathis (baked wheat flour), the base items form bulk of the food, weight wise. Curries and gravys are mostly garnishing. And there is a lot of spice and chili in most foods. So even among those who eat meat, the portions are relatively small. And milk, curd and milk derivative products are a huge part of the Indian meal.

In fact, in India, food is a carefully curated science, especially the traditional dishes. There are a lot of thumb rules for what to eat when, time of the day wise, day wise, day of the week wise, season wise and what not. The cuisine keeps changing.

For example, in the south, most evening dinners have a dish called 'rasam', which is just tamrind juice with tomatoes and a few spices. A very watery dish, where a litre of water is boiled with about 20 grams of tamrind. The reason it is usually taken in the night and during a heavy afternoon meal, is because it very much improves indigestion and constipation.

Indian scriptures give a lot of research on Food, Health, sex and spirituality.

Edit: Fasting is catching on in recent times in the west, but has been a staple part of Indian life since always. But it was never recommended for those whose life depends on manual labour, like farmers. They were always encouraged to take food, in good quantities every day. Lots of meat and sweets were recommended for the warrior class. Meat was forbidden for thise who are in knowledge work, like scholars, poets etc. This class had the most stringent food restrictions, because they essentially sit and think, and eating meat or drinking wine dulls a sharp mind.

To be fair, fasting was always a prominent part of traditional Christian practice in the West, as far as I can tell it became less prominent after the Protestant Reformation (to be extra fair Western Catholic fasting traditions are less intense in the West than in the Eastern Christian traditions (including Kerala Christians in India))

Is this popular among the modern middle class these days? in my father’s generation eating out was seen as something working men did for lunch because they had to and was considered less than a proper meal at home

Its really popular in my city, and its one of the biggest in India.

I have seen it in tier 2 cities and towns too.

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