Washington: President Barack Obama and wife Michelle chose Rasika, an Indian restaurant owned by a New Delhi born restaurateur that's a favourite haunt of power diners, to celebrate his birthday. Obama, who turned 52 on Sunday, had spent his birthday weekend celebrating with friends and family at Camp David.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived on Thursday evening in formal attire at Rasika in Washington's West End neighborhood. Rasika serves modern Indian cuisine, showcasing tawa (griddle), sigri (open barbeque), tandoori and regional dishes. It offers "small plates, a modern lounge, and a temperature controlled wine cellar." New Delhi born Ashok Bajaj opened the "award-winning restaurant Rasika, showcasing Indian fare with a modern twist," in December 2005.
Indian cuisine has long been an also-ran in America's $ 660 billion eating out business generated by 980,000 restaurants. Although it is the main course in UK, Indian food hobbles behind Italian, Chinese, and Hispanic chow in the US despite impressive strides of late. For reasons that may be hard to digest, even Thai, Greek, and Japanese fare are ahead in the food sweepstakes.
Not that this is going to change anytime soon, but hand it to the Obamas for doing their bite for Indian cuisine. Probably because of the President's incessant boasting about his mastery over keema and daal, First Lady Michelle Obama treated him to an Indian dinner for his 52nd birthday.
The Obamas are not the first First Couple to patronise Indian cuisine, which is probably the last of the world's great gastronomic adventures to excite the American palate because of its spice levels. The Clintons put Bombay Club, located right across from the White House in arguable the best restaurant address in town, on the country's culinary map back in the 1990s. In fact, the story goes that Chelsea Clinton pretty much grew up on take out from the Bombay Club, which is also owned by Bajaj, who is a former Ashok Group and Taj Group executive.
While Bill Clinton's familiarity with Indian cuisine came from his days as a student at Oxford and his personal friendship with the late chef Raji Jalepalli of Memphis, Obama's connection is even more intimate. He learned to cook Indian food during his rooming days with Indian and Pakistani college-mates. More than once, he has boasted that he can cook a mean keema and dal, although the claim has not been tested widely. Most recently, while toasting the nomination of Sri Srinivasan to the DC Court of Appeals, Obama said he can "think back on my college years when my roommates were Indian and Pakistanis, which is how I learned how to cook keema and dal."
