Hotel Kongu Park. Saalai road, Trichy 3
Perhaps I should have taken hint from the name itself Hotel Kongu ‘Park’. Since I didn’t, I went inside to have lunch. Almost nothing, including their ‘special’ delicacies were Chinese!!! And their new year specials which are available before new year are also are Chinese.
Before this turns out to be a bad mouthing, let me tell you this. Despite the fact they are not serving authentic ‘Kongu’ cuisine which is exquisite, they do offer few things like ‘nandu omlette’ besides the usual south Indian meals was a good thing to see.
Now let us take KFC the chicken giant. Its worldwide presence now is because of its authenticity. We can say similar stories for McDonalds, pizza hut and many more. Why aren’t any Indian food chains popular around the world despite its rich culinary expertise???
One answer to that question would be because of the difficulty in standardising the entire recipe in its perfect harmony to taste similar in all the places.. well yeah, but simpler things like paniyarams, adai dosais and the like can be well standardised and the formula for them can be quantified and spread across the world in all its uniqueness.
Changing the menu and ingredients of pizza hut and McDonalds is justified because of the regional factors. But what is the need of modifying the menu of a restaurant which seems to take a competitive advantage over its competitors? Calling itself a multi-cuisine restaurant is one thing ... but making most of its offerings Chinese, calling itself multi-cuisine and naming it Kongu Park is simply not blending in.
Perhaps i’m too obsessed with long term philosophy and sustainability but I don’t see the fame of this ‘Hotel Kongu Park’ extending beyond the people who pass through that road. I am just eager to see more restaurant chains like Shartbabu’s FoodKing and want them to expand globally.
Apparantly there are hotels like Saravana Bavan all around the world. My bad, i didn't know that. Rookie mistake. But then, i sincerely hope that we can do still better. We should have more take away foods as the western world (or so to suit the needs of urban life). I just felt this article would blend in well with the theme of my blog that is to widen the horizon. One thing i want the reader to remember if anything is to have a broad philosophy to grow during the inception itself...
