Walter Chung's History of Bangalorean Chinese Food

Image credits - Hindu

“Let me tell you about the history of Chinese food in Bangalore.”

Walter Chung indulges his obsessions with food with everyone who has ever walked through his doors. His restaurant, Kim Lee, has been an institution in Bangalore for almost two decades now and while there are many Chinese restaurants in the city older and more popular, none are closer to my umami loving taste buds than the quaint, slightly oily place tucked away on Indiranagar Double Road. Some, a minority, mistake his friendly banter as a nuisance and choose to keep conversations short and sometimes curt. D and I however, let him pull up a chair over to our table and ladle us with nostalgic broth, sometimes from his days in Tangra, but mostly from his experiences in Bangalore. He is a simple man with simple tastes but with a culinary grasp of hakka cuisine that I have had the pleasure of experiencing on regular occasions. Ever the experimenter, his signature dishes (hakka style chilli chicken, moku soup, cilantro chicken, chicken in shang tung sauce, among my favourites) and carefully curated menu almost feel out of place in the musty dinge of his restaurant, deserving lace covered tables and spotless-white-blue-enamel-brimmed china.  

“Do you know which was the first Chinese restaurant in Bangalore?”

I always thought I knew the answer to that. I mean, Taipan had been around for years before I even moved into the city and most folks remembered it for as far back as they could remember, but Walter had shot that down.

“The Chang family that owned Taipan used to have a place called Continental on Brigade Road now where KFC is today. In fact, the restaurant was originally named Chung Wah (not to be confused with the Chung Wah we are all aware of) and had been around from the late 50s or early 60s. However, after the Sino-Indian war, the Changs realised that maybe it warranted a name change, just in case. That was the genesis of Chinese Food in Bangalore.”

Fascinating! I had been to Continental many times after they had moved to Residency Road and the place was well regarded amongst Bangalore’s gastro-elite as a great place to grab a drink and eat some Chowmein. Good luck trying to find this place now. It’s long gone. Like the rest of this city’s soul. By now, I could sense Walter’s eyes glaze over in reminiscence. I better make notes and document some of this gold.

“The Chang family were pioneers of Calcutta hakka style cuisine in Bangalore. They owned Continental, Blue Haven and of course, the much touted Taipan. For years, there were no other Chinese restaurants in the city. My father came to Bangalore around the same time that the Changs opened their restaurant but found Bangalore way too sleepy to consider the investment any good. It was a dead city. Imagine, coming from the bustle of Calcutta, Bangalore was a dead town. The streets were deserted by 6 PM. What business could you run here?”

“Of course, by the mid-70’s, South Parade was transforming. Cabarets, bars and gambling dens were already pulling people to town and soon Bangalore had at least 3 more Chinese restaurants in Nanking, Canton and Rice Bowl. There were at least 5 Chinese families in Bangalore involved in the restaurant space in Bangalore. Did you know that the current owner of Chung Wah used to be the cashier at Rice Bowl?”

I was intrigued. Could it be possible that some of the more famous Chinese restaurateurs like Baba Ling of Lings Pavilion and Nelson Wang of China Garden also had a part to play in the oriental culinary history of Bangalore? This was a question that needed answering.

“Nelson Wang? That fellow, my god, you will never imagine the kind of reputation he had before he became famous. Nelson Wang was a famous jazz dancer in the cabaret scene and he even once worked at the Blue Fox as a waiter, did you know? He had reputation as a wayward chap back in the day, well before he invented the Chicken Manchurian and went on to make Chinese food accessible. Some even say that the genesis of his restaurant career was built on a relationship he built with a certain dubious and famous personality. Of course, when things went a little sour, he had his own fair share of problems, with China Garden having run-ins with the Mumbai government people. But he really did a lot to make Indian Chinese food what it is today.”

“South Bangalore also had an old Chinese restaurant called Canton in Jayanagar. That was one of the first places I started working at. Of course, now the old families still maintain many restaurants here. The proprietors of Chung Wah, Chungs, Wok with Chung are all related and everybody knows everybody else. It’s like extended family and we are all quite close. You see, we are more Bangalorean than most of the people in the city now. This is home.”

There were other stories too, of gambling debts and opium and even claimed discoveries of the Hunan Chicken which I had never had until I came to the city.

But that’s another story for another day. Now, this spring roll.