Rupak Chattopadhyay Profile picture
Federalism, History, Economics, Aviation. Tweets personal, unrelated to organisations I am affiliated with.

Mar 28, 2023, 6 tweets

Meet Nelson Wang, the inventor of Indian-Chinese the "Chicken Manchurian". Wang was born in Calcutta's Tangra China Town in 1950. When his family moved to Canada in the 1977, Nelson decided to move to Bombay.
#ChickenManchurian #Chinese #Cricket #Foodie

Strating out as a nightclub limbo dancer and fire-eater, he found a job was as a cook at Frederick's, a Chinese restaurant in Colaba and where the legendary Raj Singh Dungarpur, then President of the Cricket Club of India was a regular.

Frederick's was asked if could cater to Cricket Club of India, but turned down the offer. So Nelson took on the challenge. It was here that Dungarpur, who liked fried food asked Nelson for something spicy and crunchy with a gravy.

Here was born the Chicken Manchurian. Chicken tossed with chopped garlic, ginger, green chillies, with soya sauce, with a dash of cornflower to thicken the gravy and completed with a flourish of coriander leaves. The gravywould eventually give way to drier versions.

In 1981 he opened his first restuarant (more like an canteen) at Kemps Corber called China town. His iconic China Gardem in 1983.

When Nelson retired in the early 2000s and moved to Vancouver, his older son Edward donned his father's mantle. By 2017, they were operating to seven restaurants and three bars across India and one in Nepal, and manufacturing sauces and condiments for grocery stores.

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