“How did you eat the spicy cheesy broccoli dim sum?” asked chef Jugal Pradhan. Convinced I was giving a smart reply, I said, ‘I popped it in my mouth with chopsticks’. “That is the incorrect way to have that dim sum, the melted cheese needs to be sucked in first,” he replied. Chef Jugal was in town to oversee the Dim Sum festival at Shankar’s F9.Jugal, a sought-after chef had impressed everyone with a delicate eye-popping presentation of the dim sums. Curried dim sums, spinach seafood roll, roasted cumin and sweet potato gyoza — they were all his specialities.

“On the first day of the fest, I had to request guests to stop ordering because the chef was working without a break. Jugal’s dim sums are hard to resist. His love for his work reflects in his food,” says Shankar.

Dimsum by Chef Jugal Pradhan  

When Jugal finally took a break to meet the guests at the table, he was all smiles. “I hope everything is good. I am hard-pressed for time to come out and meet the guests and explain the dim sums. One cannot relish a dish if it is not eaten the right way. That is how I started to enjoy food with my grandmother. I started as her helper as a kid. I was helping with tasting the food for her. That is how I developed my love for cooking,” shares Jugal.

Jugal is of the opinion that food tastes best in its simplest form. Dishes should be presented and cooked in a way so that every ingredient used contributes to exciting the taste buds. “Each dish should be able to tell a story of its own,” he says.

Born in Darjeeling, his quest to understand and hone the skills of cooking good food took him to Kolkata, to Tangra. “Here I learnt about surreal flavours of Asian cooking, use of different ingredients. After finishing my IIH, I went to work in Goa, and then to Mumbai. In Mumbai, I got work with chef Timi Lu, of Flamingo, a restaurant in Juhu. He was a hands-on chef and beautifully understood what the crowd liked,” he says.

His quest to learn more on being a top chef took him to Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, China, Bhutan, Tibet and Nepal. “In Thailand, I worked at a Pan Asian Kitchen in Chiang Mai, at Nobu in Monte Carlo, Hakkasan and Yauatcha in Mumbai and I must say all that I have learnt are from the masters in these places.”

Jugal clarifies that dim sums need not always come in a basket nor do they have to be steamed by default, “Dim sum can be baked, fried or even grilled,” sums up Jugal.