BUSINESS
tabla! June 28, 2013 Page 8
biz matters: Reena Pushkarna (chef and restaurateur) JAMUNA SUNDARAJ
P
ATRONS at the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean vegetarian bistro Pita Pan, located on Level 1 of Marina Bay Sands (MBS) are greeted by a large poster of chef and restaurateur Reena Pushkarna (right) in her chef’s kit. “It’s like Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken,” jokes the 53-year-old. The poster was put up by her Singapore-based son, Kunal, who runs the now 11/2-year-old bistro. Soon, a similar poster will also adorn a wall at Pita Pan’s second outlet at Marina Square, set to open in July. “It’s to remind my children that I’m always with them,” says Mrs Pushkarna, who is based in Israel. But before we could get further with the interview, she brings out a plate of pita breads and dips. “Eat, you must eat. Feeding people is what I love,” she says. It is with this hospitality that Mrs Pushkarna, an Indian Israeli, runs her food business – one that she started almost three decades ago in Israel where she is affectionately known as the country’s curry queen. She was born in New Delhi to a Sikh Punjabi father and a Jewish Iraqi mother. She grew up in Mumbai and at 16, she was married off to Mr Vinod Pushkarna, who was a captain in the merchant navy. “For nine years, we were mostly out at sea. Being the only woman on board, there was nothing much I could do and I found a warm place for myself and that was the kitchen,” says Mrs Pushkarna. The kitchen became her culinary school. There, she learnt the tricks of the trade from various chefs of other nationalities. She picked up skills to whip up cuisines that include Japanese, Indonesian, European and Mexican. The Pushkarnas left the sea life once their two children, Kunal and his older sister Sarina, were of school-going age. During one of his voyages, Mr Pushkarna fell in love with Israel and on his mother-in-law’s encouragement the young family moved to Israel to try out a food business there in 1983. But it was a bumpy start for the couple, who opened their first restaurant in Tel Aviv. It was called Ichikidana – the name was taken from the soundtrack of Raj Kapoor’s 1955 Bollywood classic Shree 420. “Israelis love meat and my restaurant served vegetarian samosas and pakoras. So it didn’t work and we had to shut it down after a year,” Mrs Pushkarna recalls. Unfazed she tried again with her husband’s full support and opened a non-vegetarian restaurant called Tandoori that had all the right ingredients to be a success. Soon enough, Tandoori became a chain of restaurants in Israel. “My husband’s the brains behind the business,” she adds.
More malls in Bangalore
Israel’s curry queen The Indian national is set to open second restaurant here
biz notes
THERE are now 25 shopping malls in India’s IT city. But their numbers are set to more than double in the coming months. The Deccan Herald newspaper quoting sources in the industry reported that 31 new malls will come up in Bangalore. Almost all major builders such as Prestige, Puravankara and Sobha have drawn up plans to establish such commercial spaces, it said.
SEBI eases foreign investment rules THE Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) announced an overhaul in rules related to foreign investments on June 25. Overseas investors will be merged into a new investor class to be termed Foreign Portfolio Investors. The three existing categories are Foreign Institutional Investors, Sub-Accounts and Qualified Foreign Investors. Portfolio investments is defined as investment by any single investor or investor group, which shall not exceed 10 per cent of the equity of an Indian company. Investments beyond 10 per cent shall be considered
At its peak the Tandoori chain had seven restaurants but according to Mrs Pushkarna, due to the Israeli government clamping down on foreign workers, that number stands at four today. One of them is a kosher restaurant in Jerusalem – the world’s first kosher Indian restaurant. The Tandoori chain is popular not only among the Indian Israeli community but also among the locals and some of its regulars include bigwigs in the Israeli government. In the early 1990s, then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin had met Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Mrs Pushkarna’s restaurant in Tel Aviv for peace talks. However, sustaining a food business isn’t easy, Mrs Pushkarna admits, and this is why she helps her son out as often as she can. Kunal graduated from a culinary school in Switzerland and helped out in her restaurant in Tel Aviv. He then wanted to venture out on his own. By then her daughter had already settled in Singapore and is currently working with the MBS communications team. “I told him to go be with his sister and do something in Singapore,” she explains and says that the growing health consciousness among the urban population was the main reason for Pita Pan to be vegetarian. She travels to Singapore three or four times a year to keep abreast of the restaurant’s happenings as well as to spend time with her children and her twin granddaughters. At Pita Pan, she helps out with recipes and the training of the chefs to ensure quality in taste and authenticity of the food. She even sends herbs and other ingredients from the Middle East regularly. “The olives are from Syria, the olive oil is from Israel, the herbs come from Jordan,” she says. “People will come back to your restaurant and even recommend it only when your food is good and your service is perfect. In this business, you need to love people and be friendly,” she adds. On top of running her restaurants in Israel and making regular trips to Singapore and India (she still holds on to her Indian passport), Mrs Pushkarna has also hosted a cooking show on Israel’s local channel and taught Indian cuisine to viewers in Hebrew and Arabic (she also speaks Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi and Gujarati). Despite the popularity, she is not one with royal airs about her. “When you start to think you’re too big, that’s when you fall. I tell my children to always leave their egos at home,” says Mrs Pushkarna. Her humility and hospitality were evident throughout the interview. She got up from her seat a few times to help the staff out at the salad bar and clean the plates. She flitted from one table to the next and called out cheery greetings to patrons who walked in. At one point, she looks at me apologetically and says: “You know, you don’t need to write about me. I’m just a mother helping her child.” ➥ jamunas@sph.com.sg
as Foreign Direct Investment.
Satyam is now memory ON JUNE 25, the Mahindra group dropped the Satyam name in Mahindra Satyam. The company, after its merger with the parent group, will now be known as Tech Mahindra. The Mahindras had taken over the Hyderabad-based Satyam Computers after its founder admitted to scams some four years ago. With the merger complete, Tech Mahindra is slated to be the fifth largest IT company in India, with a workforce of around 85,000.
Railways revise refund rules INDIA’S rail ministry has said that with effect from July 1, passengers will have to present their confirmed tickets at least 48 hours before the journey instead of the existing 24 hours to get the maximum refund. It has also reduced the time for passengers to claim back 75 per cent of the booking amount. They will now need to cancel tickets six hours before departure, instead of four.
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