Tokyo (PTI): In Japan, India is virtually synonymous with 'curry'. Indian food has now got the Japanese hooked and is gradually replacing Chinese and Thai, their other favourites, with hundreds of restaurants mushrooming across its islands and an unprecedented rise in food imports from the country.
In fact, the Japanese are so fascinated with the 'Indian' food that even restaurants owned by Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans display the Indian tricolour and add the prefix 'Indian' to the names of the eateries.
So you have restaurant chains like the Siddique's 'Indian Pakistani', which has over 20 outlets and 'Indian Sri Lankan'.
"The Japanese identify 'Indian' with good and delicious food. If a restaurant serving any South Asian fare does not have the Indian tag, the Japanese will not go to it," says Mohammad Sageer, a chef working for Potahar who came from Islamabad Pakistan eight years ago.
There are others like the Maharaja which has 25 restaurants, Khana (3), Sapla (1), Great India, Bombay, Ali Baba, Jantar Mantar and Agra.
There is also a restaurant named 'Gandhi' in Washington Hotel in Shinzuku that was set up 25 years ago by a Japanese.
Potahar, in Shinzuku, Tokyo, is owned by a Pakistani but the Indian flag hangs outside.
A small eatery with hardly a sitting place for a dozen people, it caters to over 100 people, mostly Japanese, who queue up for "curry and nan" in just two hours during lunch time.
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