Sunil Dembla arrived at his upscale Bangkok home one recent Tuesday evening to find strangers around his dining room table.
So, he kicked off his shoes and began pouring red wine.
The guests were waiting for the famous chicken biryani, fish tikka and prawn curry made by Mr. Dembla’s wife, Anchaal. In the meantime, the couple’s daughters Neha, 18, and Karina, 14, were chatting with the group like seasoned hostesses.
For on this evening, the Demblas’ Phrom Pong home had become a cozy restaurant — with eight paying customers — thanks to a year-old website called PlateCulture.
Think of it as an Airbnb for foodies in parts of Asia: Keen home chefs open their home to interested diners, who pay a per-head fee for a family-style meal.
Guests, who can book solo or as a group, get the home-cooked cuisine and intimacy of a dinner party, without any work. Hosts get a chance to show off their culinary prowess and open up their homes to prospective friends — as Mrs. Dembla puts it, “expand recipe book and social circle at the same time.”
The Mumbai-born Mrs. Dembla’s menu was traditional Indian, with a few Thai twists added in a salute to her adopted home of Bangkok — for example, her aloo tikki potato croquettes were skewered with stems of fresh lemongrass.
“When we have guests, the food is fancier,” says Mr. Dembla, far from annoyed at coming home to a house full of visitors. “Who can complain about that?”
via Website PlateCulture Helps Create Pop-Up Indian Restaurants Across Asia – India Real Time – WSJ.
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