From physician to food entrepreneur: Meet Tarun Bhalla, cofounder of Meal Mantra

Boston Globe

a day ago

Food is a family tradition. Anu's grandfather, chef Kundan Lal Gujral, pioneered tandoori cuisine. He's credited with creating butter chicken and chicken tikka masala at his restaurant Moti Mahal, a landmark in Delhi. Someday, the couple aim to open a similar chain of Indian restaurants, building off their sauces and family recipes.
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How did you get into the food business?
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We leaned toward where our heart and passion were. And, also, we had a wonderful legacy in our family. I was an internal medical doctor in India, and we went down the entrepreneurial path in India as well. We started a pharmaceutical manufacturing operation that we ran for 20 years.
What brought you to this country?
We moved to the US rather late in our lives. We were both about to turn 50. Without a job in hand, nobody really makes that move — but we always felt that the US had something that we might want our children to grow up with. For us, the decision to move wasn't one of career or finances. We were doing quite well in our lives in India. It might sound just crazy to you, but it might not. As the years piled on, we found that strength to embark on another adventure. So far, we've been very happy with that choice.
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This sounds like a huge switch, culturally and professionally.
It was an idea that was germinating for a few years. When I was a kid in India, physicians would advise on lifestyle changes. When you went in with a chronic disease or something, they would delve a little deeper into your history, ask questions, and offer a few suggestions, which doesn't happen now.
We felt that everything cannot be treated with a pill. Our food affects our moods, our health, our bodies. We wanted to be very deliberate. We were runners in our previous life; I'm sorry to admit we kind of let ourselves go after this move into the US. We did marathons and things, but that part of our life got neglected with the pressures of moving.
But diet was something we celebrated. India has a slower-moving pace. With family, you often like to eat and celebrate together. Food is always a wonderful part of it.
When we moved to the US, our intent was to start a restaurant.
We'd often traveled to the US earlier before we made the move. My brother is an oncologist here. We'd visit him, and we always felt that every other cuisine is very well-represented by a chain of consistent restaurants.
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But, with Indian restaurants, you never find that. In fact, it's sad to say that you might have the most wonderful meal today at an Indian restaurant, and you go back a week later, and it just doesn't feel the same.
Anu's family has a chain of restaurants in India. Here, one of the primary challenges is finding chefs. Indian cuisine is very intricate, in the play of spices and balance of flavors. Chefs often change. It's hard to have consistency. With the sauces, we really wanted to put in the back end of our business correctly before we took on the challenge of [opening].
How did you get underway here in the US?
When we moved here, we got talking to people, and one thing led to another. We found that there were commissaries and shared kitchens where we could test our recipes. Believe me: It took many, many months before that, in our home, where we tried to work on recipes that we could then scale up.
This is where my prior experience with my pharmaceutical background helped. We became very good at operations.
I'm a methodical person, and my wife is totally differently abled than me. She's the creative one.
What was your first impression of Boston?
I have a lot to say. In retrospect, we're so glad we chose Boston. For us, it was just [throwing] darts on a board. We didn't have any connections to Boston when we chose it. But my wife was very keen that we go to a place with good schools, since our son was still in school. It was kind of a global city where we could set up and hope for an Indian food business to find success.
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We're so glad we made that choice. We've not felt out of place for a day. It seems we've lived here all our lives. We've just been very fortunate and lucky.
Was the Boston Public Library your first public venue? Where else can we find your food now?
It was the first. It was an experiment for us. I'm so grateful for whatever conspired. We had such a wonderful experience and success. We're still receiving letters — emails, really — from the staff at The Catered Affair saying what a wonderful success it was, that they're still hearing from people who visited during our takeover and wondering where we are.
Now, we're at Whole Foods and local farms: Pemberton Farms and Volante and others. Boston Public Library was our first public-facing venue, but our sauces are served at Boston College and, of late, at the Boston Public Schools.
We're looking for our next opportunity. We'd like to team with other people and maybe achieve that dream of opening a chain of restaurants. We can't do it by ourselves, but we've proved our concept with this takeover: We'd often run out of food.
You know, you can get paid $800 or $900, on a good day. Maybe you don't make that. But what you make is far greater because people stop by. They take the time to call you to their table. They talk to you about the food. There was a couple who were celebrating an anniversary at the library, and they called for us from the kitchen to say what a wonderful meal they had and how memorable it was for them. It's kindness that sustains you far more than money can, and we'll carry it in our hearts.
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How do you describe your food?
We're bad at getting the word out. But, you know, it's our sauces: Some sauces have ingredients as starch. We don't use that, and neither would you, if you were an Indian cooking in your own kitchen. They're just to make commercial products.
Our sauces are made with real ingredients. There are no artificial ingredients. They have a signature taste. People write to us who have used them, and it's so gratifying to hear from them.
Our best-selling sauce is the tikka masala, which is essentially something my [wife's grandfather] invented. If you Google his name, you'll find him mentioned, even though he died many years before the internet.
He started a restaurant [Moti Mahal] 100 years back. There are more than 200 of them globally; so far, none in the US. There are knockoffs, because nobody thought of trademarking the name of the restaurant.
In fact, there's a wonderful story. Soon after independence, the Shah of Iran visited India. On his visit, he was told by the education minister who took him around: 'While in India, you have to make two visits. One is the Taj Mahal. The other is Moti Mahal.'
It was just comfort food and good food, and at that time, there used to be entertainment and live performances.
Where do you eat when you're not working?
We love Thai. Our current favorite is a Thai restaurant in Brookline called
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Do you ever use your medical experience in your cooking?
Yes, in the sense that I'm very conversant with a lot of chemicals, which we used to use in pharmaceuticals. Sometimes, I'll tell my family not to consume too many over-the-counter medicines, when you know all the chemicals that have gone into it.
When it came to deciding on the acid we use for our sauces, you have to have a certain pH for it to be shelf stable. We chose an acid, glucono-delta-lactone, which is non-GMO, plant-derived, found in honey, fruits, and other fermented products. Our sauces are really deliberate in that respect; it's a very mild acid that gets converted to sugar — a glucose precursor that's very nice.
Your food is healthy. It's good for you.
It is, I'm proud to say, with a little care and love.
What's one snack that you can't live without?
Food I'll never eat? I'm not sure. I'm happy to experiment. When I was a kid, for example, I never ate eggplant. I love it now. Our tastes evolve over time. If there's a food I don't like, maybe give it time, and I'll like it.
What do you snack on?
I snack on a lot of nuts every day: Trader Joe's toasted, unsalted almonds.
Interview was edited and condensed.
Kara Baskin can be reached at