Canton, an Indo-Chinese restaurant since 1995, reopens post pandemic with chicken rolls and schezwan noodles

Experience the comforting and familiar flavors of Indo-Chinese cuisine at Canton, a Chennai staple since 1995.

What is it about Indo-Chinese food that makes it a celebratory affair across the country? Is it the thick cornstarch gravy full of ginger, garlic, spring onions; doused in red chilli, green chilli, and soy sauce? Is it that the fluffy fried rice bowl is speckled with perfectly diced carrots, beans and cabbage? Is it the family-sized portions that promise a take-away bag at the end of a dinner? Or is it frankly, among the most affordable, easy to replicate, ‘foreign’ meals in India? I have let myself ruminate over these questions several times, while hulking down bowls of spicy schezwan noodles.

There is a deep sense of comfort in knowing that each iteration of the dishes served at famous Indo-Chinese restaurants across the country, will only be marginally different from one another — each full of heightened flavour: salt, sugar, spice. Chilli chicken in Coimbatore is likely to be similar to the chilli chicken in Chandigarh.

It is why I am ebullient when presented with the opportunity to visit Canton, a Chennai staple, since 1995, at its recent reopening. Four years after having shut down during the pandemic, the restaurant resumed operations seven months ago as a cloud kitchen. In March, its founder S Jegadeesan was confident that the restaurant still had a committed audience. “We sent out 800 cards welcoming our most loyal customers over the years and blasted WhatsApp messages to the others in a bid to spread the word about the new place in Teynampet. It’s been pretty full for dinners ever since,” he says. The 64-year-old points to certificates and awards they have accumulated over the years before we sit down to eat the meal. He then tells us the restaurant’s origin story.

“I worked as a field sales officer and did not receive any job satisfaction. I wanted to try something in the restaurant space. Chinese food has the lowest food wastage cost. It’s why I moved in that direction. We opened the doors on January 18, 1995,” he says, nonchalantly. “I eat the sambars and rasams everyday but I do enjoy the fish in onion sauce at the restaurant,” he says.

Over the years, Canton has collected several solid chefs like Pokemon, including the likes of Vikas Rai and Mohan Rai. Though everyone went their own way when the restaurant shut down, Jagadeesan worked on tracking them down from Delhi and Bengaluru before the reopening. They were essential elements in attempting to recreate the glory days.

Now, the two chefs are back to doling out plates of crowd favourites including chicken lollipops, schezwan fried rice, vegetable balls manchurians, and crab in pepper sauce. So much so that old customers have given Jegadeesan hugs for these plates of food.

A hug is perhaps well-deserved. The rice is easy to eat with the manchurian. The lollipop’s crunch is laced with some spice and the dumplings in garlic sauce are full of an old-school half-baked sweetness. Canton’s food delights, and it is a familiar, soothing meal to eat, especially when it ends with fried ice cream, an Indo-Chinese restaurant staple that once fascinated me I was young. How can one fry ice cream?