Dosas for my father

The story behind savoury pancakes at Christchurch’s newest food market symbolises the spirit of hope and reinvention in the Garden City, writes Sue Hoffart.

In a village in southern India, an impoverished rice and cotton grower eagerly awaits an online video call from his only child in faraway Christchurch. When the daily call comes, the almost-blind farmer can just make out the shape of his son’s face, thanks to eye surgery funded by a Canterbury food stall.

The son is Venu Jarugula, a mechanical engineer turned cook who works 15 hours a day, seven days a week, on his tiny, flourishing Dosa Kitchen business inside the Riverside Market culinary hub that opened recently in central Christchurch.

Every dosa – a version of the crisp, oversized, savoury pancake his mother regularly makes back home – is created with exquisite care and the knowledge that business success for him may deliver better sight for his father.

‘‘If there is a chance, I would like to replace his eyes, that’s my dream,’’ Jarugula says.

So the 28-year-old immigrant begins each day soaking then grinding rice and lentils that are left to naturally ferment for up to 10 hours. This mix forms the basis of a batter that must be exactly the right consistency to swirl on to the hotplate.

‘‘I have to concentrate, to get the right heat, to only go one way to spread the batter, check the air bubbles. I want each and every dosa to be done right. It must be thin and crisp, nice and golden brown colour, with that tang.’’

If you’re seeking a symbol of reinvention, excitement and hope in this rejuvenating city, Jarugula is as good as any. Having arrived in Christchurch in 2015 with his non-transferable engineering degree, he had no friends and no contacts beyond the name of the business school where he had enrolled, not even basic spoken English. But he’d heard rebuild jobs were plentiful and was determined to repay his student loan and create prosperity for himself and his parents.

Dosa, he decided, was the key. After months of experimentation and online research, having quizzed his mother and restaurateurs in India, he developed a recipe of his own and started selling at markets around the area. Fans returned every week and he continued to fall for his adopted city.

‘‘I can’t leave Christchurch, even to go to another place in New Zealand. I find it beautiful, a really peaceful place. The botanic gardens... you can see the mountains from the city... it’s just really cool.’’

When Riverside Market developers approached him, he leaped at the idea of joining about 70 independent makers and bakers, brewers, growers and other food vendors inside the purpose-built Oxford Terrace premises. Within weeks of its October 5 opening date, hopeful projections of 10,000 visitors a day were obliterated by head counts of up to 25,000 on busy weekend days.

‘‘We are much more busy than we thought, it’s crazy. We always sold out.’’

Someday, he may open a larger restaurant to provide employment for other immigrants like himself and Sri Lankan-born wife Thili, who is a recently graduated accountant.

For now, he is content to stay put.

‘‘This is one of the best decisions I ever took in my life, to be at this market. There is really good support, it’s really friendly people, it’s a wonderful community. And we need this kind of place in Christchurch.’’

The dosa-maker is right. The Oxford St market is the latest in a rapidly evolving clutch of dining and shopping precincts that are collectively bringing crowds back to a central city previously gutted by earthquakes and tragedy, demolition and a lengthy construction period. Food vendors like Jarugula not only motivate locals to venture back downtown, they’re also providing visitors with tasty reasons to venture into the city.

This year, tourism income surpassed pre-quake levels for the first time; domestic and international visitors spent $2.5 billion in Christchurch in the year ending September 2019.

‘‘There’s no doubt tourism is a rockstar contributor to the local economy, that it’s essential to sustain the city’s ongoing recovery,’’ ChristchurchNZ destination development manager Anton Wilkes says. ‘‘Last summer, people started returning downtown in decent numbers. Now, it’s next level.’’

Restaurateur Lisa Levy agrees the downtown area is far more vibrant and less fragmented than when she and husband Simon established their respected eatery Inati in 2017.

Levy, who heads the region’s restaurant association, says more tourists are staying in Christchurch longer because there is more for them to do.

‘‘It’s good for all our businesses, to see the city come alive again. I love being a part of it. What modern day city gets a chance to reinvent itself?’’

Perception is still a problem though. According to Wilkes, plenty of potential tourists continue to picture rubble rather than reality.

‘‘Local people understand we have a new city, with new spaces and new energy,’’ he says.

‘‘But people from outside Canterbury often don’t understand how far we’ve come, that there’s a real sense of excitement here.’’

It is certainly fascinating to roam freshly paved streets that are wide and flat and friendly to both pedestrians and cyclists, to discover what’s developing in and around the gleaming glass or repurposed brick and timber buildings.

Art is everywhere; murals on roller doors down back alleys, poetry painted on fence posts, sculpture to clamber over. The buskers are back, too, offering entertainment and an informal barometer suggesting crowds have now reached critical mass. Some clever planners have thought to scatter public drinking fountains in useful places while the children of Christchurch designed the nation’s biggest and arguably best playground alongside the Avon River.