New Delhi, Dec. 27 -- Many of the Mangalorean seafood joints that are fixtures on restaurant guides came up in the 1970s. The stories of the restaurant owners are similar to those of the early Kanara migrants who set up eating establishments in Bombay more than thirty years prior. They too were teenage boys when they arrived in the city where they worked in low-paying jobs, slept in restaurants or offices or in cramped rooms with other single men, got an education in a night school, and where they sweated it up the food chain.

Harishchandra Shetty runs Jai Hind Lunch Home, a chain of six eateries in the city. Ask seafood connoisseurs to rank the crispest bombil fries in the city and Jai Hind is sure to figure on the list. The restaurant ...