Above, Aasif Mandvi has a meal at Thakali Kitchen, the restaurant featured in his movie, Today’s Special
Bright Lights, Big Flavors
Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi cooks up his first feature film in Jackson Heights
Written by Jesse Hirsch, Photographed by Donnelly Marks
IT’S SUMMER OF 2008—Aasif Mandvi and a film crew have spent weeks in a Jackson Heights restaurant, shooting the indie comedy Today’s Special. They’ve reached a crucial scene calling for a turbaned Sikh, but their actor has fallen through. Then someone remembers Bhupinder.
Bhupinder runs a cigarette and candy stand down the street. “We say to him, `Listen, do you want to be in our movie?’” recalls Mandvi, “and Bhupinder goes, `No way, I have to work!’” After some begging and pleading, he eventually relents...but on his own terms. Bhupinder’s scene requires some crying but instead of allowing the crew to put menthol under his eyes (an old Hollywood trick), he insists on channeling his own inner sadness. “The guy was a natural method actor!” Mandvi laughs. “He didn’t want to cheat, and it’s lucky for us. His scene ended up being really great, and real.”
Today’s Special is Bhupinder’s breakout film, but it’s also the first feature Mandvi wrote and starred in. The plot follows Samir, a Manhattan sous-chef with dreams of cooking in Paris. When Samir’s father gets sick, he is forced to take over his family’s Indian restaurant in Queens. It’s not an easy fit. Ambition and Western training cloud his head, and he feels out of place in the borough of his youth. Eventually, through the improvisational rhythms of Indian cuisine, Samir finds his way back home.
Today’s Special is a movie of contrasts—Manhattan versus Queens, East versus West, upscale versus working class—and it reflects Mandvi’s own dichotomies. He was born in Bombay but raised in Europe. He’s a highly successful Daily Show personality but is no stranger to struggle. He lives on the Upper West Side but spent many years in Queens.
Mandvi moved to Long Island City in 1991, burning with the fever that leads so many big-eyed acting hopefuls here. “There were no coffee shops, no museums, no boutiques—just my apartment under the train tracks, with too many roommates and a mattress on the floor. My parents came to visit and were horrified,” he laughs.
Mandvi spent eight years in LIC, struggling to elevate his career beyond regional theater and bit parts on Law & Order. He found himself vying for marginal roles as taxi drivers and deli owners, a common plight for South Asian actors. Then in 1998 Mandvi put on a one-man show called Sakina’s Restaurant, exploring, elevating and subverting these clichés. He calls it Today’s Special’s “launching point,” both for its restaurant setting and its exploration of the immigrant experience.
Mandvi’s own family emigrated from India to Bradford, England, when he was very young. They lived in a working-class neighborhood with a South Asian core. In Today’s Special, the Bradford of his youth is replaced with its US cousin, but the outline remains familiar. Jackson Heights provides a perfect backdrop, highlighting the culinary contrasts between Eastern immigrants and a Western world.
Though Mandvi’s family was not immune to European influence, he grew up with a solid background in free-form Indian cooking. He likens it to jazz or abstract painting, where instincts are more important than rules and training. And like the hero of his movie, Mandvi can have difficulties embracing its flow. “Whenever I want to impress a date with a home-cooked Indian meal, I call my mother for advice,” he admits. “She never uses recipes … she tells me things like, ‘Stick your thumb in until it feels right.’”
Above, Samosa Chat Nepalese Style
At the start of Today’s Special, Samir is hopeless at this native cooking style. At one point he actually orders Indian food from another restaurant to serve his customers. Luckily a wise kitchen tutor (like Mandvi’s mother) teaches him to trust his instincts and cook from the heart.
To prepare for the movie, Mandvi followed a similar culinary path—taking samosa lessons, learning knife skills, and studying how an Indian restaurant is run—but don’t expect him to helm a kitchen anytime soon. “After watching different chefs and learning how they do it, one thing is abundantly clear,” he says. “I do not have what it takes.”
And what of Queens’ great undiscovered acting talent? Mandvi isn’t sure Bhupinder even knows he’s in the movie. “We should probably give him a call…”
Above, Chicken Ghoken with Buckwheat Flour Bread
WHERE TO WATCH
Today’s Special will be available on DVD on May 24.
WHERE TO GO
Thakali Kitchen, 74-14 37th Ave., Jackson Heights, 718-898-5088
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