Restaurant Indian Cuisine.

The question was posed to me why so many "restaurant" Indian dishes come from the North. (e.g. tandoori chicken, naan, etc). I couldn't furnish an answer so I decided to do some research. However, this was actually pretty fruitless. I learned that there were many Sikh laborers in the U.S in the early 20th century. Sikhs are from Punjab, an area in North India, so I guessed that this was the reason why there were so many North Indian restaurants. However, this doesn't really explain why this is true in other countries. As it turns out, my theory was correct but for the wrong reasons. My mother explained to me that there is not a great tradition of restaurants in India, and most Indian restaurants are owned by Punjabis. So Punjabis who emigrated from India took their traditions with them, and established new restaurants. Afterwards, I wanted to find an internet source that said something similar, but again, I was fruitless. (Searching for this sort of demographic information is apparently quite difficult).

This is not to say that all Indian restaurants are owned by Punjabis, or even that all dishes in an Indian restaurant owned by Punjabis are North Indian. Partially because exact authenticity is not a concern when not marketing to Indians, many such restaurants feature dishes from all over India, such as idli or dosa. (This is not a criticism, it's not as if they don't have a right to do this, and it is definitely a sound business decision)