Going "Home" to Bollywood Tandoor, After Little India Permanently Closed in Cebu City

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It's was sad for me to realize that Little India (Cebu) has permanently closed. So far, the Manila branch has not closed yet. I wrote an article where I explained why vegetarian restaurants tend not to last long in the Philippines. The closure of Kongtiak Restaurant in Quezon City was just one. Little India Cebu City closed (eventually) due to constant losses. I was thinking about it that I usually ate vegetarian food at Bollywood Tandoor (which served meat) while I soon got into Little India (read my review here), to eat their delicious vegetarian foods. However, things changed when they started to stop having dine-ins closed altogether. 

I thought about the comparison between Little India Cebu City (closed), and Bollywood Tandoor. I looked into the fact that Bollywood Tandoor is very mainstream. Little India Healthy Cuisine is hard to market, especially when several Cebuanos may not be that health-conscious. Little India Cebu City was a vegetarian option, as they allowed meat eaters to try the alternative, and didn't require people to go vegetarian. Going to Bollywood Tandoor also meant a huge change in business model. Before, the interiors of Bollywood Tandoor felt more like a Hindu/Buddhist temple. However, the post-pandemic Bollywood Tandoor lived up to its name, Bollywood! Little India Cebu City remained in the Buddhist temple type of design. 

Bollywood Tandoor Facebook Page

Here's a photo of the more recent Bollywood Tandoor interior design. The older interior of the dining area felt "more serene" at first. However, by going more "Full Bollywood", it certainly attracted not just curiosity but also more customers. Old-time customers came back for some newer meals, the menu gets modified every now and then, and it serves a wider customer range. As a non-vegetarian who eats vegetarian meals, Bollywood has given me more options than Little India Cebu City. I enjoyed Little India Cebu City's vegetarian meals. I enjoyed the vegetarian stuff they had. However, Bollywood Tandoor's ever-growing model was just hard to beat. Little India Cebu City's primary market, the vegetarians, are harder to find. Meat eaters were often a secondary market. 

As I went back to Bollywood, I started eating more of their meals, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. I could eat a vegetarian meal on one go and a meat dish on the next. In fact, it was their older, now closed, restaurant, Mr. India, that got me into the Indian food craze. Mr. India was too small to accomodate the success that Mr. Soni Vasnani was having. Bollywood Tandoor was soon born and has evolved into a much better model.

I'm back at Bollywood now. It's sad for me that Little India Cebu City had closed, since I was always looking for vegetarian options on certain days. 

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