A tempest in a rice bowl

A tempest in a rice bowl
Pair of restaurants in mall food court battle over who can sell what
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PROVIDENCE - Chinese food has been served with rice for centuries. So has Indian food. It only feels as though the rice war between two adjacent restaurants in the Providence Place mall's food court has gone on that long.

Cathay Cathay and Gourmet India are fighting over the right to serve the staple of each native cuisine. Start with one businessman's willingness to pay dearly to avoid competition, mix in the other's insistence on preserving his own culinary tradition, and add a decision by the Rhode Island Supreme Court to keep the pot boiling for almost four years with hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

On one side is Cathay Cathay, whose owner, David Chu, pays extra rent for the exclusive right to sell white rice in the food court. On the other side is Gourmet India, whose owner, Yogi Sood, negotiated a lease allowing him to serve basmati rice. Chu sued. Sood won. Last month the high court ordered a new trial, saying the lower court judge did not adequately address whether Sood's lease improperly interferes with Chu's contract.

What Sood calls the "must ingredient" of Indian food, Chu labels "the backbone" of Chinese cooking. Let Gourmet India offer only brown basmati rice, Chu says, and he'd gladly drop the matter. "Only 5 percent of people in this country eat brown rice," Chu said.

Gourmet India, meanwhile, adds yellow food coloring to its basmati rice to mask its whiteness. In four other mall food courts, Gourmet India's imported aromatic grains go their natural white, laced with strands of golden saffron.

When Chu opened here in 2001 he wanted more protection than the guarantee of being the mall's only Chinese restaurant. "You have to know the history," said Cathay attorney John J. DeSimone. Earlier experiences in other malls, Chu recalls, where Cajun booths served boneless spare ribs, chicken wings, and white rice, left a bitter taste. So Chu drew up a list of 19 foods, including white rice, that only he could sell.

"We're paying a lot of money for the rent. We're the most expensive lease," said Chu, 52, who also owns the Cathay Pacific restaurant in Quincy. "We don't want competition."

When Gourmet India opened here in 2005, Sood made sure his lease with the mall specified he could serve basmati rice. "Without basmati rice I would not have signed. We wanted to make sure there was no conflict," said Sood, 59. "There's not an Indian restau rant that can survive without rice."

Armed with his list, Chu sued both Gourmet India and Japan Cafe. Armed with his own lease, Sood fought back, and in 2006 Superior Court Judge Stephen J. Fortunato Jr. dismissed the case against Gourmet India.

Now the state's high court wants a new trial on the propriety of Sood's lease. Fortunato ruled against Japan Cafe, which sold white rice and a chicken dish Chu said resembled General Gau's chicken, and noodles he contended were similar to lo mein. While Japan Cafe has left the Providence food court, Cathay Cathay continues to pay a premium for the exclusive right to sell certain dishes - $35,000 a month, says Chu, compared to the $14,000 Sood says the mall charges Gourmet India.


A recent lunchtime found customers lined as many as 10 deep at Cathay Cathay, waiting for Chinese steak and peppers or orange chicken on pork fried rice or steamed white rice or lo mein noodles. Next door, at Gourmet India, a sporadic stream of diners ordered ghobi mutter or saag paneer or chicken tikka Masala served with basmati rice or bread baked in a tandoor oven.

Nancy Lovett, 55, a teacher from Warwick, enjoys both Indian and Chinese food, but this time she settled on pot stickers and chicken with broccoli on pork fried rice from Cathay Cathay. "It's good rice," she said. "It's moist. I don't know what else to say. Rice is rice." What about basmati rice? "It's a little drier. And I like the flavor of saffron." Would she confuse the two? "I don't think so."

Joanne Blatte, 40, ate chicken tikka and basmati rice from Gourmet India with her three children. The rice is her 5-year-old daughter's favorite food. "It's chewy," Blatte said. "She has it in her head that Indian rice is different."

Providence Place declined to comment, but Sood's lawyer R. Bart Totten says the mall has paid his client's legal bills. "The mall promised Gourmet India it could serve basmati rice," he explained.

The food court is also home to Taco Bell, which serves side dishes of Mexican-style white rice. Yet Chu, who also wants to recover legal fees that he says exceed $250,000, never took aim at that chain. The difference, he says, comes in Gourmet India's proximity to Cathay Cathay and its menu of Asian food served with white rice.

"Sometimes it's not the money. It's the principle," Chu said. "We have it in black and white in the contract."