The world on your plate

A Japanese meal of umeboshi onigiri (left) and miso nikomi udon

While the pandemic shoved a massive dent into all our travel plans, 22-year-olds Aaron Barboza and Arnav Sheth weren't quite ready to give up on enjoying their favourite cuisines just yet. To satisfy their cravings and create experiences similar to the ones they had before the pandemic, the two Mumbaikars began their Instagram venture Koi. The duo began this venture on the side - Barboza is a business analyst while Sheth works as a strategy and operations analyst. "When we started Koi last year in July, we wanted to recreate the travel experience for people. For Arnav and myself, travel meant exposure to different kinds of cuisines, and that's the experience we would like to bring to people through Koi. Since people didn't have the opportunity to travel during the pandemic, we thought we'd offer the world to them via food," says Barboza.

Aaron Barboza and Arnav Seth

Through their monthly subscription service, the duo has put together several mouth-watering recipes with the structure of a three-course meal - mains, condiments or appetizers, and dessert. These curated recipes offer a glimpse into culinary stylings from countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and Greece, among others. Each meal kit comes with recipes and ingredients for each of three courses, excluding pantry staples like salt, oil, sugar and eggs.

The contents of a meal kit

"The idea was to not pick the most common recipes from each country. When we curated the Thailand box for instance, instead of opting to put their national dish Pad Thai, we chose to put Pad see korat, which is more of a regional dish", reveals Barboza. The two have taken a brief sabbatical to come up with ‘a la carte' options, and are likely to resume business by the end of this month.

"In the past few months, we realised it had become difficult for us to compete with other social activities, as people began to go out more. It wasn't possible to pursue options that come together in an hour or two. So we've adapted to making recipes that are easier and take about half an hour to cook," Sheth says.

Log on to: @cookwithkoi on Instagram