Actor Kal Penn has said that he is hesitant to eating at Indian restaurants. The Indian-origin actor, known for his Harold & Kumar movies, was speaking to Lilly Singh on her talk show.
He said, “It’s very simple, our people lie.” He added that because he has a nut allergy, he informs the staff at every restaurant to ensure that his food doesn’t contain nuts. “Often times, I’ll order Indian food or I’ll go in and talk to the uncle and tell him ‘look, I’m allergic to cashews, almonds, pistachios’ and I’ll say it in three languages and they’ll go ‘yeah, yeah, there’s none of that here’”.
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He continued, “I’ll ask them, ‘can you please go check with the chef’ and they say ‘main chef hoon (I’m the chef)’”. So, Kal said, the food will come out and he’ll take one bite and immediately start choking. He’d ask the uncle what’s in the food, and they’d say the dal has lentils, onions, cashews, tomatoes... “No! Go back! Before the tomatoes. Cashews?” Kal said. “Yeah, but it’s in the paste,” Kal said the uncle would say.
Indians in the comments section had a good laugh at the video. “Yep, we Indians aren’t very honest about the food ingredients. Ask for less spicy and we’ll give you extra hot,” one person wrote. “On behalf of all Indians I can say we all need two necklace chains. 1) The aunties were wrong. 2) The uncles are liars,” another person wrote, making a reference to a necklace that Lilly was wearing in the video.
On a serious note, others wrote that Kal had pointed out a very real problem. “I’m Indian and allergic to nuts and this is the story of my life! So glad you addressed this as it really is a problem with our people, and I’ve nearly died because of this,” one person wrote. “Many Indians believe allergy is a propaganda. One of them is my friend. You’d be lactose intolerant and choking on milk but he will think its all in your brain,” wrote another.
Lilly and Kal also spoke about how the entertainment industry has progressed in recent years, that two Indian-origin persons could share the stage at a major network talk show. Lilly became the first woman to get her own late night show. Another Indian-origin actor-writer, Mindy Kaling, was her first guest.