The "Metric" for Good food

Metric is usually a parameter that gauges the authenticity and decides the quality of the product under test. Clarity and carats are metrics that determine the beauty of a diamond while box office earnings are metric to the success of a movie. Watching the show "Master Chef" on Fox last night made me wonder, is there a metric to good food. Follow the McDonald principal you could say the metric of food was getting the same crispy taste in a french fry in any corner of the world. But come on, that's not a metric, that's a gimmick. It just lets people know that we are your last resort to eating "known" food. In a land where you cant find the food of your choice, you can always buy a burger and fries and you will get the same boring taste that you are so well used to. This, rather than being a downside for not creating rich recipe ideas in different parts of the world became a marketing bonus for McDonald.
 I am talking about a real metric, which you can actually use to gauge the quality of the food that you can eat at a restaurant. Italians have risottos, Mexicans have chalupas, and Chinese have lo-mein, dishes that cannot be screwed up but can when made well describe the quality of the food you might expect at that restaurant. I kept wondering what could be considered a metric for Desi food. Tomato soup, Samosas, chai is no longer pure Desi. You get Tomato soup at Sweet tomatoes, Samosas at nepali and burmese resturants, and don't even get me started on Chai. So what could be the true metric. Say you walk into a newly opened restaurant round the corner and they ask you to judge the quality of their food, which is the single most dish that you could use as a metric for reviewing their food ?
Being a Physicist, and a Scientist to the core, according to me the best metric is a parameter that is not too complicated. A single unknown with finite variables is the best way to solve an equation. A "RoganJosh" or a "Do-Piaza" sure can tell you if the food is good, but that is way too complicated a dish to gauge the grass root food levels of the food joint. Plus it is a fancy food-for-class dish that may not please every pallet. A metric needs to be something simple but something strong, something that will put its foot down and say this place rules. All of us have been in this situation where when forced to go to a new place to eat always think, gosh, I wish I knew the best dish at this place. We so wish we had a metric that once proven gives us full confidence in the taste of most dishes at that place.

I believe that metric is "Tandoori Chicken". That's right, a simple tandoor grilled chicken. Mathematically, this dish has but 4 variables - marination, time for marination, tandoor and time in the tandoor. We will not go into the subset variable list of the marination - not because it nullifies my theory, but because anything messed up in that will fail the first variable "The marination". A place that can give you a good Tandoori chicken according to me passes the "Quality test" and gains my confidence on the ability of the chef to serve me good food. Ok, now for any metric you first need a baseline. Baselines vary with individuals, for some it is their mother's tandoor, for some the local chulla around the corner. For me the baseline is Tandoori chicken at the "Shere Punjab Restaurant" near Maninagar Railway station in Ahmedabad. I grew up (literally grew) eating Butter Chicken and Tandoori Chicken at Shere Punjab, A Sardar run restaurant that is the epitome of taste defines the baseline for my metric "The Tandoori chicken". A perfectly made Tandoori speaks to you. The perfect red glaze with hints of black where the Tandoor held it entices the eye to its beauty. Squeeze a full juicy piece of lemon on it and watch the  lines of lime running over its surface like a free style ice skater.
I use my metric at any new restaurant that i first step my foot into. So far, the metric has qualified the "Clay Pit" restaurant at Dallas, the "Shalimar" at Fremont, "The Handi" at Clark Quay Singapore, the "d'Tandoor" at Kuala lumpur and some more. I am recently trying to qualify "The Chutney" restaurant at Fremont. I realized that the metric taste varies with day and time. This restaurant has an open kitchen and the Tandoor is visible from the table. The taste is near perfect and qualifies on a week day but nearly fails to comply on a weekend. This can be clearly explained from my equation with 4 variables mentioned before. On a weekday, the same marination and same Tandoor are used (2 of the 4 variables become constants), but because of the higher demands on the weekend, the "Marination time and Tandoor Time" variables are reduced. This directly impacts the quality. The metric equation thus holds true. The days with good Tandoori usually has a perfect overall menu.

Tandoori chicken thus according to me becomes the metric to qualify a good Desi restaurant. Go try it out. See whether the restaurant you eat at so lovingly qualifies this metric. You can use my baseline or use any of my qualified restaurants as baseline. As i said there are some more that qualify, so who knows I may have a baseline close to you - just Ask.