Indian food has become so Instagram-able that many diners spend more time taking pictures.

Walk into any Indian restaurant today and you will definitely spot a table or two of diners taking much needed pictures of their food for the first five to ten minutes and then only taking a taste and enjoying the rest of their meal.

This is why more and more Indian restaurants in the city are concentrating their efforts on presentation and décor and less on real taste. Yes, some Indian restaurants are trading colour for taste.

While the rest of us who want a truly taste experience are finding it more difficult to have a proper Indian meal with the traditional drab brown and milky colours, the Instagram Indian food consumer prefers their meal to be colourful with green, red, yellow and more to get the best splash of colour from the smartphone camera software.

Meanwhile it is good to know that real authentic Indian cuisine dates back over 5000 years. Each region of India has its own traditions, religions and culture that influence its food.

Hindus tend to be vegetarian and Muslims tend to have meat dishes, although pork is always forbidden in all restaurants unless stated in advance. Indian food has been influenced by Mongolian, Persian and Chinese cuisine, among others.

For Malaysia, Indian food arrived some time in the 15^th century when Malacca was the the prime trading post for a variety of goods including spices as it was geographically located right along the ancient spice route.

Indian Muslim food was the first taste that took place in Malaya and then we had the arrival of Chettinad cuisine which was heavier spiced meat dishes which expanded across the country fast.

Before the British colony arrived in Malaya, there were some Indian migrations. However, with the British colony came a large migration of Indian labour, both educated and also less educated to develop plantations and work on construction projects. Then there was the need to handle the many administrative jobs for the developing government channels.

Today, Indian food of various types and from nearly all the regions of India can be found in Klang Valley and even in all cities and towns as the Indian population took their roots at every corner of the Malay Peninsula.

The many other races in Malaysia have come to enjoy the food in all its colour and taste with the whole range of pricing options from one star restaurants to five-star dining establishments that have Instagram accounts all hot and spicy.

(Main Image: Alberta Studios/Pexels)