I don't think I've seen quite so many trite clichés of food based rom coms packed into a single movie, or at least noticed them so badly. They've got a decent case against the 2014 movie Chef http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2883512/reference which pretty much stole the vibe of this movie on the food side of things. The Cliché family aspects we've seen so many times, the formulaic food as art tropes, standard rom com touchstones, they're all here exactly as they have been in many other movies before and obviously after (see aforementioned Chef 2014). They were just so damn strong in this film, overpowering, overwhelming to the point of it making me feel irritable and uncomfortable. The only saving graces here were the original Indian soundtrack and some of the Indian culture insights, which did go deeper than standard Hollywood tokenism. The production values as far as cinematography and sound were fine, just the tired and pilfered template they pasted it all over was a waste of everyone's time. I wanted it to be over round about when it started.

This is a very good movie, although I do not understand why it is rated R. What I liked in this movie is that he shown himself to become a better chef through his culture. Towards the ending, I liked how his parents accepted his own sous chef because usually many Indian parents do not allow out of culture/race relationship with the opposite gender. I find this movie to be very inspirational because he has started off as a good chef, then things turned down with his job, fathers restaurant, parents relationship, and what else is troublesome, but he turned into a great business man, and made his fathers restaurant better. I would like to know what happens towards the end, because I want to find out if he got married and had more kids with his love.

Over the years, I have noticed that most cooking movies are really great entertainment. "Babette's Feast", "Big Night" and "Bella Martha" are a few great cooking films I have seen and so I was looking forward to seeing "Today's Special". Fortunately, my expectations were met. While not quite in the same league as these three films, it was very close--and a film I can heartily recommend.Aasif Mandva plays Samir--an Indian-American who is classically trained and has dreams of going to France to further his culinary education. Unfortunately, just before he leaves, his father has a heart attack and Samir is forced to stay and run his family's horrible Indian restaurant. I say horrible because the place is filthy, the chef is a filthy pig and the food is wretched. Truly Samir has his work cut out for him--particularly because he knows nothing about Indian cooking. By chance, he happens to meet a cabbie who claims he knows how to cook well and Samir hires him to work in the restaurant. What's next? See the film as there is so much more to the movie--such as Samir's very problematic relationship with his father, Samir's pathetic dating life and his father's plans to sell the restaurant! Why did I like this film? Well, it had a wonderful ensemble cast. So many of the supporting characters were very cute and likable. Additionally, Naseeruddin Shah did a lovely job as the cabbie cook--which was a very important foundation for the film. Well worth seeing, a bit funny and with a lot of heart.Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, another wonderful film about cooking is "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman". If you can think of any others let me know--I am always in the mood for a good food film.

This is a heartfelt, amusing film starring Aasif Mandvi, mostly known for his work as a Daily Show correspondent. It's not quite as funny as I expected from a comedian of his caliber; not because he tried and failed, but because it's more of a quirky story of a personal journey. But there were definitely a good number of lines that were so funny I had to repeat them out loud to myself. It's a bit slow in the beginning (could have used some tighter editing), but give it some time to build. Naseeruddin Shah is magic, as always. If you know his work, nothing more needs to be said. If not, watch this and enjoy. (And I gotta say, I think he looks damn good for his age!) It is not a coincidence that the song Akbar (Shah) is listening to when Samir (Mandvi) first meets him is from a classic Hindi film in which the character says that although all his clothes come from other countries, his heart is still Indian. Samir has tried to cut himself off from Indian traditions, even while his parents are attempting to shove them down his throat; the more they push, the more he pulls away, and vise versa. Throughout the film, with help from unexpected places, he learns to reconcile his western life with his heritage, and appreciate where he came from.