the most panipuris. dj zee, you ve got some music ready? on the count of three. one, two, one, two, three, four! 30 seconds. most panipuris in 30 seconds. come on! eat the puris. i m gonna give you 30 more seconds, cause i think you guys are a little slow. ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! [ cheers ] out of 20, you got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7! 20 minus 7! crowd: 13! sunil: she is the winner! anthony: wow! [ cheers and applause ] sunil: i find houston to be probably the most accepting place for me. anthony: right. sunil: i love it here. i love, i love, i love being indian in houston. it s not one of those towns that you say, oh, i wanna live in houston. but once you come here, once you live here, you don t want to move out of here. you know, i always consider
wrong. texas, houston in particular, is a very different place than you might imagine from the stereotypes and the sound bites of its national political figures. immigrants, refugees, and non-white americans have, in fact, been transforming the city, the food and culture of houston for years. welcome to america, people. just another day at the supermarket, a sleepy strip mall on houston s hillcroft avenue. keemat grocers, serving the community since 1994. today, they re hosting a quiet, low-key affair. sunil: good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! how are we doing today? [ cheers ] we re here in little india in keemat grocers, and i think this is the best little india in all
move like this. move like this. yeah! anthony: how old were you when you moved here? sunil: i was 17 when i came here. anthony: wow. sunil: and growing up, i wanted to be a bollywood star. i wanted to be a movie star, but my mom didn t want to do anything with this whole movie business. anthony: right. sunil: when i came here, something about this country, something about the openness got me kind of doing what i wanted to do. and i said, i always wanted to be an entertainer. i always wanted to be a comedian. and radio was perfect for me to bring bollywood in people s cars. houston s got the biggest drive time. anthony: so people listen to the radio here. sunil: i couldn t do this back home. but here, you get a chance to just be a new you. you can just be a new person. you know, they say, oh, hindus reincarnate thousands of times. i feel like i reincarnated live when i came here. anthony: an intensely aromatic biryani. goat marinated in yogurt, garlic and ginger,
anise. green curry chicken done texas desi-style with a blend of tomatillos and green chilies, cilantro and cumin. steak tikka, and hunter s beef, sort of an indian-inflected pastrami, an invention of the chefs. brined for ten days, cooked and served with homemade mustard sauce. what about your kids? do they feel american, or do they feel indian, or do they feel indian-american? sunil: so they are definitely indian-american. you know? they eat indian food. anthony: right. sunil: but if you give my son an option, he wants to go to taco bell. they speak gujarati, they like bollywood dancing, but yet they re not as indian as i am. i want my kids, and i want all of the kids to come in and feel that these are our traditions that we ve gotta continue. we got a panipuri eating contest coming up. who can tell me what a panipuri is? akshay: it s like a little dumpling, and it has a hole in it and filled with potatoes and chickpeas, and then it has a spicy sunil: all right, on the co
bangladeshis, very few nepalese. anthony: so, 200,000 and rising quick. sunil: yeah. anthony: sunil thakkcar is an owner of masala radio, 1320 on your a.m. dial. himalaya is a beloved indian pakistani restaurant run by karachi native kaiser lashkari. sunil: so, the food here is amazing. it s like indian and pakistani mixed together. anthony: right, now how does that work? because over there, the relation s not so friendly. uh, here does everybody is it all peace and love? sunil: yeah, you know, there is no boundaries here. now you see so many homes, new homes, new subdivisions, and people just buy them up, and on my street, 18 homes, 12 out of them are from other countries. india, pakistan, malaysia, indonesia, and once you live together, it just sort of you just become family. how many brown people here? [ cheers ] any non-indians? i wanna see non-indians. do we have any non-indians? [ cheers ] what i m gonna do is i m gonna see how good this asian guy can do a bollywo