Chili garlic noodles ($13.99) with chicken (additional $2) features thin noodles, vegetables, onion, garlic and crushed chili peppers. (Karen Chaney/Community Impact)
The menu at Red Hot Indo-Chinese and Indian Kitchen has two distinct sections, one featuring Indo-Chinese cuisine and the other highlighting northern Indian cuisine.
Business co-owner Amit Puri said although the cuisines differ, they have a commonality.
“All the portions are very large,” Puri said. “They're all shareable, because our philosophy is that food is not to be enjoyed alone—it's supposed to be shared.”
Puri and his wife Vinanti Puri opened Red Hot in McKinney in 2023. The couple also own Red Hot locations in Richardson and Allen and Red Hot Chili Pepper in Frisco.
On the menu
Puri said Indo-Chinese cuisine is simply called Chinese food in India. He explained when Chinese people came to India to build ports in Calcutta in the 1800s, they adapted their cuisine by implementing local ingredients.
“Outside of India, they say ‘Indo-Chinese' because you need to make a segregation,” Puri said.
The Puris opened Red Hot Chili Pepper in Frisco in 2017. At that time, the menu only featured Indo-Chinese food. However, in 2020, after increasing customer requests for Indian food, the owners added northern Indian dishes to the offerings. When they opened Red Hot, they offered both menus.
Butter chicken and garlic naan, which are on the Indian menu, are top selling items, Puri said.
Popular á la carte combinations are butter chicken and garlic naan. (Karen Chaney/Community Impact)
On the Indo-Chinese side, hakka noodles and Drums of Heaven are popular choices.
“For Drums of Heaven, we break one of the wing bones, pull all the meat down to one side, and then it becomes like a lollipop,” Puri said. “We toss it in a Chinese marinade.”
The inspiration
Prior to opening Red Hot Chili Pepper, the Puris brought the head chef from a popular Calcutta Chinese restaurant, Chinoiserie, to create recipes for the menu items and to train the Frisco chefs.
When creating the Indian recipes, the business owners tapped into family recipes.
“The Indian menu is my journey,” Puris said. “They are the dishes that we grew up eating, either through restaurants or through what our mom cooked.”
What else?
Puris grew up in Calcutta and explained primary differences between northern and southern Indian cuisine. He said eastern and southern Indian food includes a lot of rice because those regions have ample water sources.
“Their curries ... are much more watery, because they are to be enjoyed with rice.”
He contrasted that with northern India, which is a desert area.
“We grow a lot of wheat ... we have a lot of bread,” Puris said. “Our curries are thicker because they are to be enjoyed with a piece of bread.”
