Indian Chinese cuisine, Indo-Chinese cuisine, Sino-Indian cuisine, Chindian cuisine, Hakka Chinese or Desi-Chinese cuisine is a distinct fusion culinary style that combines aspects of both Indian and Chinese foods and flavours. Though the cuisines have mixed throughout history through the Silk Road via Tibet, the most popular origin story of the fusion food resides with the Chinese of Calcutta, who immigrated to colonial India looking for better prospects and better lives around 250 years ago. Opening restaurant businesses in the area, these early Chinese immigrants adapted their culinary styles to suit the tastes of their Indian patrons.
Chinese Indian food is generally characterised by its ingredients: Indian vegetables and spices are used, along with a heavy amount of pungent Chinese sauces, thickening agents, and oil. Stir-fried in a wok, Indo-Chinese food takes Chinese culinary styles and adds spices and flavours familiar to the Indian palate. This idea of flavourful, saucy Chinese food cooked with Indian spices and vegetables has become integral to the mainstream culinary scenes of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, and its diffusion to nations like America, Britain, Canada, and the Caribbean has shaped and altered the global view of Chinese, Indian, and Asian cuisines.