Indian + South Asian – Writing With My Mouth Full

Ganesh Hindu Temple Canteen

The Hindu Temple Society of North America
45-57 Bowne Street, Flushing, Queens
718/460.8493
$8 to $10 per dish
♥ ♥ ♥

I’ll second Anthony Bourdain for this review: vegetarian food doesn’t have to suck. When Scott was visiting from Dubai, I thought of the Ganesh Hindu Temple canteen as our lunch spot because of his new dietary needs. He’s not vegetarian per se because he likes his sushi and won’t turn down a juicy hamburger if it was offered to him–in other words, he’s my kind of vegetarian.

From the Main Street stop off the 7 train, we walked and walked in the rain until we reached Bowne Street. Worshippers were taking off their shoes before entering the basement, so we did the same thing until we realized that people who were only there for the food kept their shoes on. We joined the long queue and waited for our turn to order several dishes that we ended up sharing for lunch. We staked out other groups who were finishing up to get a table and seats.

The rava dosa, a crepe-like Indian pancake from South India, was delicious and light. The hyderabadi green chili curry seasoned with sweet tamarind and yogurt was my favorite because of its tanginess and acidity. The red chili masala is a little spicier but nothing freshly baked nan could not control. The paneer butter masala is my usual order at Indian restaurants so I was glad to try it here. We all loved the condiments that came in different shades of browns, reds and oranges spiked with the whiteness of thin yogurt on the side. The combination of cardamom, ginger, garlic and lemon was a nice sensation in our mouths and gave us strength to walk the long way back to the train.

Kasturi

83 Lexington Avenue between 26th and 27th Streets
212/679.7993â€Ž
$7 for one dish
♥ ♥

Let’s go there, I said as I pulled the Dr. towards the street crossing. Among the many restaurants in Curry Hill, the South Asian restaurant row in the Gramercy Park area, Kasturi is the only one without the frills. No string of chili lights here or sari-style tablecloths, just straight-up Bangladeshi food. You walk down a few steps and sit under really bright fluorescent lights with the taxi cab drivers on break.

The food is as bright as the lights, and before Kasturi, I never had anything like it. The dishes we tried all had a lemony taste and the saucy stews weren’t thick nor heavy. We couldn’t have enough of the anchovy stew, an interesting mix of ceviche taste with broth from a long-simmered stew. A tamer plate of zucchini and chickpeas smothered with bay and curry leaves was equally good, if not better with pickled hot peppers. We mopped everything else with warm nan. The neon yellow rice tasted better than it looked and a bowl of it proved just right for two Asians after a night out of drinking in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

We didn’t know what kind of food Kasturi served when we walked in and only realized it was Bangladeshi when we saw that the TV was fixed on ATN Bangla. There were plenty of phone card commercials and the diners next to me smiled when I correctly interpreted a commercial with an actor scratching his palms as someone who was expecting some money. They were eating the same dishes and watching them made me think of home: they were using their hands.

Kasturi is one of the reasons why I love New York City. Even after almost sixteen years of calling it home, I still discover new places, new foods and new cultures.

Brick Lane Curry House

306-308 East 6th Street on Second Avenue
212/979.8787
about $200 for five, without drinks, without tip
â™¥

I’ve never heard of phaal until it made the Omnivore’s Hundred from verygoodtaste.co.uk. From that site’s must-eat list, I checked off 75 items that I’ve tasted and eaten. Among the other 25 is phaal, or phall, a South Indian curry dish that is supposedly spicier than the more familiar vindaloo. I was intrigued.

My co-workers wanted to order lunch delivery and Brick Lane Curry House’s menu satisfied the meat eaters plus the vegan and vegetarians among us. It took about an hour for the food to come and when we opened the lids of the containers, I have to admit I was very disappointed at the small amount of food. The lamb chops, infused with tamarind, ginger and garlic, while tender and tasty, were small and didn’t hold up to my growling stomach. I had to compensate by eating extra portions of rice. I only had a small taste of the vegetarian and the vegan curries, and I couldn’t tell the difference from the two sauces except for the fact that the vegan version had a smattering of white onions. The Goan fish dish was the best in the mix with its green chiles and coconut flavor enhanced by vinegar. Was it buttery? Oh, yes, it was.

Now back to the phaal, exaggerated by the restaurant as an “excruciatingly hot curry” but correctly described as “more pain and sweat than flavor”. Need to know more than that? When the sauce hits your tongue, you get the sting right away and then it sits and slowly burrows. (Un)fortunately, as soon as your tongue goes numb, the spiciness is replaced by bitterness, and at that point, all you want is either some more rice or more Goan fish curry. Michael above, though, talks about how it hit his sinus right away; he didn’t even feel the spiciness in his tongue.

I’ve had my share of spicy food, and up to this day, nothing beats the pickled Scotch Bonnet peppers I had in the Big Corn Island in Nicaragua. Go taste the phaal for yourself at Brick Lane Curry House and get a free bottle of beer when you finish a whole serving on your own.

Saravanaa Bhavan

81 Lexington Avenue corner of 26th Street
212/684.7755
about $45, with one drink, with tip
â™¥

The Dr. remembered a suggestion he received from one of his co-workers for some dosas in Murray Hill but the name escaped him; all he knew was that it was long and unpronounceable. Luckily we caught a glimpse of Saravanaa Bhavan’s sign as soon as we turned the corner on Lexington Avenue.

I wanted something new and I decided on two dishes I’ve never heard before after scanning the menu. (The Dr. stuck with the more familiar vegetarian dosa.) The adai avail reminded me of the hard work I put into making my own chataamari, grinding the lentils by hand using a simple mortar and pestle while watching TV. It was pasty but the texture was still grainy: unmistakably homemade.

The onions were apparent in the kaima idli, and I couldn’t stop eating. The spiciness also lingered after several spoonfuls. I slathered it with the raita, the yogurt-based dip, to keep it together. I found a new favorite and I was addicted. The salted lassi wasn’t exactly the best match but I just had to try it and cross it off my recent must-try list.

Go to Saravanaa Bhavan if you want to stray away from the usual curries and if you don’t feel like paying double at SoHo’s Hampton Chutney. The scene is a New York City one, full of family life and color.

Himalayan Yak

72-20 Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights, Queens
718/779.1119
about $40 for two, with one beer, with tip
â™¥

I was armed only with a Post-It when I dragged the Dr. to Queens to try out some Newari dishes in Jackson Heights. Ubin gave me some recommendations and I scribbled them on said Post-It. We walked in before the busy dinner time and had to adjust to how dark it was inside. There was only a small family sitting in the restaurant, so we felt it was odd to be seated at the long table in the middle of the room. While waiting for our food to come, we found out why: all the bigger tables were reserved for bigger groups. The waitress wasn’t kidding either. When we were finishing our meal, a band started to set up on the makeshift stage. All of a sudden, the restaurant was flooded by other Nepalis. In under ten minutes, almost every table was taken and the place filled with a language we couldn’t understand and with faces distinctly unique.

Ubin had given me a Nepalese recipe last year. Even though I spent several hours making chataamari at home, I still wanted to try and experience the other kinds of food he likes. Preferring that someone else cook them, I badgered him to send me to one the restaurants he frequents.

At the Himalayan Yak, we started with the gyuma, or the Tibetan beef sausages. They looked like blood sausages, but they snapped like crispy hotdogs. The waitress brought out four kinds of condiments, among them an avocado sauce and a very spicy dip the Dr. couldn’t stop eating even though it was “annihilating” his tongue. The chwela, a spicy Newari pork dish served cold, was boney but addicting. You put the knob of bone in your mouth and try to take apart the meat with your tongue, all while absorbing the peppery sauce. My favorite was the sukuti: Nepalese, jerky and perfect with a cold bottle of Taj Mahal. If I was eating it in Nepal, it would be prepared with buffalo meat. The spicy chicken was dry and hard to chew. It was the only thing we didn’t finish. The popular momo, or steamed dumplings, were stuffed with cabbage and helped alleviate the spicyness of the other dishes. I tried to order rice. Well, I ordered “whatever you guys eat with all of this” and was served the tingmo, or steamed white buns. They looked like a wimpy, used towel on my plate. It was too bad that our dishes didn’t have enough sauce because they would have soaked up any leftover juice from our plates.

For my first restaurant experience with Tibetan and Newari dishes, Himalayan Yak was a good introduction. We walked out as soon as the band finished tuning their instruments. We almost regretted going too early and missing out on the real party.

Related post/s:
Nepalese chataamari recipe