Hoodadak Korean Fried Chicken

1645 Winding Hollow Drive @ S. Mason Road, Katy

So we've all heard Bonchon Korean Fried Chicken is coming to Katy this spring (and later, hopefully, to more of the Metro area).  But there already is a Korean Fried Chicken place in Katy - Hoodadak.

We found out about it on Hungry Onion and my friend Lambowner went out to get her first taste.  She came back with a very positive review so I had to make the trek, too.

I got the same order she did but I didn't get the complimentary pickled radish and I found the special lunch combo with just 4 wings not quite enough.

The chicken is extra crispy, the fries are excellent.  A special dipping sauce is offered for the fries and there's Heinz Sriracha Ketchup on the tables.  Extra napkins were forthcoming upon request immediately (very necessary).  There are five flavors for the fried chicken to choose from in all; I'll refrain from picking a favorite since I've tried only one.

Hoodadak is a small sitdown restaurant with table service.  The room seats only about 45 or 50 at 2 tops and 4 tops plus 3 mostly enclosed cubicle-like booths and a bar.  Missing from Lambowner's picture of the interior in her report are the bottles of wine and sake lined up at the right side of the bar, next to the register monitor; they got their license and will sell bottled and tap beers plus wine, sake and soju.  Just remember the chicken is twice-fried and not until you order it, so it does take some time

I thought Katy was Katyzuela but let the Korean fried chicken wars in Katy begin!

Hoodadak Facebook, with a link to the menu

Asha's Roti Shop

1000 N. Alexander (Texas 146 B), Baytown

A few years back I happened on a West Indian bakery and roti shop on the east side of Baytown called Nio's.  When I checked it out for lunch I found myself in line behind a group of people in scrubs talking animatedly in a 'Caribbean' accent about rotis and how spicy they like them.  When I asked the proprietor why there was a roti shop in Baytown, she told me one of the large medical facilites there has a lot of employees from Trinidad.

Nio's is gone now but just up the road a bit is Asha's, a walk-up stand with a couple of tables under a carport in a grassy area out back.

I went around 1:30 on a Saturday afternoon.  The parking lot was nearly full but there seemed to be only one other person there to order food.  I wanted to try the Hot Doubles but they were all gone so I settled for two Beef Patties and I apparently got the last two of those.  Whether they make more for later on I don't know.

These were hefty patties, about 6 ounces each, with a dense flaky pie crust-like exterior colored with annato or turmeric, probably, and a surprisingly mild ground beef filling. There was only a little bit of heat to the whole thing.

I hope to be able to try the Hot Doubles next time or one of the rotis.

Asha's menu on Yahoo

The Cuban Cafe

4232 Decker Drive (Loop 330 westbound frontage road at Baker Drive), Baytown

In a mostly abandoned big shopping center with a huge parking lot (maybe that's why they can hang the big banner saying 'Welcome 18 Wheelers'), this clean little shop is run by some very friendly and helpful people.

I had the Cuban Sandwich - pulled roast marinated pork, ham, a thin slice of Genoa salami, Swiss cheese, mustard and pickle on a very well toasted Cuban roll plus a Cafe con Leche.  The sandwich was hot and tasty.  They also have Cuban Pulled Pork sandwiches, mini Cubanos and a Breakfast Cuban sandwich on a rather small menu plus Cuban coffee, lattes and Americanos.

I have heard of the marinated roast pork (lechon asado?) and the addition of the salami before but I don't think I've ever encountered those variations in Houston.  The salami is typical of a Cubano in Tampa, reflecting the ethnic make-up of the city where Italian immigrants worked and lived alongside Cubans, and I thought it added a nice note to the sandwich but what I really liked was how the sandwich was pressed down so thinly and the toasted bread was so crispy.   Unless the sign on the wall is meant just for decoration, they get their bread from the famous La Segunda Bakery in Tampa (Ybor City).

After several days, I'm still thinking of this sandwich and wanting to get back over there soon to confirm my memories.

I'm in Baytown regularly to visit family and I'm glad to happen on this place.  If you're  searching for someplace to eat in Baytown and wanting to avoid the chains, this place is worth a try.

The Cuban Cafe on Facebook

Dilpasand Mithai and Snacks - Stafford

867 Dulles Ave, Stafford

This is the third location of this Pakistani sweets and snack shop (I understand they are not all co-owned).  It's located in an L-shaped center back from the street and the street-side sign is easy to miss.  It's a small, neat and brightly lit, colorful shop.

One of the first things I noticed on the menu was the Hunter Beef po-boy.  I don't know if they have this at the other locations because I haven't been to either in a couple of years.

If your corned beef sandwiches have been blah lately, try this spicy Pakistani version with shredded Hunter beef, melting cheese, bell pepper and chutneys, served warm on a toasted po-boy roll.

The Bun Kabob here comes as a vegetarian version with a fried egg, red onion, chutneys and generous sprinklings of chat masala inside and out.  There is also a burger and a chicken burger on the menu plus samosas and typical chat items including pani pudi, dahee pudee and samosa chat.

There's a large menu of smoothies and juices.  I tried the V5 Cocktail - a tasty concoction of orange, apple, carrot, beet and ginger. Try one of those and you'll feel at least a little more virtuous as you head out the door with your box of barfis, ladoos and gulab jamon.

Palm India Restaurant/Kerala Kitchen - Olive's Pizza

732 Murphy Rd., Stafford

There have been big changes here.  Vacant spaces on either side have been taken over and the dining area expanded to about four times the previous size.  Some paint has been applied along with a few touches of decor and while the place is not posh it is a lot more inviting for dine-in.  It is still counter service.

There is a menu board of the daily offerings of dishes from Kerala but there is also a permanent menu board for pizza on one end of the counter.  There are typical toppings plus some 'premier' toppings including Butter Chicken, Chicken Tikka and Paneer.

Here's my previous report on Kerala Kitchen from two years ago.

A Food Truck Park in Sugar Land, sorta...

on the southeast corner of Highway 6 and Bissonnet

Bansuri Indian Food Corner has set up shop in it's new location; it's parked along Bissonnet actually, barely visible from 6 behind a Conoco station.  It will be closed Sundays and Mondays.

About 75 to a hundred yards away, at the other end of the same parking lot, are four other mobile units including Big 6 Bar-B-Que, which I have visited and reported on before, BB's Beef and Hot Dogs, Yum Yum Sno Balls, and a new one, MJ Seafood.  Since they're outside the city of Houston they are parked practically bumper to bumper and can set up tables and chairs for customers.

I think BB's is the same operation that used to have a small shop on West Airport off of 59 serving Chicago style hot dogs and Italian Beef.

There's also a Mexican restaurant in the strip center and Vishala Grocery and Restaurant is just across Highway 6.

9431 Highway 6 South is the official address.

Bansuri Indian Food Corner

Big 6 Bar-B-Que

Onam Sadya

At Kerala Thanima

I haven’t been eating much Indian food this year.  Other than several visits to Maharajah Bhog, a current favorite, I’ve mostly been exploring Middle Eastern and African cuisines when I go out of late.  I was headed out to the west side a couple of weeks ago to check out a Middle Eastern grill I’d heard about with a unique dish but on a whim decided to head down to Missouri City to sample the ‘newest’ restaurant serving the cuisine of the Spice Coast state of Kerala, Kerala Thanima.  It’s been open better than a year probably but I had never been.

It turned out to be an inspired whim. I walked in on what was the last day of service of a sadya, a special celebratory meal.  There was nothing on the website and I couldn’t read the poster in the window; the owner spoke so softly I thought perhaps talking was frowned upon so I didn’t ask many questions.  These days, though, the Great Google can answer most of the mysteries of life with just a few clicks and after I got home and got to mousing around, I came to the conclusion I had experienced an Onam Sadya, a Hindu harvest festival meal which also celebrates the beginning of a new year and the return of the benevolent King Mahabali to check up on his subjects.

I was welcomed very graciously, of course, as would be expected at an Indian restaurant.

 

Sadyas are traditionally served on a banana leaf; here, a faux banana leaf was used.  Some articles suggest the placement of the various elements on the leaf and the order in which they are served is dictated by tradition.  Various pictures I’ve found online have not exactly confirmed that but it was true of the first elements, at least.  The lower left corner of the leaf is the place for the banana chips, jaggery-coated fried banana chips, pappadum and baby banana.  The upper left corner of the leaf is the place for the mango pickle.

The center of any traditional Indian meal is of course a starch with all the curries, dals, chutneys, pickles and sweets being accompaniments.  Here a short grain rice occupied the center of the leaf.  The server spoke so softly as he placed the elements on the leaf I couldn’t even recognize the names of typical dishes from Kerala I was familiar with until I sampled them but I understand the first thing ladled onto the rice was a dal or parippu which was drizzled with a few drops of ghee.  After this picture was taken the server came around again and a sambar was ladled over the other side of the rice.  To the right of the rice is aviyal, a typical mixed vegetable dish of Kerala; this version had many pieces of drumstick.  In the upper left hand corner of this picture is  cabbage thoran, a typical stir fry dish.

Unfortunately so far I have not been able to pin down the other elements in this picture or even whether they’re considered chutneys or whatever.  There are many possible elements to an Onam Sadya and my senses of smell and taste were impacted by some medications I was taking and I wasn’t able to do a very good job of picking out ingredients other than by shape and texture.  I believe these elements are either chutneys or pachadis or kichadis.

Toward the end of the meal an additional sweet was brought around in a small cup.  Traditionally this would be either a payasam or a pradhaman.  It was not as sweet as any payasam I have ever had and I detected no rice or vermicelli so I have guessed it was a pradhaman (never had one before that I know of) and it’s ingredients, as best I could ascertain them, best matched those for a Chakka Pradhaman or jackfruit pradhaman.

Everyone was eating with their fingers and even though a plastic spoon was provided I did my best to ‘do as the Romans do’ and I managed to get my plate more or less clean, though I was considerably less adept at it than the other diners I observed.  By the time I finished, the dining room was almost empty and I did get a chance to chat with the owner just a bit.  He emphasized that this was the last day of this special meal; the restaurant was shuttering for a day and then would resume its regular schedule and menu, which is not vegetarian as this meal was.  He also emphasized that this will be done again next year at about the same time though not on the same dates on our Gregorian Calendar. 

I had read about sadyas before and always expected that they were offered here in private homes and other private venues and never expected to encounter one offered publicly like this. There are many articles online about the Onam Sadya.  For those who want to know more, this site and this site offer pictures of the many dishes that may be included and if you click on the pictures you will pull up further explanations and recipes.  And more pictures from Google.

Kerala Thanima

Indian Spices and Snacks

7320 US 90A, Sugar Land, about a quarter mile inside Highway 6

I've been going down to this Indian grocery for a couple of years now.  It's neat and very well stocked.  The staff is always very friendly and helpful; browsing the shelves is likely to attract attention and an offer to help in just a few minutes.

The produce line-up is good looking.  I'm drawn to the home-made yogurt but there are other home-made goodies available including several ladoos that I haven't tried yet.

Another attraction is the snack bar in the back of the store.  There's an extensive menu - I think it's all vegetarian - and I try to go when I'm hungry so I can take advantage of the offerings.  The plateful of dahi puri had at least nine puris, seemingly immersed in date/tamarind and mint chutneys, topped with yogurt and garnished with chickpeas, diced tomatoes, raw onions, mango and cilantro with a sprinkling of sev.   Ask for it spicy and they will comply and it's like a civil war in your mouth.  I've also had samosa chat and one of the lunch plate specials.  Dine-in accomodations are modest - 3 small tables - but some of this menu wouldn't travel well.

A Yelper has posted photos of the menu on the wall and in a departure from the usual, the pictures are clear enough to be read.  There are nine varieties of naan including red chilli naan and pineapple naan.  I've noted Khandvi and Khaman by the pound.  I've been wanting to try both these but not sure if I want to buy a whole pound.  I think the Khasta Kachori is a newer addition.

Fresh and Savory

12343 Murphy Rd. @ W. Airport, Stafford

A couple of months back I became obsessed with finding a good Italian sub in Houston, a mostly frustrating endeavor.  In my wanderings I happened across mention of this place, a purported Italian deli in Stafford.  Seriously?  We’re not exactly teeming with Italian delis in Houston but Stafford?

It turns out I had seen it before having been in the convenience store in the strip center a couple of times, but never checked it out.  It was always closed when I was there and nothing in the strip was very promising.  I was wrong, of course.  Once I looked it up online the menu and reviews were so appealing I had to rush right over.  Now I’m seriously p.o.’d this place has been here for almost 30 years and no one has ever told me about it.  It’s not exactly a secret, though.  It’s packed for lunch every weekday, laborers, business-suit types, suspected pols, groups of people in scrubs.  It’s obvious there are lots of regulars.  It’s cramped on the inside with barely room to pass another person in the line back to the counter where you order.  A hard working, very efficient kitchen staff turns out a lot of food in a small kitchen in a timely manner including lots of take-out orders which is what I’ve done several times.

Most of what I’ve had has been very good such as a sandwich special of a Hot Italiano with Black Forest ham, provolone, salami, roasted red bell pepper, tomatoes, romaine, kalamata olives, olive oil and balsamic vinegar on rosemary sour dough bread and a very credible, reasonably proportioned Reuben, although unfortunately with just lean brisket.  The only thing I’ve had that didn’t impress was a soup and sandwich special of a spicy sweet potato and peanut soup that I found boring (and a humongous portion) and a half muffaletta.

Their Deluxe Po Boy is not made of the classic ingredients of an Italian sub but was one of the best of this general type of sandwich I had out of almost two dozen I tried working through my obsession, loaded with better quality meats than most places use and on a very good, light baguette.  And while some places, especially the sandwich chains, load you up with filler like shredded lettuce and tomato slices on an Italian and are kind of skimpy with the meats, this place is just the opposite, loaded with meats and kind of skimpy on the condiments.  It was just a little bit dry, needing a bit more of the vinaigrette.

I have yet to try any of the pastas or salads but what I’ve seen others digging into has looked very good.  So score one for the burbs.  While the sandwiches don’t quite measure up to Local Foods in the Village or Revival in the Heights, this place would be a welcome addition to any neighborhood in town.

Fresh and Savory

Jambeto's

609 Dulles, Stafford, TX

All over the area the food scene in the burbs is taking off.  Sugar Land, Katy and The Woodlands have all been noted but you don’t hear much about Stafford except maybe on this blog.  While there are no celebrity chef-driven restaurants in Stafford yet, over the past year I’ve been pleasantly surprised  by the food and the diversity of ethnic cuisines at numerous restaurants.  The little stretch of Dulles just south of US 90-A, the continuation of South Main Street from Houston if you’re unfamiliar, has undergone a remarkable transformation in just the last few months with new outposts of Chinatown stalwarts Don Café and Parisian Bakery and Sandwiches and this new Filipino bakery and café.

I’ve eaten at a half dozen Filipino places around the southwest side of town over the last couple of years.  I can’t claim any great love of the cuisine nor knowledge but every time I see a picture of pancit, I want it. It’s the rice noodles that ring my Pavlovian chimes and so it was that after coming across this place online I immediately shelved my plans to try a North African version of pizza and headed down to Jambeto’s for dinner one night.

There was some miscommunication and they fixed my order to go but no problem, I just settled into one of the handful of tables and dug in.  It’s a small place with a very small café menu, perhaps more of a bakery than a café, stylish and spic and span in a brand new strip center across from Dulles Hi.  There are a half dozen varieties of pancit on the menu, I went for the recommended chicken and shrimp but next time I think I’d just opt for the shrimp.  Not that there was anything wrong with the chicken but why pass up the opportunity for twice as much shrimp?  The dish included green beans, cabbage, carrots and celery and came with a calamondin and a packet of soy sauce and there was banana sauce on the tables, too.  Apparently you can eat the whole calamondin, skin and all - I did not know that.

The empanadas here are snack sized, smaller than a golf ball, and are baked and there are some other tasty looking snacks including lumpia.

I haven’t had much of a sweet tooth for several years now but that has been changing of late and I spent several minutes drooling over the pastry case.  Next time, one of those cakes or some cookies is going home with me.   Check out there Facebook page for more pictures.

Jambeto's

Dumar's Mediterranean Grill

 4518 Hwy 6 South, Sugar Land

The first time I walked into Dumar’s I was taken back many years to my first visit to the original Antone’s on Taft.  Dumar’s is much smaller than that long shuttered store but the feeling is the same - a slightly exotic setting for dining and grocery shopping, with enticing sights and smells.

Dumar’s is a little gem, a small shop lurking in a large strip center back from the highway, behind the seemingly endless rows of chain restaurants, banks, chain pharmacies and auto repair shops that line Highway 6 as it makes its way through Sugar Land and Missouri City.  Are there any chain restaurants known to mankind that don’t have at least one location here?

Most of our Middle Eastern or Mediterranean restaurants just identify themselves generically.   There are, to be sure, many dishes that are common to countries throughout the region but there are also national specialties and recipe variations that we seldom have the opportunity to experience.  That seems to be changing - just in the last year, a couple of Iraqi places have opened, our Persian and Israeli/Kosher places have always set themselves apart and more Lebanese places seem to be identifying as such.  There is our Palestinian jewel, Al Aseel, too, and I was very excited recently to have discovered this place, which is Syrian, and also a restaurant featuring Egyptian dishes.

There are several Syrian specialties on the menu but the one I wanted to try first was the Mujaddara, a dish reputedly derivative of the ‘mess of pottage’ that Esau sold his birthright for in the Bible.  It’s another dish that has several variations throughout the region, the Syrian version as served here is made with brown lentils, cracked wheat, olive oil and long, slow, thoroughly caramelized onions.  As the server approached my table with the bowl, I was tempted to reach out and grab it and dig in, so enticing was the aroma, and it proved to be as tasty as my nose told me it was going to be.  Like the Ful Medammes I just discovered a couple of years ago, this is another ancient dish of really very simple ingredients that is enormously satisfying.  No wonder it’s been around so long.

I’ve also tried a falafel wrap.  We have at least one other restaurant with Syrian roots, Mo’s Knockout Grill on Kirby, and the falafel there is one of my two favorites in town; I wondered if Dumar would offer yet another great iteration.  Alas, the falafel was not as awesome as Mo’s but the sandwich itself was very satisfying - stuffed with at least three large, elongated and somewhat irregular balls of falafel (made with chickpeas and fava beans) with both tahini and hummous, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, pickle and pickled turnips.  A house-made hot sauce is available as a condiment but they tend to be very cautious in the application of it.

The small grocery section in the rear offers teas, some canned goods and spices, dried chickpeas and more.  In the cooler are some cheeses and phyllo dough.  There are Syrian and Armenian meat pies (safiya or sfiya) listed on the menu and in the cooler you can pick some up to take home plus Syrian pomegranate pies.  In addition to the sweets listed on the menu, they sometimes have kunafa, the Arabic cheese and vermicelli pastry soaked in sweet syrup and topped with chopped pistachios.

The owner, Bashar Dumar, is something of a character; he loves to banter with his customers as well as serve them the foods of his homeland, and he makes the visit here all that much more enjoyable.

Dumar's

Karnays and Zurnas, Samsas, Tripe Soup and Pizza along the Silk Road - Part 3

See Part 1 or Part 2 of this report here.

The last day of the festival brought a big drop in the temperature and a lot smaller crowds.  I was planning on trying the Uzbek palov but when I got a look at the skimpy amount of meat each plate was getting, I decided to pass and went for a plate from the Azerbaijan courtyard with chicken kabobs, beef and lamb meatballs, rice, salad and pita.  I had wanted one of those ribs.

I found a seat in the Kyrgyzstan courtyard to catch a little of the musical group that was performing.  I hadn’t paid any attention to the entertainment schedule in planning my visits and I had extraordinary bad luck in catching only parts of performances.  I finished my meal and took a picture as a number started.  At least one of the performers was playing an instrument that sounded rather like a kazoo but otherwise there wasn’t much going on in this picture.  The woman on the end on the right had been playing a large violin like instrument in the previous number; it’s on the chair next to her in this picture.

After the performance I went back to the Uzbek area to try some soup.  I had been planning on having some and the cooler weather made the timing right.  There were four to choose from including yogurt and lentil soups but the one I wanted was the tripe soup.  It was easily the most adventurous offering from any booth.  I tasted a sample and I was sold so I had them ladle up a bowl for me.  They offered to add a garlic and lemon sauce as an extra; I thought the soup tasted fine as it was but said I’d take a little of the garnish.  They they offered a plate of lemon wedges.  Just to be polite, I took one.  I was a little slow on the uptake - I came to realize shortly that those condiments would have really helped to cut the richness of the soup.  It was very heavy and filling, much more so than I expected.  The sign said it included hooves and tripe and garlic; I think I got maybe one small piece of very tender tripe.  The meat was a relevation; I assumed it was cow's foot and stomach and I’d never had cows foot before.  It was tender, reminding me of cachete or cabeza, and tasted more like lamb that beef. 

I wrote down the name of the soup - kelle paça çorbasi - and when I got home looked it up.  If I got the name right and the Google translations are correct, its a Turkish soup made with sheep’s head and/or trotters, as best I can decipher. Whether it was tripe or heads and feet, ovine or bovine, it still was the most adventurous offering at the festival that I saw and I’d gladly order it again.

 The PA system was heralding an award winning performing group taking the stage in the Turkish courtyard so I headed over that way.  Up until now the Caykur Turkish tea stand had not been very busy but with a nip in the air, at least by Houston standards, there was a steady line of customers and they were passing out the free cups of hot tea right and left, as fast as they could pour them.  

I settled down at another table to sip my tea, almost ready to doze off from the rich soup.  Before I finished the tea and after only two numbers, the performing troupe started filing off the stage.  What the?  But they assembled in front of the stage and the PA announced they would be performing a dance in a circle and inviting members of the audience to join in.  I snapped a picture from back in the crowd and was ready to call it a day.

It was a very successful festival as far as I was concerned.  I had avoided lingering around any of the arts, crafts or travel booths, etc., since I didn’t have any money to spend, but there was a lot more to the festival than I’ve reported on here, including lots more performances.  I understand the organizers were hoping for an attendance of 50,000 as a benchmark, to evaluate whether it would be worth bringing the festival back for another year.  I hope they achieved that.  I wonder how many attended the first year of the Greek Fest?  Given a couple of years to grow, this could easily be one of the premier festivals of the fall season.

The festival has uploaded a number of videos to YouTube and there are also quite a few uploaded by individuals.  I haven’t watched them all but from what I have seen, there’s a lot more of the performances and glimpses of the other vendors and very little about the food, so if you’re interested in more of that aspect of the festival, check them out.  It’s fascinating to see how much media attention the festival attracted in non-English speaking, non-Houston based media.

Silk Road Festival website

Karnays and Zurnas, Samsas, Tripe Soup and Pizza along the Silk Road - Part 2

See Part 1 of this report here.


I didn’t get to the Festival on Saturday as early as I had planned as something came up at home that had to be dealt with.  I had a small lunch at home to tide me over so I wasn’t very hungry.  Saturday was a much busier day; the parking lot was a lot fuller, the walk to the gate much longer, the lines at the stalls longer, too.  There were a few stalls open that had not be in operation in Friday, among them a Firehouse Pizza stall in the Azerbaijan courtyard, for those who were gastronomically completely at sea along the Silk Road.  There was a little bit of a break in the weather but not much and it was still stifling on the festival grounds.

I headed straight for Turkey and started the day with the manti pictured in part 1 of this report.  The lamahcun I had on Friday had been the equivalent of an 8 or 9" pizza and quite filling; the Manti proved to be quite filling too - that was full fat yogurt and the garlic sauce was very oily as you can see in the picture.  The dried herbs out of a big shaker bottle might just as well have been confetti, unfortunately.

I strolled through all the courtyards again, to refresh my memory of what was available specifically looking for the stall that featured Vegetable Delights.  I had been happy to see the stall specializing in salads in Turkey and also this one, which was in the Uzbek courtyard.  Uzbekistan had a very nice line-up of stalls; besides the vegetable one, there was one featuring Pplov (rice pilaf), which is the signature dish of both Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, where it is known as plov.  There were also samsas, Uzbek meat pies, and a soup stall, offering four soups that looked tempting.

At the vegetable stall, they had stuffed eggplant, stuffed red and yellow bell peppers and stuffed artichoke hearts.  The artichoke was the best of the three, and huge. That was the biggest artichoke heart I think I’ve ever seen.  The choke that came out of must have been the size of a grapefruit, and mine wasn’t the largest one in the tray.

The samsa needs no explanation.  This was a simple ground beef mixture in phyllo dough with sesame seeds.  In Uzbekistan, the filling might have been lamb or horse meat.

I drooled over the palov and resolved that I would stick to snacks on Saturday and devote Sunday to trying some of the full plate offerings, possibly getting several to go.  The meat in this was mutton, I think.  The tray next to it held what was probably a vegetarian version of Palov although the sign identifying it was missing.

 As I was munching on the samsa, a couple of men started blowing on their karnays on the entertainment stage.  These long brass instruments could probably be heard all over the festival grounds as they pointed them off in all directions and moved them around in what I think is somewhat ceremonial fashion.  They were joined by a rhythm section consisting at first of the man on the frame drum called a doyra (think oversized tambourine minus the zils) in the center of the picture and the man on the pot drum at the right rear.  Later another frame drummer entered the picture.

As the number built in intensity, they demonstrated some versatility in the use of the karnay incluiding one of the players keeping one aloft by balancing it on his jaw.  They were joined by the man playing the Zurna, a reeded, clarinet-like instrument.  The ensemble was completed when a woman in a very elaborate costume came onstage and fronted the band as both singer and dancer.  It was a very lively, driving and catchy number, by far the most captivating musical number I saw at the festival.  I hadn’t heard an announcement but if the festival was running on schedule, this should have been the group just identified as ‘Uzbek Local Music Group.’  I didn’t know we had a local Uzbek community but maybe that’s not the way that should be read. 

Throughout the festival there was a crew on hand with professional video equipment including a camera mounted on a crane so they could see over crowds.  They may have been from Ebru-Tv, one of the sponsors of the festival.  Anyway, there were also many other individuals with less sophisticated video cameras and I’m sure some videos are going to show up on YouTube.

I liked this performance so much I wanted to see a re-run so I planned my visit on Sunday when the scheduled said they would be performing again but, alas, they were no where to be seen.


See Part 3 of this report here.

Andy's Hawg Wild Bar-B-Que

2826 Dedman, Pasadena

Driving up to Andy’s for the first time invoked a sense of deja vu, reminding me of the first time I went to the old Burn’s BBQ on the north side, driving up a narrow residential street in a working class neighborhood, wondering if I got the directions right - Could this possibly be the right way to a destination barbeque joint?  But then the big red sign loomed up next to a tree and I caught a glimpse of the low-slung building, the parking lot wedging spaces into every corner of the property that must have grown to meet the need, and the feeling changed to one of eager anticipation.

Some of the reviews on Yelp speak highly of the brisket here but when I go to a place with ‘hawg’ in the name, with a beaming pig on the sign and pig statuettes scattered around the dining room with slogans painted on them like ‘Try Me Tennessee Style,’ I’m ordering the pork, specifically the pulled pork.  Even more specifically, the Tennessee Pulled Pork sandwich which comes dressed with cole slaw.  Actually, I thought that was Memphis style but whatever.

There aren’t many places in Houston that even serve pulled pork and there are some that have no idea what it is; there are even fewer that specialize in it but Andy’s does and that’s what I came to try.

Does that sandwich looked over-sauced?  My first thought when it was delivered to my table was to wonder if I dare try to pick it up even once.  The second thing I did was pull the napkin dispenser over to be right at my fingertips.  Much to my surprise I made it almost all the way thru before it became too messy to handle but the sandwich didn’t need that much sauce in addition to the creamy cole slaw.  The sauce was too bold for my taste; I do not like bold barbeque sauces that add more flavor to the sandwich than the meat itself.

There must have been close to 8 ounces of meat on that large bun.  The meat was tender and juicy and just a tad smoky - smokiness does not seem to be that big a factor in Tennessee style barbeque.  The crisp red onions and sturdy bun provided a welcome balance to all the juiciness.

There’s a good selection of sides including red skinned potato salad, baked potato salad, mashed potatoes, fried okra, green beans and turnip greens in addition to, of course, cole slaw (if you want yours on the side, order just the Pulled Pork sandwich instead of the Tennessee Pulled Pork sandwich). 

I tried the beans.  These are more of a pork and beans concoction that the typical pintos you’d get at a Texas barbeque joint but they had a nice peppery bite and were very good.

The main dining room appears to just be an enclosed deck; there is a slightly more refined, smaller dining room also plus several concrete tables well shaded under trees in one corner of the parking lot.  Though you’re only two blocks off busy Spencer Highway and maybe half a mile from the Beltway, it’s a very quiet neighborhood and I imagine al fresco dining would be quite pleasant if the weather’s nice. 

There’s no big screen TV blaring constant news or soaps or sports, no TV at all, in fact.  The sound track was country, appropriately enough, but not the pop/rock/schmaltz country of today, nor alt country nor outlaw country and not honky tonk either.  Well, actually, I couldn’t identify the genre and I’m not sure I recognized a single song or artist that came on, but it sounded like the sounds of life in a small Tennessee town and it suited the setting perfectly.  For ambiance, Andy’s gets an A +.

Andy's Hawg Wild Bar-B-Que

Karnays and Zurnas, Samsas, Tripe Soup and Pizza along the Silk Road - Part 1

This blog has been in a comatose state for a couple of months now.  Partly that’s because there has been an unusual run of unexpected big expenses involving the maintenance of Villa del Bob and it’s inhabitants this year.  The budget for dining out has been tight and  I have felt less like taking a chance on something unfamiliar than I usually do.  It’s also because I got an induction cooking unit and am once again finding cooking fun.  Just one new toy in the kitchen, and a couple of shiny new pots to use with it, and my whole attitude has changed and I frequently decide to stay in and cook rather than go out

I’ve also been lacking the inspiration to write.  I’m not a professional writer (like you had to be told that) and I don’t have an editor (like you had to be told that) to demand that I produce something and I haven’t been able to get myself motivated to compose something about what few interesting dining out experiences I have had.

But Houston’s first ever Silk Road Festival caught my attention.  It offered the chance to experience the culture, music and cuisine of six countries - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.  Of those only Turkey is represented on Houston’s dining scene   Plus it was being held in my neck of the woods, at the Stafford Centre.

I bought a four day pass and managed to make it out three of the four days.  Thursday and Friday were school days and there were scads of school buses and hordes of middle school students.  I skipped Thursday and went on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Although a couple of vendors told me one of their items was ‘home-made,’ the overwhelming majority of the food served was professionally prepared.  Several Turkish restaurants had a presence, among them the relatively new Nazif Grill and DNR Grill.  Café Pita, our Bosnian restaurant, operated stalls in both the Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan areas but as far as I could tell they were serving dishes from their restaurant menu including the popular cevapi.  But Turkish Kitchen in Sugar Land was omnipresent, operating food stands in all six countries and in the case of Uzbekistan, which was my favorite new cuisine discovery, all the food offered was prepared by Turkish Kitchen.  The restaurant is located on 59 right at Highway 6 and I’ve been to it just once.

I’ve eaten at several of our Turkish restaurants but am by no means an expert on the cuisine.  All I know about the other cuisines is what I’ve read online in the last couple of weeks so this is intended to be mostly a pictorial with minimal explanation or commentary.

 

The festival was arranged in an arc around a central courtyard accessed through a Grand Entrance.  From there you could pass to each of the countries.  You could also go directly from country to country in an arc but the only signs indicating what country you were in were at the entrance off the main courtyard.  Sometimes none of the stalls had identifying signs either so you had to consult a map.  I got lost often and frequently had to consult the map to figure out which country I was in.

This panorama just outside the Grand Entrance and others like it along the walls of the courtyards within were popular spots for taking pictures.

I started in Turkey, having failed to notice the entrance to Turkmenistan just inside the main entrance.  By far the most popular food at the festival were the skewers or kabobs offered at several stalls.  Lines at those were always long and slow moving - the skewers were being cooked on grills out behind the stalls and they were always running behind, it seems.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the wait surpassed 45 minutes in some cases but I don’t know as I don’t like standing in line waiting for food and so sampled none of the kabobs.

 Another very popular food item was the lahmacun.  This is usually translated as Turkish pizza on restaurant menus as it was here.  It consisted of  spicy meat on a soft, moist and pliable bread (pide), garnished with shredded red cabbage and lettuce.  Given the circumstance and the lack of a knife to cut it, I ate this folded over as an over-sized Turkish taco (or New York style pizza) as did many others.  It was among the best things I was to have all weekend.

Another item from the same stall (operated by Turkish Kitchen) was the Manti, translated as Turkish Raviole but more like tortellini - meat stuffed small dumplings in a yogurt and garlic sauce.  This was apparently so popular that by Saturday, Turkish Kitchen had signs on all their stalls throughout the festival that bags of these, frozen, were available for sale.

 

One of the other stalls in Turkey (Turkish Kitchen) offered a choice of several salads and there was another booth devoted to sweets. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and though I was tempted I tried no sweets all weekend but on the first day I also had the Salatsie Rus (Russian salad) and, from the Turkish Kitchen booth in Turkenistan, the Kalem Boreki - cheese and parsley wrapped in a flaky dough and deep fried.

While I was making the rounds I walked into the Kazakhstan courtyard just as a performing troupe was winding up their number and milling around on the stage.  I snapped a couple of quick pictures, checked out the food booths so I could plot the rest of the weekend’s eating experiences and moved on.  I looked back to realize the group had assembled in a formation at the front of the stage to pose for all the assembled photographers but I couldn’t get back in time to take a better picture.  There were lots of performances scheduled on the various stages but it wasn’t continuous, at least during the day, and I was never able to catch an entire show.

The biggest negative at the festival was the lack of shade and with the temp at least in the upper 80s on Friday and little wind it was very hot.  There were umbrellas shading all the tables but people of all ages were seeking refuge in the archways separating the various courtyards which were at least twenty feet deep and had alcoves off to the side with some placards with information about the country or the trade route.  Although I hadn’t stayed as long as I had intended I called it a day.


See Part 2 of this report here.

Chettinad Indian Cuisine

2127 Hwy 90-A, Missouri City

EDIT 7/30/2015 - THE RESTAURANT NOW HAS A SECOND LOCATION AT 2122 HOLLY HALL STREET NEAR NRG PARK.  SEE THE WEBSITE LINK BELOW.

 I was really excited to spot this restaurant on the eastern outskirts of old downtown Stafford and astounded to discover it’s been in business for 2 years now.  It’s another restaurant offering a regional cuisine; there are dishes from all over India but there is a slight emphasis on dishes from the Spice Coast state of Kerala and the Chettinad region of Tamil Nadu; the chef is from Kerala.  Chettinad cuisine is said by the Wikioracle to be among the spiciest and most aromatic of the regional cuisines of India and that was certainly true of the one Chettinad dish I’d encountered before (at Sankalp in Sugar Land).  Chettiars are meat eaters and there are comparatively fewer vegetarian options than on many Indian restaurant menus, perhaps, but Chettiars do not eat beef or pork and there are no offerings of those meats.  Chicken, lamb, mutton (which here always means goat) and fish are the meats.

The restaurant seats only about 30 and while by no means posh is not a dive, either.  Tues thru Sat there is a lunch buffet ($7.99) from 11:30 to 3.  There are also lunch boxes to go for even less.  On Sunday it’s called brunch, the price jumps to $10.99 with about half again as many items from which to choose.  You get fresh butter naan to accompany the meal.  The advantage of the buffet is the ability to choose different items to sample and the availability of dishes not on the a la carte menu.  Plates are slightly over-sized and items are clearly identified so you know what you’re getting.  The disadvantage, particularly if you like spicy food, is that everything is very mildly seasoned.  Some dishes are just fine that way (and meant to be consumed that way).  In the evening (4:30 to 9 pm, Tues-Sun), the kitchen will adjust the heat level to your preference.  Prices are modest and portions are very large; one entree might easily serve 2, but you get only pappad, chutneys and rice or naan with an entree, everything else is extra.
  

I’ve tried both the buffet and a la carte service and much prefer to go in the evening.  The best dishes I’ve had have included the Chettinad Vegetables, mixed vegetables in a curry with black pepper and roasted coconut and star anise, Chettinad Chicken, listed as ‘HOT’ on the menu but not as hot as the vegetables to my palate, and the Calamari Kochin, calamari rings battered and fried and served in a dry curry with onions, peppers, tomatoes and the occasional red chilli pepper pod.  This appetizer was large enough to be an entree for me. The mint-coriander-chilli pepper chutney is particularly zesty and good; the date-tamarind chutney has little bits of the fruit.

Off the buffets I did enjoy Tandoori Mushrooms (also available on the regular appetizer menu), coconut jamon, egg roast and kappa, both the latter dishes from Kerala.  Dishes I’ve been disappointed with off the buffet included the Mutton Chettinad, Chilly Fish, and Kerala Fish Curry.  I thought surely the mutton was supposed to be served spicy but it’s not listed as a ‘HOT’ dish on the a la carte menu.  If I ordered it off the menu I would ask for more heat.  The Kerala style Fish curry was no where near as sour or spicy as I’ve had it and come to love at other restaurants in Stafford (now 4 of them) catering to the ex-pat community from Kerala but that might just be because it was on the buffet.  Dishes I didn’t have room to sample off the buffet included Mutton Sagwala (goat and spinach), Paneer Korma, and Fried Rice.

The hottest things on the menu are a couple of vindaloos; the manager said the mutton (goat) curries are hottest.

I ventured away from the Chettinad specialties on one visit and tried the Balti Gosh, lamb with mushrooms and other vegetables.  I had read of Balti style dishes but never had one, am not even sure I’ve ever seen any on a menu of a Houston restaurant, and so I wanted to try it.  Balti style either originated in Pakistan or Birmingham, England, among Pakistani expats, it seems.  The dish is not listed as spicy on the menu but I asked for it to be ‘HOT’ and was rewarded for my troubles with bits and pieces of bright green chilli pepper pods throughout the dish and it was the spiciest thing I’ve had.  This is a good thing, of course, but I found myself missing the presence of black pepper which seems to be one of the defining characteristics of Chettinad dishes and the curry was definitely heavier.

As far as the spicy and aromatic nature of Chettinad cuisine proclaimed by Wiki, I’ve found the food here not particularly aromatic and I went looking for more oracular pronouncements online.  I found discussions suggesting that characterization is largely the result of restauranteurs attempting to create a buzz about their restaurants when Chettinad themed restaurants first started appearing across India only about twenty years ago and is not necessarily true.  It seems Chettiars may actually prefer more subtle seasoning and many dishes are not meant to be spicy.  Whatever; the food here is good and this little restaurant has been growing on me with each visit.

Chettinad Indian Cuisine

Notes on some Texas sausages

NOTE:  IF YOU'RE EXPECTING TO FIND A LIST OF THE BEST SAUSAGES FOR GRILLING, THAT'S NOT WHAT THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT.  IT'S JUST ONE OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES I'VE POSTED ABOUT TEXAS-MADE SAUSAGES, SOME GOOD FOR GRILLING, SOME FOR SMOKING, SOME FOR EATING OUT OF HAND.

EJ’s Meat Company, Shiner

For several years I’ve been hearing about the fried chicken at Brookshire Brothers grocery stores and had a chance to check it out recently, twice, in fact, at the Katy and Columbus stores.  Whenever I visit a new grocery store I like to take a tour to see what they have I’ve never seen before and since Brookshire Brothers in based in Lufkin, I was hoping they’d carry some products from East Texas.  In the meat cases I found a good selection of Texas-made sausages, Holmes from Pleak, Eckermann from New Ulm and Prasek’s from Hillje, and one I’d never heard of before, EJ’s from Shiner.  So it seems there are three sausage makers in Shiner (Patek’s and Maeker’s are the others).

I’ve tried all three of the ones I found, a Smoked Pork with Garlic ring, Pork Smokies (with garlic), and Pork, Beef and Jalapeno links (with garlic).  EJ’s has a thing for garlic, it seems, and this is a good thing.  They use a natural sheep casing and the grind is a medium to fine grind, not the coarse grind usually used by Central Texas sausage makers.  My favorite has been the links, pictured above with the smokies.  The links were very juicy and flavorful with lots of both smoke and garlic.  There is only a modest heat level from the jalapeno, however.  Because of the grind they’re very tender, reminding me of the sausages from V & V in Cistern but without the TVP.  The Smokies were actually less smoky  than either the links or the pork/garlic ring.

I have no idea if EJ’s has a store-front in Shiner or makes other varieties as I can’t find much about them online; I’ve only seen them at the Brookshire Brothers in Katy and Columbus.

Oh, and about the fried chicken: I had very different experiences at the two stores I’ve visited.  At the Katy store, the coating on the chicken was incredibly thick and crunchy, to the point of being hard.  I’m sure that’s the only time I’ve ever been prompted to wonder if I was damaging the enamel on my teeth by eating fried chicken.  Unfortunately the thick batter picked up a lot of grease, too, and I found the leftover pieces from the refrigerator unpalatable without removing the skin.

 

 I think my sample may have been an aberration, however, because what I got from the Columbus store was much better, not anywhere near as thick a coating nor as hard.  This is very good fried chicken, very, very juicy and flavorful.  The white meat pieces are humongous; one breast from the Katy store must have been at least 7" from end to end.  The dark meat pieces (pictured are 2 thighs and a drumstick) are a more modest size.

Brookshire Brothers is located in small towns throughout East Texas.



Update on Pyburn’s Food Market.

I’m happy to report the Pyburn’s on South Fondren is flourishing.  Every time I go by or stop in they’re doing a good business.  I get their weekly flyer now and I find myself shopping there more often than I anticipated.  Even better news is  the product line has been filling out very interestingly with sausages from some Central Texas sausage makers I did not know had any distribution in Houston.  Near the checkout counters in the front is a rack of jerky from Janak's in Hallettsville, a Czech sausage maker.  In the packaged meat cases besides Holmes and Chappell Hill and Eddy’s from Yoakum there is a small selection of Janak products including summer sausage and dry sausage.  There are also some sausages from Big Easy Foods of Lafayette that I haven’t tried. 

In the fresh meat cases, in addition to all the varieties of sausages and boudin that Pyburn’s makes (my favorite so far is the Cajun variety, an unspicy version of the Creole sausage) there are a few selections of fresh sausages from City Market in Schulenburg; I’ve picked up some of the venison links.  Actually I had to ask to be sure since the hand-lettered sign appeared to read Schwenburg.  There are also some hot links that may or may not be a Pyburn’s product; I haven’t seen nor asked about the famous Schulenburg wieners so I don’t know if they carry those.

In the freezer cases are a few of the frozen entrees from Big Easy Foods, frozen crawfish tails marked as being a product of Louisiana, not China, and frozen rabbit, duck, and quail plus huge baking hens.

The hot foods deli at the front of the store is in operation.  It’s called Kim’s Deli.  I’ve seen fried chicken and fish, sausage on a stick, boudin balls, fried potato and sweet potato wedges, empanadas of some sort and what look like a couple of caldos.  I haven’t tried anything.

See my original report on Pyburn’s here.

Kerala Kitchen

732 Murphy Rd. (FM 1092), Stafford

NOW BRANDED AS PALM INDIA RESTAURANT - KERALA KITCHEN, CO-LOCATED WITH OLIVE'S PIZZA.  THE DINING AREA HAS BEEN GREATLY EXPANDED AND SPIFFED UP.

Kerala Kitchen has been around for some years I guess. It’s mostly a catering operation but they sell OTC by the pound whatever they have cooking and over the months I’ve been going, the in-house eating area has been spiffed up a bit and I’m more likely to see someone having a meal on premises, typically a thali. Still, dining accommodations are rudimentary.

Like Mahima Indian Bistro down the road a couple of miles, Kerala Kitchen features the unique dishes of Kerala like Steak Fry, Pork Fry, Fish Fry, Kerala style curries and biryanis, aviyal, thoran and others, plus dishes like Chilli Chicken and Chicken 65.

My first visit over a year ago was almost my last and I almost left empty-handed. I was walking out in frustration, never having seen another soul after standing at the counter for 10 minutes, when another customer came in and showed me how it worked - he yelled at the top of his lungs to get the attention of the crew in the back. Since then, a bell has been placed on the counter that you can ring. The menu is limited - there’s an erasable board on the wall listing the dishes but not all of them may be available, about a dozen in toto, some vegetarian, some non-vegetarian, and some biryanis. The menu does change.

On that first visit I walked out with a pound of Chicken Curry for $6 as I recall. I was just relieved to have gotten anything at all for my time but my mood brightened considerably when I tasted it as it was very good. In fact, I was moved to compare it to my first meal at Himalaya or the first time I tried the Beef Nihari at Sabri Nihari. Pretty impressive company and I knew I had to go back to check my impression despite the awkwardness of the ordering routine, but that was about when I was burning out on Indian food and it was a long time before I returned..

I’ve also had the Butter Chicken, taking something of a chance because it’s a dish I haven’t found to be very satisfying the few times I’ve had it before, I’ve found it too rich from the butter for my taste or terribly bland but this version redeemed the dish. It’s the best I’ve had of my limited samples.

One time the Mutton Stew caught my eye on the menu board. They warned me they only had about a half a pound left but I thought that would be enough for me and I wasn’t deterred. When I first opened up the container I thought perhaps my order had been mixed up with another until I looked it up online at found that Mutton Stew in Kerala is made with coconut milk. It also included potatoes, carrots, ginger, curry leaves and other spices. Being the last of the batch, there were only a few small bites of meat but this too was very impressive and I’m hoping to be able to try it again.

I’ve also had the Moru Curry and a pork dish. Moru means buttermilk and online references to this dish refer to it as a buttermilk curry but both here and at Mahima, where it is also offered, it is explained as a yogurt curry. The difference may stem from awareness of the difference between buttermilk as the term is used in India and what we refer to as buttermilk in the USA. In India, buttermilk is the liquid left over after butter is churned from yogurt - yes, I wrote that correctly, butter is churned from yogurt. As I recall being told, it’s a little thinner than whole milk. That differs a lot from the cultured buttermilk that we are familiar with here. Actually, I’m also told few places churn their own butter anymore and buttermilk often is just watered down yogurt. I used it over some rice I heated up at home, as had been suggested by another customer, and then tried to find other uses for it besides just gulping it (I got about a quart for $3). Corn flakes and curry, anyone? I didn’t try it, but I thought about it.

The menu offered either Pork Fry or Curry, I don’t remember which, but the man who waited on me said it was the other dish, not the one listed. By the time I got home, I couldn’t remember which was which so I’m not sure what I got. Curries in Kerala are typically rather dry, like Malaysian curries, and in my experience the Fry dishes are even drier. There is a difference in preparation and some differences in spices used, etc., but I’m not familiar enough with the dishes yet to decipher which one this was. I thought it was the least impressive dish I had gotten until I got around to reheating the leftovers and I liked it a lot more.

As I have experienced at other Indian restaurants and grocery stores, other customers can be very helpful and courteous and I’ve had some very good conversations with others waiting for food. One time there was a guy from the North Shore area who said there is no place offering the foods of the Subcontinent on the far east side and he can only go so long on burgers, pizza, bbq, and Tex Mex before he has to have some of the tastes of his homeland. He is not from Kerala but he drives all the way over, bypassing the Mahatma Gandhi district and the cluster of Indo-Pak restaurants around W. Bellfort, Wilcrest and 59, down to Stafford to this place to load up. He had to make a couple of trips to his car to carry out his haul, several trays of probably about 5 pounds each. I wish I had thought to ask him what he thought was worth driving all that way for.

According to the sign on the door, they’re open seven days a week until 8 pm.

All dishes are shown as plated at home; I've gotten take-out everytime.

Mahima Indian Bistro

2258 FM 1092, Missouri City, TX

I burned out on Indian food around mid-year last year and have been avoiding it for months. Recently though I’ve been re-discovering how much I love the flavors and dishes. I’ve checked out a couple of chat places, hoping to find a replacement for Sweet n’ Namkin, and the new re-incarnation of Pavani at it’s original location. I was also drawn to a several places in Fort Bend Co.

We revel in the diversity of our offerings from different cultures on the Houston restaurant scene and the cross-pollination that sometimes goes on between cuisines and within regional variations of some cuisines, but with respect to some of the multifaceted cuisines like Chinese, Mexican and Indian it can be difficult to explore the regional variations in depth. In the Stafford-Missouri City area, however, you can get a real good taste of the cuisine of the Spice Coast state of Kerala. There are now four eateries catering to the ex-pat community plus two grocery stores. Mahima is the most recently opened of the eateries; I had seen it last year though I never could catch it open. Perusing an Indian language newspaper while waiting for my food at another place recently I spotted a half page ad for the grand re-opening under new management.

The previous operation was mostly if not exclusively a catering operation, apparently, but the new owner is trying to expand to more OTC sales to walk-in and telephone orders. There is also a small dining area, seating maybe a maximum of 12, for dining on premises. The hours, however, are limited.

The menu has maybe a dozen to a dozen and a half offerings, not all of which will be available on any given day. Though the dishes are mostly representative of Kerala, there are some that are not particular to that state, such as Chicken Curry and Butter Chicken.

On my first visit, I tried the Aviyal, a mixed vegetable dish (I’ve gotten everything to go; all pictures are as plated at home and are only portions of what I received as you buy by the pound). Coconut is one of the most important agricultural products of Kerala and it is used in many dishes; these vegetables are cooked in coconut milk, I think. It also included carrots, potato, long beans, and the unique vegetable known as drumstick that is eaten like artichoke leaves, using your teeth to scrape the tender portion off the inedible stalks. Another common ingredient in Kerala dishes is curry leaves and I think there may have been some broccoli stalks in there - it’s a bit difficult to tell since everything is cooked down to a very tender state. This came with some rice - Wiki says there are 600 varieties grown in Kerala’s rice fields - and a pappad. Surprisingly, there was a little bit of heat, which I don’t think I’ve experienced in this dish before.

I also tried the fish curry. Another one of the ingredients common in dishes from Kerala is kodumpuli, also known as gambooge, brindleberry or Malabar tamarind, a pumpkin-like fruit that adds very sour tastes to a dish. The Kerala style fish curry is wonderfully sour and fiery and I must admit I find it kind of addictive. It is one of my favorites of the unique dishes of this cuisine.

On another visit, I picked up the lamb biryani, one of four available. There are many variations of biryani in India; the Kerala version is different in that it uses very little chilli and is not spicy like most others. I understand also the rice is cooked in butter, making it very rich. It includes cashews, another important agricultural product, cardamon, nutmeg, clove and similar spices. It came with lime pickle and an onion and tomato raita. Although it was very enjoyable, I do prefer some of the spicier versions of biryani.

Mahima on Facebook