TableConversation.com

Agra's Cheese Naan, as Tasty as Pizza

Love pizza? Then you'll like the cheese naan at Agra Cafe in Silver Lake.

The naan at the left in the photo is filled with Jack and Cheddar. Another day it might contain mozzarella.  Prefer Parmesan? There's a Parmesan naan too. And 11 other naans, because this hot, tandoor-baked Indian bread is so popular with Americans.

Also in the photo are a basil garlic naan and a garlic naan. Others on the menu are stuffed with potatoes, onions, minced lamb or chicken, even with nuts, raisins and coconut. 

In the midst of the bread is the most popular dish at the restaurant, chicken tikka masala, which is probably just as popular at other Indian restaurants, because it's on almost every menu. Behind it is rice with cumin seeds. 

Not as well known but worth trying is chicken bhuna, prepared with onions, tomatoes and green peppers, and spicier than that sounds.

Not so common is lamb pasanda, lamb in a creamy sauce seasoned lightly with mint.

But the dish not to miss is saag paneer--spinach with Indian cheese. The spinach mixture is so rich and creamy you won't want to stop eating it.

The menu is amazingly long, and the menu itself is worth studying, because it's a new one, printed in India. Of course it shows off Agra's famous monument, the Taj Mahal.

Agra Cafe does a huge take-out business, and to satisfy its  neighborhood stays open until 1 a.m. Remember that, when you need a late night Indian nosh. 

Agra Cafe, 4325 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90029. (323) 665-7890.

Appams--You'll find them at Mayura

On a weekend in Bangalore, I fell in love--with appams.

These lacy south Indian rice pancakes, thick and spongy in the center, thin and slightly crisp at the edges, are delectable with curries. 

But the way I preferred them was with coconut milk--southern coconut milk as sweet as if sugar had been added. I would eat this for breakfast at the Taj Regency in Bangalore, taking a bite of appam, then a spoonful of coconut milk.

The night before I left, I asked to have them for one last breakfast. This required an advance order, because appams can't be whipped up at the last minute, the hotel said. To make them, I was told, a special short grain rice had to be ground into flour and turned into a fermented batter with coconut milk, salt and a little oil.

The next morning, the appams came to my table one at a time, each on a banana leaf.  After eating three, I was happily stuffed.

That was years ago, but the other day I had appams again, this time close to home at a restaurant that didn't exist when I was in Bangalore.

The place was Mayura Indian Restaurant in Culver City, which specializes in the cuisine of Kerala, home to the appam.

Instead of sweetened coconut milk, I had them with pomfret (above) and salmon curries.

Appams were also in the buffet line-up,  but these were smaller and thicker than those I had with lunch (above).

The other must-have crepe at Mayura is the dosa. Deviating from the usual potato-stuffed masala dosa, the enormously long, crisp dosa in the photo above came with the potatoes on the side.

This ghee roast dosa is folded into a golden cone.

This is a spring dosa, filled with mashed potatoes, carrots, cabbage and peas. 

 

And to end, Madras coffee, made with south Indian coffee that is cut with chicory to make a foamy brew that is rich tasting without bitterness. 

Mayura's food is good because it is freshly seasoned. Co-owner Padmini Aniyan goes to India twice a year to shop for spices such as turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. The same spices are available here, she said, but by the time we buy them from an Indian market, they may be months old. 

Mayura Indian restaurant, 10406 Venice Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. Tel: (310) 559-9644. 

Radhika: Tasting Modern Indian Cusine

"Every dish is tweaked," says Karan Raina, about the food at his Indian restaurant Radhika in South Pasadena.

This means you are not getting just one more version of what you've tasted countless times at the average tandoori restaurant. 

The tweak can be as simple as leaving artificial coloring out of tandoori chicken (above) so that it is pale, not a gaudy red.

Or as unusual as adding blueberries to Gujarati style malai kofta (above). Made of vegetables, potatoes and paneer cheese, the kofta (dumplings) are bathed in a sweetened nut sauce--sweet because Gujaratis like a touch of sugar in everything. 

Paneer tikka masala (above) gets an unusual treatment at Radhika. It's prepared Indo-Chinese style, with crunchy sweet peppers, soy sauce, chile and sweet and sour seasonings.  

Then there's white gaspacho, so-called because it contains tomato dice and the liquid from pressed Persian cucumbers. The white is yogurt, seasoned with roasted cumin, salt and pepper. Fresh dill goes on top. 

When it turns cold, order Kashmiri style lamb shank (above), slow-cooked for four to five hours until the meat falls off the bone. Warm spices such as cinnamon, cloves and coriander are in the sauce along with onion, tomato, garlic, ginger and yogurt.  

Mesquite charcoal fuels the tandoor oven, adding to the hearty flavor of tandoori salmon (above). It too falls apart as you eat it. The mixed vegetables on the side are cooked until very soft, as is typical in India.

Appetizers include Punjabi chicken tacos, goat cheese and potato samosas and chicken pakoras (above) to dip in a mango and tamarind relish spiced with cayenne. The batter for the pakoras is seasoned with chat masala.

Raina describes Radhika as "modern Indian," but old classics are also very good, such as chicken tikka masala, slightly tweaked with basil in the tomato sauce.

And for dessert, a real classic--tender gulab jamun served hot in syrup (above).

Radhika, 966 Mission St., South Pasadena, CA 91030. Tel: (626) 799-2200

Spice Affair, a Place to Indulge

That isn't your everyday taco on the plate at the top. 

The wrapper is an Indian bread called phulka, and the filling is chicken tikka masala. It's lounge food at the new Indian restaurant Spice Affair on La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills. 

Replacing Tanzore, with new owners and management, Spice Affair tweaks Indian food with contemporary and California touches. A wine list and innovative cocktails carry out its brand, "an Indian indulgence."

To the left of the taco is sev puri, stuffed with white peas and sprinkled with fine strands of sev, a fried Indian snack made from chickpea flour.

Really cool with these spicy flavors is the Mumbai Mule--vodka, ginger liqueur, cardamom honey and a lime wedge in an icy copper mug (above).

Then on to dinner in an elegant, quiet, dark room decorated in soft, earthy tones drawn from the subtle colors of Indian spices. Quiet means no sitar music, and no incense or Ganesh figures. 

Start with tandoor-grilled marinated artichoke hearts (left). At the right you can barely see a mixture of duck meat and dates on a bit of Indian bread that is as seductive an appetizer as you can find. In the center is a plate decoration, not something to eat. 

The menu is long, and heavy on frilly adjectives. But there's no nonsense about rack of lamb that is marinated for 48 hours with yogurt and Indian spices (above). 

Chicken biryani comes sealed with a layer of dough (above). Lift the lid and you'll inhale the exotic scents of kewra and saffron.

There's everyday Indian vegetarian food too, like okra seasoned with garlic, onion, tomatoes, amchur (mango powder), cumin and red chili. And eggplant with caramelized onions and almonds.

The eggplant and okra are at the back of this plate. At the right are shrimp and scallops cooked Kerala style with coconut milk and curry leaves. At the bottom are South Indian black pepper shrimp. A spoonful of chicken biryani is at the left.

Another vegetarian specialty is chickpea and crackling caramelized walnut kebabs, accompanied by walnut-yogurt chutney. 

Desserts include classic carrot halwa, rose-flavored kulfi (ice cream) and mango mousse with strawberries and blueberries (above).

The menu--click here to see it-- was created by Anupam Bhatia, who also oversees the cocktail list, and chef Nimish Bhatia. The owners are Sonia Batra and Puneet Chandak, who have another Indian restaurant, Broadway Masala, in Redwood City. The menu there was also designed by Anupam Bhatia.   

Spice Affair, 50 N. La Cienega Blvd, #120, Beverly Hills, CA 90211. Tel: (310) 400-6800.

Here's How to Celebrate India's Diwali

Get your fill of delicious Indian food, watch Indian dances, get decorated with henna and go home with a gift bag. 

And that's not all that's planned for the Los Angeles Mumbai Sister City Afilliation's celebration of India's festival of lights, Diwali, Oct. 12. 

You can learn your fortune with a tarot card reading, win great prizes in a raffle and taste wines from Alexana Winery in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Alexana was founded by Dr. Madaiah Revana, whose goal was to find a site that would yield Pinot Noirs comparable to the great wines of Burgundy. 

The party starts at 6 p.m. at the Bombay Cafe, located at 12021 W. Pico Blvd. in West Los Angeles, with free parking adjacent.

You'll get to taste dishes unique to the cafe such as the crunchy haldi jhinga (shrimp) at the top.

From the tandoor, there will be lamb seekh kebab, ground lamb fragrant with a spicy marinade (above). 

Machchi pakoras are batter-coated fish of the day accompanied by sweet tomato chutney (above).

Vegetarian options will include the semolina pancake uttapam (above), served with coconut chutney.

In addition to wine, you can try the restaurant's signature nimbu pani--lemonade with ginger syrup (above).

There will be much more to eat, so if you like that kind of food, sign up by Oct. 3. Tickets are $75 each or $600 for a table of 10. Send checks payable to LA Mumbai Sister City to Mira Honeycutt, 2283 W. 21st St., Los Angeles, CA 90018.

Not only will you get great food and drink for the price, but some of that money will go toward Americares' mobile medical program that serves inhabitants of the slums of Mumbai (Bombay).   

Dish of the Week: Parsi Sev and Yogurt

This may be the most unusual pasta you've tasted. It's sev (top left), which is fine vermicelli cooked with sugar to make it slightly sweet. In front is yogurt prepared so that it too is slightly sweet. Parsi custom is to eat them together, a delightful creamy, shreddy blend.

This dish was part of a buffet honoring Parsi new year at Woodlands restaurant in Artesia. Read more about the restaurant and its Parsi food in my article for LA Weekly's Squid Ink. (Parsis are Zoroastrians who emigrated from Persia to India.)

To make it brown, the sev is fried in butter and oil, explains Bhicoo J. Manekshaw in her book "Parsi Food and Customs" (Penguin Books India, 1996). Next it is added to a syrup of sugar, water and milk and cooked until dry. Then it is mixed with cream and rosewater and served garnished with almonds, raisins, nutmeg and cardamom. 

Milk for the yogurt is boiled with sugar and allowed to set until firm enough to cut with a knife, giving it a custard-like texture. Another dish at the buffet was real custard, seasoned with cardamom and nutmeg and garnished with almonds.  This dessert is always served at Parsi weddings.

At the right in the photo at top is a Parsi rice pulao, one of many Parsi dishes that will appear from time to time at the Woodlands, which is located in Little India.

Woodlands restaurant, 11833 Artesia Blvd., Artesia, CA 90701. Tel: (562) 860-4000.

 

Dessert to Die For: Chocolate Samosas

Champagne brunch at the Clay Oven in Sherman Oaks wound up with these gloriously gooey samosas, fiilled with chocolate inside and laced with chocolate outside.They were crisp, not soggy from standing in the buffet. 

Beyond them was another dessert, mango rice pudding (at right above), a loose and liquidy pudding tasting deliciously of mango. 

If you didn't want champagne, you could have mango lassi (above), as sweet and intense in its own way as the chocolate samosas.

The buffet itself was full of good things, such as karahi lamb, fish pakoras, tandoori chicken, chicken tikka masala, chicken biryani, mattar panir, aloo gobi and malai kofta.

The large Buddhas watching over the room (above) could make you think you have stumbled into a Thai restaurant, but the food tells you otherwise. It's totally Indian. 

Clay Oven, 14611 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403. Tel: (818) 995-1777.

Good Eats at a "Bad" Place

The place is Badmaash in downtown Los Angeles, and the butter chicken that I had for lunch today was more tasty than I expected, given the eye-popping color of the sauce (above).

Rather than a one-note coverup for lackluster food, the sauce was well spiced, with subtle heat after each bite. It came with a cup of yogurt raita that was pleasant although bland. The raw carrots on top of the chicken--and other bowls--didn't make sense, in my opinion.

Badmaash is an Indian gastropub, and the butter chicken there is also known as murgh makhani. It's one of four rice bowls on the lunch menu, all of them generous servings for $10.  

The others are topped with keema (seasoned ground beef), Punjabi style chickpeas or smoked eggplant mash, the latter two catering to vegetarians, which is essential in an Indian restaurant.

This was no ordinary lunch. The guest of honor was top Indian singer Asha Puthli (above), who had just received a proclamation at City Hall. (Her album covers and one of her Indian outfits are on display this month at The Grammy Museum).

Asha was born in Bombay, and the proclamation was arranged by the Los Angeles Mumbai Sister City Affiliation board, of which I am a member. Afterward, she walked with us to to Badmaash, which is close by.

Asha ordered chicken tikka poutine (above), a bowlful of masala fries, chicken tikka, some sort of spicy sauce and mozzarella--I don't blame her for waiving the mozzarella. The masala fries looked so good I almost pulled one out of her bowl.

You can get them as a side dish, and they are the "chips" that come with Punjabi fish and chips (above). What makes them irresistible is the mayo and tomato chutney dip at the back.

The fish, by the way, is authentic, according to my Sindhi friend Mira, who heads the L.A. Mumbai Sister City group. It's coated with chickpea batter and seasoned with ajwain and other Indian spices.

The upstairs room where we ate was lined with garish, violent Indian film posters. My favorite was this one, with the gun-toting monkey.  

As a gastropub, Badmaash has a beer and wine list, and empty wine bottles serve as water containers. In India, stainless steel cups of water accompany meals. Badmaash follows this custom, but don't drink from the cups. The chemically-treated tap water is so unpalatable that you're almost forced to order from the drinks list.

BadmaashLA, 108 W. 2nd St., #104, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Tel: (213) 221-7466.

Appetizer of the Week: Tanzore's Tuna

Seared tuna is all over the place, but if you want to taste it Indian style, go to Tanzore on La Cienega Boulevard.

Executive chef Jayanta Paul coats ahi tuna steak with Indian spices such as coriander, cumin and red chiles, then sears it in extra virgin olive oil.

He serves the tuna on a bed of raita, not the usual cucumber, cumin and yogurt mixture, but raita that combines yogurt with cubed avocado, bell peppers, chives and a dash of ginger, green chiles and cumin powder. 

To provide some crunch, he adds another fusion touch--tortilla chips. These are made in-house from tortillas cut fine and deep-fried.

And there's more--a pile of tuna tartare on top.

Eating this, it's hard to imagine you're on Restaurant Row in Beverly Hills and not in some chic place in Mumbai, Kolkata or Delhi.

Tanzore, 50 N La Cienega Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211. Tel: (310) 652-3838.

Back to Little India for Lunch

Lunch at Surati Farsan Mart in Little India was so good (see last post) that I simply had to do it again.

The previous post theorized that the popular Gujarati vegetarian eatery might expand into the space vacated by a book and gift shop next door.

That didn't happen. Karma Fashion Studio took over the empty space instead, but Surati expanded anyway--outside, onto the sidewalk.  At the top, you can see the row of tables waiting for customers when the restaurant gets crowded.

The latest lunch included one repeat from before, the silky bright yellow rolls of gram flour dough called khandvi (above). They're sprinkled with mustard seeds, cilantro and coconut strands and accompanied by a super spicy green sauce.

The friend who went with me swears that Surati's bhel puri (above) is better than any she tasted during months in India. As yellow as khandvi, it's a sweet and spicy, salad-like mix that includes crunchy rice puffs along with potatoes, beans, onions and cilantro.

You have to be careful with pani puri (above), or you'll splash tasty liquid over your face and hands. These miniature pastry puffs are filled with potatoes and green and black beans seasoned with sweet and spicy sauces. To finish them off, you spoon in mint-flavored water. This is what you'll be wiping off if you don't eat each one in a single bite.

Chick peas, channa, garbanzo beans, chole. They're all the same, and at Surati they come with a vegetable-filled samosa (above) that gets soft and gushy if you don't extract it from the sauce right away. But maybe that's how it's supposed to be. 

There's something else new at Surati in addition to sidewalk seating. It's a line of Indian-flavored ice creams from Saffron Spot down the street. You take your pick from a photo menu near the cash register. After eating, walk down to Saffron Spot, and you'll find even more flavors there. 

Surati Farsan Mart, 11814 E. 186 Street, Artesia, CA 90701. Tel: (562) 860-2310.

Saffron Spot, 18744 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia, CA 90701. Tel: (562) 809-4554.