Named as an Outstanding Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation, this Asheville transplant features flashy restaurant design, an agressive sound system, and craft cocktails. The terms ‘street food’ and foodie are easily tossed about looking for a devoted clientele. And it is indeed hard to get a reservation.
I consider all the above warning signs that my Indo-Pak tastebuds are about to be insulted. But I plunged ahead and did not heed the warnings.
What I most wanted to try here is the bihari kebab. I had a wonderful example in Jackson Heights at Kabab King, thanks to @Saregama. And I will give Chai Pani some credit for the flavor. Very well seasoned with a tangle of very thin slices of red onion that had an invigorating spicy kick to them. This kabob was smaller and the process for tenderizing the meat made it mushy. Still, a qualified success.
If you are wiling to drop some dough, then by all means don’t hold back on the lamb kala masala, lamb shank with a great lamb flavor, doused in a thick layer of dark sauce heavy with burnt onion. Really good stuff.
But once we dug into the ‘street food,’ we realized that we were in trouble. Pani Puri:
The wild mushroom uttapam tasted nothing of the alleged onion, green chili, curry leaf, and ginger. That’s a laugh. This was a timid pancake. The pani puri was housed in a thick cup like you might find passed around by a caterer and tasted only of sweet yogurt. We sent back the kale pakora chaat. The kale had a thick batter and was clearly fetched from the refrigerator before serving. They offered to make it fresh for us, but it too was quite bland. The naan here is like nothing you’d ever see elsewhere. Small, thin, buttery disks.
Kale Pakora Chaat:
Overall, it is far more expensive than good. They seem to put more stock in the high priced items, so that is your best chance of eating well here.
