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Chinese Mirch – Indian Chinese Delight in NYC

 Food  8 Responses »
Jul 292008
 
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Like most Indians, there are two things we’re passionate about – Bollywood and food (no, cricket is not that hot on our list).

In a long life, we’ve watched several hundred Bollywood movies (Hindi and Tamil) and dined at scores of Indian restaurants in Asia, Europe and North America.

North Indian or South Indian, Gujarati or Indian Chinese, Chettinad or Andhra style, the smell and sight of Indian food in any of its myriad flavors sends us into raptures.

So it was no surprise that during our last visit to New York City, we headed to Curry Hill, the area of Manhattan famous for its concentration of Indian restaurants.

This time, we decided to make Chinese Mirch on Lexington Avenue (corner of Lexington & 28th St) our port of call.

As its name suggests, Chinese Mirch is the place for noodles, chop suey, fried prawns, Gobi Manchurian, Szechuan Fried Rice and a host of other exotic Indian Chinese items.

Its neighbors include Curry in a Hurry, Copper Chimney, Pongal, Indo Munch, Chennai Garden, Tamil Nadu Bhavan, Banana Leaf and Diwali.

No sooner had we stepped into Chinese Mirch than we were quickly ushered into the upstairs seating area. The place was almost empty as it’d just opened for lunch.

Famished as we were, we quickly ordered a mix of Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 9:58 am  Tagged with: ,

Tamil Nadu Bhavan – A New York Rat Hole

 Food, Health  1 Response »
May 202008
 
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Update: Tamil Nadu Bhavan Re-opened by NYC Health Dept

Our earliest memories of South Indian restaurants are of dark and dingy interiors, food served in dirty plates or banana leaves and water poured into tall tumblers by sweat-drenched waiters in the dusty small towns and cities of Tamil Nadu in South India.

Four decades and 10,000 miles later, a visit to a South Indian restaurant remains a mishap-prone, dirty journey into the unknown.

We’ve visited scores of Indian restaurants in the New York metropolitan region and have found several of them to be dirty.

Indians, it seems, bring all their dirty baggage – literally and figuratively – to America.

Our latest knowledge of a dirty South Indian restaurant is Tamil Nadu Bhavan on Lexington Avenue in the Curry Hill area of New York City. The Murray Hill area in Manhattan, where Tamil Nadu Bhavan is located, is referred to as Curry Hill for its proliferation of Indian restaurants. 

But even by the stinking standards of dirty Indian restaurants in New York City, Tamil Nadu Bhavan a.k.a New Saravana Bhavan Dosa Hut in Manhattan is a rat hole.

Evidence of Rats, Mice, Roaches and Flying Insects are only some of the problems identified by the NYC Health Department in its April 23, 2008 inspection of Tamil Nadu Bhavan, which earned this ugly Indian restaurant an astounding 80 violation points.


Tamil Nadu Bhavan – A New York Rat Hole
102 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10016
Ph: 212-679-4497

In the same inspection report, the NYC Health Dept inspector also wrote: Food item spoiled, adulterated, contaminated or cross-contaminated. 

And by the way, this restaurant is not vermin proof.

In less than four months after Tamil Nadu Bhavan opened, the NYC Health Department of Health & Mental Hygiene ordered this dumpster to be shut down.

Tamil Nadu Bhavan has the dubious distinction of failing the New York Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 1:00 am

McDonald’s = Windows; Chinese Restaurants = Linux

 Food  1 Response »
Mar 092008
 
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We have yet to read Jennifer 8. Lee’s new book The Fortune Cookie Chroniclers: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food but we plan to pick it up soon.

Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt from today’s New York Times review of The Fortune Cookie Chroniclers:

Lee presents an intriguing idea in a chapter called “Open-Source Chinese Restaurants,” contending that “if McDonald’s is the Windows of the dining world (where one company controls the standards), then Chinese restaurants are akin to the Linux operating system, where a decentralized network of programmers contributes to the underlying source code.” She contrasts the decade of “failed experimentation” before the success of Chicken McNuggets to the breathtaking speed with which chop suey, fortune cookies and General Tso’s chicken took hold in Chinese restaurants everywhere thanks to a “self-organizing” system in which good ideas spread like urban legends.

Lee writes in the opening chapter that Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 2:57 pm

Anjappar Chettinad USA – Awful Service, Lousy Food

 Food  13 Responses »
Mar 022008
 
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Anjappar Chettinad NYC Review

Anjappar Chettinad in North Brunswick, New Jersey gives a bad name not just to the famed Chettinad cuisine but to all Indian restaurants in the U.S.

Disgusting service and a distasteful kitchen come together to deliver a dreadful experience to diners at Anjappar’s new outpost in North Brunswick, NJ.

A far better – and definitely more apt – name for this impostor of a restaurant would be Ambattar Chettinad because the only thing these imbeciles seem to be good at is shaving you off your precious time and hard-earned money (For those not familiar with the Tamil language, Ambattar means barber).

Anjappar Chettinad - Awful WoodAnjappar Chettinad or Ambattar Chettinad?

Anjappar – Endless Agony

Our agony at the Anjappar Chettinad restaurant in New Jersey began at the very beginning.

We had to wait 36 minutes to be Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 8:34 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Bhut Jolokia – Burn Baby Burn

 Food, General  1 Response »
Feb 022008
 
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Indian food owes its attraction to the rich amalgam of spices and, of course, the hot chilies that go into its famed curries.

Today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) brings us news of an Indian chili called Bhut Jolokia that is supposedly 200 times hotter than jalapeño pepper.

Apparently, Bhut Jolokia is the world’s hottest chili pepper. Period. 

In fact, one local farmer Digonta Saikia cautioned an outsider about Bhut Jolokia:

It is so hot you can’t even imagine. When you eat it, it’s like dying. 

Here is what the WSJ had to say about Bhut Jolokia:

The bhut jolokia pepper, which is farmed in the northeast part of the country, was plucked from obscurity last year when the Guinness Book of World Records declared it the world’s hottest. The standard measure for such things is the Scoville Heat Unit, or SHU, named after Wilbur Lincoln Scoville, a chemist who in 1912 developed a method of assessing the heat given off by capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers. Jalapeño peppers measure about 5,000 SHUs. The bhut jolokia tops a million.

Bhut Jolokia is not for effete palates.

Even most Indian palates used to hot curries would find it hard to stand the heat from the Bhut Jolokias though locals in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland eat them raw or add them to curries.

According to a WSJ slide show, Bhut Jolokias are more profitable for farmers than ordinary chili peppers, going for three cents each.

Are we going to try Bhut Jolokia? No way. Oh boy, we can’t even handle the Guntur chilies.

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 Posted by at 8:25 am

Dosa Man Wins Prestigious New York City Award

 Food  2 Responses »
Oct 012007
 
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Thiru Kumar of NY Dosas popularly known as the Dosa Man of New York City has won this year’s prestigious Vendy Award edging out his competition in the form of Tacos, Falafel, Jerk Chicken etc on Saturday.

Vendy Awards are given out annually for the best food from a street cart vendor in New York.

When you consider that there are several thousand food cart vendors in New York City selling all kinds of food, you’ll realize that the Vendy Award is really a big deal.


Thiru Kumar, Dosa Man of New York

From his humble Dosa cart at Washington Square Park South in downtown Manhattan, Thiru offers a variety of Dosas – Sadha Dosa, Rava Dosa, Masala Dosa, Uthappam and the hot favorite, Pondicherry Dosa.

For the Vendy Award competition this year, Thiru submitted his signature dish - Pondicherry Dosa.

Made of lentils and rice and filled with potatoes and fresh vegetables, Thiru’s Pondicherry Dosa is worthy of your attention and highest respect. We can say that with authority because we’ve eaten the stuff. Believe us, it’s just simply superb.

Not too greasy and not starved of oil/ghee, Thiru’s Pondicherry Dosa is just right. Prepared fresh before your eyes, Thiru’s delicious Dosas are offered in disposable containers with chutney and delicious sambar.

Thiru is a friendly soul with a ready smile unlike the waiters at most Indian restaurants in New York who habitually wear a mourning look.

We found Thiru’s Dosas better than the Dosas we’ve had at Indian restaurants in Manhattan like Madras Mahal, Saravanaas, Chennai and Pongal.

The other finalists for the Vendy’s Award this year were Veronica Julien from Veronica’s Kitchen, Muhammed Rahman from Kwik Meal, Super Taco, aka “Sobre Ruedas” and Farez (Freddy) Zeideia, the King of Falafel and Shawarma.

But in the end, it was the Dosa Man who impressed the judges enough to win the Big prize.

Thiru hails from Sri Lanka and came to the U.S. a few years back after winning the Green Card lottery.

Last year, the Vendy Award was won by Samiul Haque Noor from “Sammy’s Halal” whose cart can be found at 73rd Street and Broadway in Jackson Heights (Queens).

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 Posted by at 2:12 am
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