From creamy curries and crispy nans to Jewish comfort foods like kasha and varnyshkas, we’ve got something for everyone’s palate.
I’d like to know how the real estate agents sold the location of Taj, a lovely little Indian restaurant sequestered on
one o the quietest streets downtown, to its owners. Did they say that being incredibly hard to find was the latest trend in dining or that patrons would only work up an even greater appetite if they were forced to walk the streets for hours trying to find the place?
Billing itself as Iranian-Indian, my guest and I were confused by the complete lack of Persian choices until we were by told by the helpful wait staff that rather than combine the two on one menu, the restaurant actually rotates the cuisines: one week it’s curries and chutney, the next it’s fesenjan and sabzi (I wonder if they also take down the ornate Ganesh statues and replace them with photos of austere mullahs). But this is not your typical Indian restaurant in many respects. First of all, it serves beef. I’ve long lamented the fact that one of the world’s greatest stewed-meat cultures regards one of the world’s best stewing meats as off-limits. But here, finally, you can get a thick spicy curry with an armada of luxuriously tender bovine morsels (Hr 31) floating along just as naturally as the standard lamb.
Start off with a faithfully rendered samosa (Hr 16), four dense fried globes stuffed with potatoes and vegetables, and served with a side of fiery mango chutney. Herbivores will enjoy Vegetables Taj (Hr 20), a meatless curry collection of cauliflower, carrots, potatoes and peas mired in a mustard-colored slush that competently blends chilies and coriander. The Chicken Jhal Fry (Hr 31) is a relatively faithful rendition of this common fowl and hot pepper jumble. And the Kaachi Biryani betrays the incestuous past of South Asian cooking: Despite a few native flourishes, the dish would be just as comfortable being sold as Uzbek plov or Afghan pilau.
And while you sop up all the leftover sauce with a cheese nan (Hr 10), perhaps you’ll be as lucky as we were to be regaled by the violin playing from a long-haired young man in jeans who was oddly practicing his piece in front of the bathroom (he had to stop to let you enter and do your business). In fact, his music was so soulful that a table of drunk devushkas nearby swayed with a bit too much reverie – and succeeding in knocking over one of the carved wooden room dividers, which vengefully brought one of the young ladies firmly down with it. So your time at Taj may be a bit less eventful than ours, but it will be delicious all the same.
Taj, 25 Litnaya vul.
Open weekdays from 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; weekends 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
English-language menu: Yes
English speaking staff: No
Average price of main dish: Hr 28
Successful Jewish excursion
As a boy, a trip to grandma’s house was always an exercise in culinary terror. While I loved the attention she lavished upon me, I lived in fear every time she walked out of the kitchen armed with something that was menacingly called “Jewish food.” Thankfully, both the child and the cuisine have grown up. I no longer break into sweat every time someone mentions “gefilte fish,” and the culinary repertoire of Jewish restaurants has increasingly begun to incorporate some of the more esoteric flavors from the disparate lands we’ve inhabited. Jews are a people who’ve traveled extensively over the years (usually, alas, not of our own volition) and we’ve picked up a lot of different seasonings and preparation methods along the way. And nowhere else in town is this more evident than at Tsimes, the warmly decorated Jewish eatery nestled off the main street in Podil.
As you descend the steps into the basement location, make sure not to miss the life-sized wooden depiction of a Jewish merchant – a statue so incredibly stereotypical in its facial features that, if located anywhere in the U.S., it would send the Anti-Defamation League into convulsions.
The menu is your typically Kyivan book-length tome (oddly beginning with a section of Lenten specials) that covers three continents and 5,000 years of cookery (including all the liver, brined fish and horseradish meals that put such fear into me as a kid). Ashkenazi diaspora such as myself will be warmed by the perennial “kasha and varnyshkas” (Hr 18), a simple Eastern European peasant staple of buckwheat, fried onion, diced mushrooms and homemade bowtie pasta. The Sephardic coos-coos with lamb (Hr 75) clearly shows its North African roots: tender kernels of flesh surrounded by a sea of fluffy yellow grains. For a taste closer to home, try a bowl of the Jewish take on borsht (Hr 25): your typical ruby beet broth but filled with duckling and prunes. And a Hipesh salad (Hr 35) is a refreshing melange of chicken, mushrooms and cubes of red-peppered white cheese. Rosh Hodesh was the only off note of the evening. A fish-shaped fried lump of pike perch and carp, while well-seasoned, was a bit dry and the surrounding vegetables were clearly of the precut frozen variety. But the low note faded quickly with the appearance of a charismatic violinist who churned out a set list stolen straight from Jewish vaudeville. With the Hebrew-painted walls alive with the solemn strains of the strings and a thin lovely voice warbling Yiddish, I thought I was trapped in the middle of a recent staging of “Fiddler on the Roof.” But a good one, at least. And for those more dedicated to the noxious kosher foods of my youth, you can still order a plate of chicken necks that would make even my grandma proud.
Tsymes
10/5 Sahaydachnoho vul., 428-7579
Open daily from 11:00 a.m. until last client
English-language menu: YesEnglish-speaking staff: No
