Sunday, April 10, 2011

Little Kabab Station, Mount Kisco


31 E. Main St., Mount Kisco


Mount Kisco has another Indian restaurant, this one a tiny place with about four or five tables that sells one of my favorite fast foods—kabab rolls.  We had a quick early dinner there today, and I have been back once more for a quick snack--here are some early thoughts.  The food was excellent.  We started off with a pot of masala  chai and pakoras (vegetable fritters).  Masala chai is tea made by boiling water, a little milk, some cardamon, cinnamon, and ginger with CTC (crush, tear and curl) tea—a process by which the loose tea leaves are shred into particulates.  This pot was good, but a bit too heavy on the cinnamon.  The pakoras were fresh, light inspite of being fried, without the dark cast from an over-used bath of frying oil.  Then we had the rolls—parathas layered with egg, rolled over lamb seekh kababs with fresh sliced onions and a lemony zing.  It did not have the oil laden heaviness that I rail against in my posts.  It was the way a roll should taste—a fast meal to satisfy a quick craving that leaves a medley of tastes in the mouth.  It would have benefitted from a drier texture, there was too much liquid dribbling out of the paratha.  If you haven’t had rolls, you should take the opportunity of its arrival in Westchester, in Ardsley some months earlier (Calcutta Wrap’n Roll) and now here in Mount Kisco.   Rolls originated in Kolkata at the Nizam Restaurant in the backstreets off Esplanade, where we—as teenagers—used to go to get beef (not readily available in Kolkata) and the story goes that a Britishe sahib  in colonial India wanted some meat and parathas on the go and received a convenient package of a roll wrapped in a piece of paper.  It used to be that even a few years ago we had to head to the city for a roll, to either Roomali or the Kati Roll Company, but of late Westchester has been getting pretty varied in its Indian choices.  As my son and I sat at a tiny window-side table for a quick meal before heading to the high school senior’s annual theater production, the place started to fill up.  On a return visit, we sat down one afternoon with a pot of masala chai—the tea is addictive—looking out the large windows at downtown Mount Kisco storefronts and a sliver view of “Limited Unlimited Jewellers”.  Music drifted from the store sound systems: Sheila ki Jawani (a recent Bollywood “item number” that, transliterated, celebrates the youth of a certain ravishing lady named Sheila), and a remix of an old classic, Neele Neele Amber, with the classic conga percussion that RD Burman imported into hindi music in the early seventies.  We had dessert—gulab jamuns on a stick.  These did not taste like they were from a professional Indian confectionery, but rather like home cooked gulab jamuns with a variable texture: the taste was certainly not unpleasant.  There is a much wider menu available, with entrees and other appetizers, and I will follow up with a return visit.

Note added April 17, 2011:  Biryani was excellent, though the next time I will opt for the milder version.  Preferred the lamb over the chicken biryani.  Seekh kabab was great, decadent and luxurious.  The Shammi Kabab was dry.

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