Cuisine: Indian
First, this place is absolutely adorable. I mean, not the interior or the decor or anything — on that front it’s pretty run-of-the-mill utilitarian Indian — but the fact that the owner and restaurant’s namesake, Jaz Rupall, chats you up and tells you how special your drinks and food are going to be. While her husband takes your order and not-so-subtly brags about his amazing wife. It’s exactly what you want from a small, family-owned joint that you wander into because the original eatery where you planned to land had a waitlist longer than your grumbling stomach could handle.
To add to the fun, there are regulars. Those funny people who hang at a restaurant like it’s their place and greet customers as if the concept (and lease) is theirs. The late-middle-aged / early-older-age dude holding court at the tiny corner bar, where he hosted a small group with what I have to assume where many drinks, instantly turned when my buddy and I rolled in and engaged us with some funny quips about our hair and relative youth in the friendliest way. He told us we were in for a great night and stole a little of Jaz’s thunder, giving us her whole bio and praising her British accent and various other things. He wandered over after a few minutes, gave us his bio, told us we should come by his club sometime and proceeded to do a version of the same (I assume) as he wandered over to folks’ tables as they were seated. Again, this is a really intimate space (what a real estate broker would refer to as “cozy”), so he could really spot any new-comers. Normally this would be annoying, but this guy was completely entertaining and it really added to the flavor of the evening. He was a regular, after all.
Jaz was good to her word: my Manhattan was delicious. The bar — which is just carved out of the corner of the room and has somewhere in the vicinity of seven stools — looks like something someone might have in their house. So I wasn’t incredibly confident in what I might get back, but looks can be deceiving. Indian food is funny, in that you don’t have to be Indian for it to feel like homey comfort food. The interactivity of eating a piping dish of saucy chicken with warm, fluffy naan and rice kills any idea of pretension and fussiness. It feels communal without needing to be communal. Exotic while still familiar. But not like Chinese food familiar, because being a Jew from L.A, that’s just Tuesday night food. And Thursday. Point being, the combination of the memorable Jaz hospitality and the heart-warming food is a winner.
We started our meal with onion fritters and vegetable samosas. I don’t want to pat myself on the back, but good call. And because I have an aversion to lamb and didn’t want to start my goat adventure on this night, we went with two types of chicken: tikka masala and vindaloo. Because we’re basic. But the food wasn’t. It was flavorful and had some heat, but an appropriate amount of heat for our white-ass constitutions. You don’t so much plate traditional Indian food as scoop it into a serving dish, so it’s tough to discern the difference between everyday Indian food and gourmet, fine-dining Indian food. But this tasted better than our usual place. Deeper depth of flavor. Certainly warmer and fresher-tasting than what we get in our plastic takeout containers per usual. Now, I don’t live in Hell’s Kitchen, nor anywhere nearby so this can’t be our normal go-to. But a boy can dream.
813 Ninth Ave. (bet, 53rd & 54th St.)
917/675-7440
jazindiancuisine.com
