Kebab & Curry is a ludicrously good restaurant

My people and I waited for what seemed like a year for a new restaurant to open up in the building where Amore's Pizza used to be. There was a sign proclaiming that Kebab & Curry would be opening soon, but it was at least 6 months before the doors opened. I was excited about the prospect of an Indian restaurant opening a block from my house, so I felt a fair amount of expectant frustration passing the building every day, and seeing no apparent change in its status. Would they ever open? Anchorage restaurants have a tough go of it, by all accounts. Maybe they ran out of money before they even printed the menus. Maybe the charming little building would stand empty, a tiny carcass in Spenard like so much roadkill... Oh wait, hang on, they opened. Oh, good, then.

When will you ever open?     (Yeah, I stole this picture from Google maps, so what?)

Right after they first opened for business, Bridget brought me lunch from K&C.  Due to a mix-up of some kind, she mistakenly ordered 4 meals instead of 2, but it was perfectly alright because:

• I love Indian food
• I love leftovers
• I like supporting local businesses
• The portions were hella small anyhow

On that occasion, we  weren't overwhelmed.  The food was tasty and made wonderful use of fresh herbs and high quality spices, but at the price, it just wasn't too exciting.  The selection that day was two of four available items (of which two weren't available), and a dessert,  gajar halwa.  Gajar halwa is a sort of hash of carrots, butterghee, nuts, cardamom, and other things near to hand, which manages to be too rich and too sweet without really satisfying any of my expectations of what a dessert is.  This is not something I hold against any particular restaurant.  I just don't really like the stuff, I guess.  It seems like high altitude baby food to me.  Anyhow, I didn't plan to eat there again any time soon, and after two weeks of not eating the halwa, I baked it into a loaf of bread and it was delicious.

But then Chris asserted that this place was better, BETTER than Namaste Shangri-la.  Now listen, I'm skeptical of this sort of comparison in general.  You don't just go and say something's better than something else unless they are doing the same thing.  Which is better, motorcycles or oral sex?  The answer, of course, is oral sex, except when you're stuck in traffic, and...yeah, actually, the answer is oral sex...bad example.    The point is, that you don't talk bad about my homies at Namaste or else you're getting into a fight.  So I punched Chris in the mouth.

Actually, I just told him he was wrong and he said he'd prove it to me on Tuesday.  So I had to go to K&C and give them a fair shake.  we went last night to settle this debate like gentlemen: we ate food and talked about stuff.

Chris and Sarah are on a slow carb, high protein diet, so Chris ordered a whole tandoori chicken and Sarah ordered a small bowl of translucent soup with leafy things floating in it.  Sarah has what someone in the health profession told her was a virus, and probably didn't want to eat anywhere, but she drives the car, so I guess she didn't have a choice.  She may or may not have a virus.  The doctor and nurse crowd use the word virus to describe a wide and various set of symptoms which boils down to the following chart:

Congrats, you're a doctor now.

But I digress. Bridget and I had paneer sikh kabobs, paneer korma and saag paneer with peshawari and kushkush kalonji naan.  The kabobs came out first.  They were skewers as you might expect, but they didn't have hunks of paneer on them.  They had been deep-fried, and were composed of a batter with bits of paneer in it.  They were wonderful, golden and had shreds of fresh herbs in them.  I would say the sauces they came with distracted from the flavor of the actual kabobs, but they were also quite tasty, being a pomegranate sauce and a mint chutney.  By the time they brought out the main course, I began to see what Chris meant. 

With respect to the paneer korma, let me just say that the chef is a better cook than I am a writer.  Eat there sometime and you'll see that I'm bragging.  I was stunned by this dish.  Creamy, garlicy, with a lemony undertone, I just wanted to carry a spoonful in a vial around my neck as a keepsake.  One gets the impression of a person behind this dish who has a sense of the flavor they want and uses the seasonings to express their intention.  The saag wasn't bad, but didn't impress me as intensely as the korma.

The naan was positively ingenius.  It was so unusual in texture.  Thick, not very chewy, it had a nice outer crispness and a deep-dish, sensual moisture inside.  It was not like other naan I've had elsewhere.  It's its own animal.    

When we were done, Chris said  "So, what do you think?"

Was it actually better than Namaste?  Well, no.  It was almost entirely different.  Kebab and Curry clearly comes from a gastronomically different point of view, seeks a decidedly higher class of clientele, and presents Indian dishes in new ways that I suspect are the personal interpretations of the chef.  Namaste is not only an Indian restaurant, but has Nepalese and Tibetan food as well, is considerably less expensive, and is extremely delicious.  So eff you Chris, you're still wrong.  But thanks for inviting me to a new and wonderful experience.