Chai Tea—Masala Chai, That Is

I tend to be something of an obsessive personality. I get fixated on a thing, and then I worry it like a dog worries a bone. I look at it from this angle and that. I gnaw. I ponder. Lately I've done this with Chai tea, which is inherently obsession-worthy: it's everywhere (Starbucks, restaurants) yet it's hard to find good, truly spicy Chai tea. Chai means 'tea' in many languages, but I'm after masala chai, which is what Westerners mean when they say Chai. Wikipedia has a decent entry on it. Go to a grocery store and you will find several different things claiming to be Chai: vanilla chai tea, even green chai (yuck), powder mix for Chai that includes the sweetener.

I do not drink caffeine, and so it became of the utmost importance in my life to find Chai decaf tea that didn't taste like cardboard water. Many of the teas purporting to be Chai (sold by Stash, Celestial Seasonings and the like) *smell* good and spicy but when you taste them they taste like nothing. Worse than nothing, because at least if you're drinking nothing, you expect nothing. When you expect spicy warmth and find nothing, it's disappointing. So I visited the India Bazaar, a great store on 1321 Central Ave., where I bought fresh ginger, cardamom still green in its pods, and peanuts coated with hot spices.



I had found this recipe, which claimed that you do not want to use leaf tea to make Chai-- and right they are. Every time I made Chai using leaf tea, it turned out wrong. The tea leaf turned the tea too bitter, and the spices couldn't compete. I wanted to buy authentically Indian tea-- not the expensive leaf kind of tea, but just the everyday kind, hoping to find decaf. But apparently, people from India do not believe in decaf.

These are the right brands, but they all have caffeine.
I can really understand their point about caffeine (alas, I love things that are bad for me), and maybe next time I will feel brave enough to buy one of these boxes of tea.

So I started experimenting with the Chai recipe. At first it was not good. So I added more spice and made it again. And then, when I finally got it how I like it, I decided that it's no use to make just one cup of Chai. You want to have lots of it around, so you can easily reheat some for a midnight snack or early in the morning.

So here's what I came up with.

Big pot O Decaf Chai

You will need a sturdy mortar and pestle for this, as well as a strainer with fine holes, around the size that can fit over your standard tea mug. I found an excellent cup-size strainer at the Hannaford.

6 cups water
8 tsp. Orange pekoe tea (or tea from 8 tea bags) but DO NOT use leaf tea! I have used Tetley and Salada.
20-30 pods cardamom. Cardamom can make it taste bitter, so maybe more like 20, depending on your taste.
1 hunk of ginger (1-2 inch chunk)
15 or so black peppercorns
4 medium sticks of cinnamon (more if the sticks are thin)
15 allspice berries
15 cloves
some honey
2 cups milk or half and half

Place the cardamom and ginger together in your mortar and pestle and pound away until you are satisfied, and until the cardamom seeds, which are black, emerge from the pods and are crushed. (This part is very therapeutic). Then do the same with the rest of the spices, making sure you break up the cinnamon well enough that there is some powder as well as little bits of cinnamon bark. The more you break things up, the more surface area there will be = the more spicy your tea will be. Put it all in the water with the tea, and then simmer it for about 10 minutes. This part is important: too little time, and your tea won't taste like much of anything, but too much time, and it will be bitter. Add 2 cups of milk or half and half if you're feeling decadent, and heat through. Then add about 2 Tbs. honey (or to taste) and strain.

Ethnic food festivals

This is a brief post to say that I'd like to get out to more of the wonderful ethnic food festivals in the Capital Region.

I've read signs that advertise for an Armenian food festival on Sunday, August 5, from 11-4 on Spring Ave. in Troy.

I think it's here.

If I do go I'll post with pics. Also there are Italian and Greek festivals, not to mention Lebanese, Ukrainian... if anyone has tips on other good festivals to go to, please post and let me know.

My New Addiction: Roma Importing Co.

Roma Foods Importing Company is in Latham in Cobbee Road, in the shadow of the Price Chopper plaza. It's one of those great secret places you can live here for years and not know about, because it's on one of those little side streets off Route 9. It's awesome and you must go, now and again! I didn't have my camera with me, but here's a pic of the booty:


If you want to skip reading this blog and just go there to get delicious food here is their info:

Roma Foods
9 Cobbee Rd., Latham
tel. 785-7480
hours: M- Th and Sat: 9-6
Friday: 9-7
Sunday: closed

There is also a location in Saratoga.

Although they are a deli, there is a whole separate meats shop next door, and "deli" doesn't even begin to explain the nummyness here. (It will take a meat eater to go there and report on their salamis, but they looked really, really good. They also had things like chicken sausage and whole turkey).

There is an entire aisle of different kinds of pastas: imported types from Italy, Farro pastas, and all different shapes and sizes. There is a frozen foods section with raviolis (plain as well as things like lobster ravioli), and spinach pies that looked wonderful. They have those homemade Italian lemon cookies with icing. Sauces galore, both Italian and salsas (I got a bottle of mango salsa). Greek tarama and taramosalata. Relishes, every size and shape of caper you could possibly want in large or small bottles, about a dozen types of olives in their deli section (plus others in jars). There are hard-to-find baking ingredients like marzipan and chestnuts. There are chocolates, panettone, biscottis, Italian cookies (the typical American kinds that are outlandishly colored pink and green and such, in a glass case) and a whole selection of packaged taralli, those heavenly little donut-shaped Italian crackers I became obsessed with two years ago after finding them at the Italian festival in Schenectady.

I bought the anise kind (for dessert) and the fennel kind (for snacking). They are dangerously addictive!

You can easily pick up dinner there, and the prices are very reasonable. I got the chef Paul caponata, which is just bursting with big juicy capers, olives, and pine nuts. The grilled eggplant and zucchini weren't as good, but still, who's complaining-- that you can *get* these things in Latham is a major achievement. I got a large jar of Maille dijon mustard for just $3.99, and a large jar of red peppers for just $3.49. I got a gorgeous bottle of unfiltered olive oil (the real thing, with smoky green olive sedimentation) for just $16.95 for a whole liter, where that would easily cost me $35 or $40 anywhere else.

The people who work there are efficient and friendly, and the woman behind the deli counter cut in half a big ball of fresh cow's milk (fior di latte type-- the kind in water) mozzarella* for me to take home. It's the best buffalo mozarella I've found around here. They had these intriguing antique wooden bins of salted chickpeas that are a snack I'd never seen before. They had bags of black melon seeds (also a snack). They have reassuringly large glass jars of spices (beyond cinnamon-- things like sumac) so you can get as much as you need (not like those stingy little dank pricey plastic or glass bottles at the supermarket).

They also do catering and parties.

I was so excited when I left that I forgot entirely why I was out on Route 9 anyway and had to backtrack to do my errands. I'm planning on becoming a regular at Roma's.

*Note that "buffalo mozzarella" technically means the kind made from actual buffalo milk: read the comments for more info. I often use "buffalo mozzarella" just to refer generically to "mozzarella in water" but usually the kind in the US is made from cow's milk.

Peruvian food in Troy!

This post has been edited (4/22/07) again. While a friend of mine said the other week that she had a pretty bad experience at Hotspot with bad service, she has returned with a better time of it, and she feels that all in all, it's worth supporting the independently owned Hotspot. Plus, the owner has posted a comment (below). I personally plan on returning.

After attending the first official Troy Night Out, we worked up an appetite, and murmurings from the crowd led us to Hotspot, which claims on its website that it is "Troy's best café." Well! Since we have what-- like about 20 cafés now?-- that's saying something! We had to check this out.

I hadn't brought my camera, and even if I had, it was pretty dark in there, so unfortunately no pix. However, I will be going back, with my camera.

I had papa a la huancaina-- described on this blog about Peruvian food-- and I am now an addict. This simple dish was just boiled potatoes served with a creamy yellow sauce made from yellow peppers and cheese. There was also a hard boiled egg. It was DELICIOUS! And I had it with their Greek salad, which was decent.

The menu here is a combination of Peruvian specialties (fish, meats, etc) and American bar food: pizzas, sandwiches, salads. The pizza my husband had was okay, but I'm interested in going back for the Peruvian food. The best news? They're open 7 days a week from 10-10pm!!! With breakfast all day!!! Yessssss! (Somewhat less good news: they're having music there, which means figure out if whoever is playing is someone you don't mind hearing, because it's a small restaurant).

Check it out, and let me know what you order!

Van's on Central Avenue is King!

This is exciting for me, because while I like to try out new places to eat, it's rare that I find one that will become a regular spot. Van's is going to be the place I gravitate to when I'm in Albany from now on. I wish I had known about it before! Van's is on 307 Central Avenue, on the north side of the street.

I had read about it, but it's always hard for me to trust the Times Union review, because the paper reviewers here haven't had a free meal they didn't like.

So it was after two friends spoke highly of it that I went. Their spring rolls in particular are a favorite, and with reason: I tried the vegetarian ones and they were out of this world. Fresh, not greasy, and yet deeply satisfying with a nutty mellow flavor, they hit the spot. The portion was a generous one, too, with I think 4 rolls served as an appetizer. My friend got the rolls with meat, and he ate his right up, too. They came served with nuoc mam and fresh lettuce and sprigs of mint that are just the right light complement to the complex flavors of the rolls.

The space is a bit odd, because it's so large, and the tables are spaced in such a way that you feel you are eating at a dance hall. It was a good thing that our waitress was energetic and filled our water glasses frequently, because to be abandoned in a space like that would be spooky. They should put a carpet down or something, or even put more tables there to make it feel a little cozier. But Van's filled up pretty well on a weeknight, as it seems to have drawn people like me who cherish its good food and helpful service.

For my main course I got salmon with ginger. It was quite good, tender and flavorful, with generous shreds of ginger on top and a light citrus sauce, but not too sweet or overpowering. My friend got the chicken-- they were out of the roasted chicken, but he got another chicken dish that was similar, and he reported that it was very good. They have an extensive offering of tofu/vegetarian dishes, noodle dishes, and soups of all kinds (but unfortunately not many that weren't beef-broth based).

It's worth going just for their dessert selections alone, too: this is the only place in Albany that I know of where you can get a Durian shake, a mango shake, or something called basil seeds with sugar. I tried the key lime pie, which was nice and light but not as tart as I like it. They also had turtle cheesecake and a few other typical American desserts. Their prices are reasonable; in short, in every way Van's rocks. Next time I want to try the basil with sugar.

I highly recommend this place. In fact, as I type this, I wish I could go there right now. But there's a 'winter weather advisory' up and we're stuck here for now.

Ali Baba and the 7 Side Dishes

Ali Babi, on 2243-15th Street near RPI, is one of our standbys. We go there usually once a month because 1) they're nearby 2) the food is good 3) the food is cheap. Plus it's mesmerizing to watch them make lavash bread in their brick oven.
The menu consists of Turkish influenced Middle Eastern fare, with an emphasis on deli-style items like kabobs, pizzas, and dips (hummous, yogurt sauce). They have a huge schwarma rack roasting fresh meat.

By googling Ali Baba I found this excellent site, which I'm adding to my links: Zabiha.com, which tells you about restaurants that are halal or Zabiha or not by region. Ali Baba is apparently halal in some respects but may not be entirely. Since this is not my area of expertise, I'll leave it up to readers to help me out on this one. I also found this web site: Never Mind the Ramen. It has a great name and some lively exchange on Troy food, but it doesn't seem updated.

Anyway their food is usually really good, even though there are only two vegetarian dishes I get there: the Mixed Plate (pictured), which gives you a selection of deli things like grape leaves, humus, and eggplant salad; or the veggie gyro, which comes with their excellent and addictive yogurt sauce inside a hot-from-the-oven lavash.

Last night, my husband got his usual Pastrami in paper, which he loves. But this time he did not love it, and he looked so forlorn as he picked his way around it! The pastrami was obviously a different brand, and not as thin or flavorful as the one they usually have. I encouraged him to send it back and ask for another dish, but he was too shy.

I got my usual Mixed Plate, which was the same as it always is, but for some reason didn't really satisfy me (I think I was craving something warm, instead of this which had all cold things). But overall, Ali Baba is someplace I will continue to go, and it is a favorite of RPI types, although they too admit that sometimes it can be uneven.

Thunder Mountain Curry: on vacation for now

This is a fond farewell, for a short time, to Thunder Mountain Curry. Proprietor Mike Gordon is bound for Southeast Asia for a month, but he reassures his devoted fans that he will be back in February.
Here he is at the Farmer's Market. If I had to elect a "Best of 2006" of all dining categories in the Capital Region, Thunder Mountain Curry would tie with Mrs. London's. They are pretty different, though.

Thunder Mountain Curry is a Southeast Asian gig run by the energetic and enthusiastic Mike Gordon, who is Culinary Institute trained, yet chooses to ply his ambrosial meals from a sidewalk stand. Weekdays find him at the corner of Peoples Ave. and 15th Street near RPI or, on weekends, from the Troy Farmer's Market. The menu offers superb vegetarian as well as chicken and sometimes lamb and a wonderful seafood curry. My husband and I often go to the Farmer's Market just to get the divine Buttercup Squash Curry or Palak Paneer (pictured) for brunch. Meals come with basmati rice, papadum (thin, spicy large crackers) and home made chutneys such as, recently cranberry apple, mint, and tomato onion. Thunder Mountain Curry puts out a menu, and you can become a regular by signing up with your email. This is not the kind of food I would attempt to make at home: Gordon told me once that about a dozen different spices go into one of his dishes. Below is a photo of the variety at Thunder Mountain Curry, including fried pakoras.



Have a great vacation, Mike! You deserve it. And we'll be here when you return.

Al Baraki: Excellent Lebanese food with heart

Al Baraki is one of the best places to eat in the Capital Region. You may be surprised by that statement, but you shouldn't be: consistently, immigrant and 'ethnic' restaurants in this area outpace more traditional (read: white) eateries for freshness, originality, and heart.

What is heart? Heart is that personal connection to food, that sense of emotional nourishment and connection we get when we eat food prepared with care and love. Too often, that quality is missing from overly corporatized chain restaurants and overbuilt, overly fussy places that try to pass as gourmet, like Provence in Stuyvesant Plaza.

At Al Baraki, you get garlicky, fresh food with great variety and a down-home feeling. Paul and Simone are the proprietors, and the restaurant is situated in what used to be a pizzeria. Apparently, Paul started out selling pizza pie, but was encouraged to prepare foods that reflect his Lebanese heritage. It has been working, and I for one will be going back for more. They had a very successful Lebanese festival recently and they tell me they plan to do it again next year. Also, students, be on the lookout for a promotion in the fall.

Today I had the sampler platter, and usually with these types of platters, I'll like one or two of the samples while the rest are pretty bland. But on the Al Baraki platter, I *loved* everything: the baba ganouj was light and garlicky; the stuffed grape leaf and the makdous (baby eggplant stuffed with walnuts and peppers) were topped with Al Baraki's stupendous, home made garlic mayonnaise (which sometimes you can buy to take home in jars); and the tabbouli was full-bodied with mint and lemon. Another one of their signatures is the homemade turnip pickle. It doesn't sound like much, but it packs a wonderful flavor punch, and they use it as a garnish/side on a lot of their dishes.

They also offer meat dishes such as shawarma (chicken or beef), home made pies (lahm-ajeen, which is ground beef with tomato; or goat cheese pie, which I want to try next); and hot vegetable dishes like mousakaa (this looks like a vegetarian version, with onion, eggplant and chickpeas) or loubieh (green beans cooked with onion and garlic).

Their hours are:
Daily 10:30 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Friday 10:30- 9 p.m.
Closed Sunday

telephone: 270-9404

Today it was nice, so I sat at an outdoor table, but they also have seats inside. Go to Al Baraki; it'll make you want to become a regular.

Karavalli makes me grateful to live here

Karavalli just keeps getting better and better. My husband noticed that they raised their prices; I was too busy chowing down to see. Besides, I think they are totally worth it. (NB: Their web site, while informative, makes the dining room look like a musty cave, which it is NOT, so just ignore the lame photos and instead get mesmerized by the psycadelic Hindi goddess cartoon).

You’d never know that a world-class Indian restaurant is hiding in the sleepy little plaza where Comfortex window treatments and an Arthur Murray dance studio do business. It’s off of Route 9, near the Ford dealership: official address is 9B Johnson Road, Latham, telephone 518-785-7600. I can’t say enough good things about this restaurant, but let me start off by asserting that I think Karavalli is as good if not better than Dawat, the only other really authentic Indian restaurant I’ve been to. Dawat is on the East Side in New York City. The fact that we have a restaurant here in little Latham that rivals that is news indeed.

Karavalli specializes in dishes from India’s southern region, Kerala, which is known for its heavenly food. Some of the dishes are your standard Indian restaurant fare (Aloo Gobi, or cauliflower potato dish) but a majority of dishes are unusual, like Okra Masala or Avial Malabar (with green bananas and yams in coconut sauce). Or Chicken Kashmiri in a cashew and almond sauce. This past weekend, I went with my mother and husband, and my mom got the More Kozhambua, listed as a Tamilnadu specialty, and it was AWESOME!!! It was okra and lentil dumplings in a tangy buttermilk sauce that was out of this world, yet somehow also managed to taste healthy at the same time. Karavalli food doesn’t succumb to the bane of many Indian restaurants in America of adding too much grease. Spicy dishes are clearly labeled, and you can find things here that are mild (and you can ask them to turn down the heat). Not that I would do that. I love spices. The other great thing for us vegetarians is that they have two separate vegetarian sections on their menu: one is vegan, with no dairy or animal products.

The appetizers alone are outstanding and diverse: Calamari Cochin (fried masala squid with red onions and pepper), tangy shrimp, Uttapam (a lovely potato pancake), Idly, which is steamed rice/lentil patties served with sauce, and tamarind eggplant. Running at $6-8 dollars per appetizer, this is more than reasonable for the high quality you're getting. The service is also very good and attentive here, and the place is always hopping. Reservations are a good idea for weekends.

I had the Salmon Tikka, which was stupendous, and came served on a platter sizzling with onions and green peppers. We also had at the table a coconut chicken, which I heard was excellent, and Green Beans and Lentils, which sounds plain but is anything but. Other times I've had the Malai Kofta, which was excellent, and the only dish I've ever not adored was the Avial Malabar (but I will probably try it again, just because this was early on in their tenure). It had a strange woody tasting vegetable in it that I ended up spitting out.

One most amazing thing is that they now have two Calcutta Jewish specials. One is a chicken with raisins and cashew sauce, and another is a lamb with okra. I don't eat meat but these sound really awesome. It is obvious that a master chef is at the helm here.

Karavalli uses spices the way that I have learned to use them from one of my favorite cookbooks-- Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking by Yamuna Devi--so that you can taste five or six distinct sensations when you eat. The theory is that in order to be nutritionally satisfied, we need all the flavors represented in one meal, such as sweet, salty, bitter, tangy, savory. It makes a lot of sense to me. Why go around feeling bland all the time when so much color exists for the palate?

My favorite side dish to order here is the Hot Lemon Pickle. It is the kind of food that I imagine, if I really flip out for good (I wonder sometimes), and someone were to put a small dish of the Hot Lemon Pickle in front of me and I tasted a triangle, I would immediately come to my senses. Like smelling salts, only really really tasty. I have waxed ecstatic about it before, but I am a little concerned that it’s not as hot as they used to make it. However, it truly is delicious, and tastes like a lemon that is the Platonic ideal of lemon essence. The lemon from the Garden of Eden. It beats psychotherapy.

Karavalli has an $8.95 daily lunch buffet, which is an excellent way to get started on your addiction. Go ahead. I dare you to go just once.

Emperor's Fine Hong Kong Dining

Emperor's is located at 10 Wolf Road, next to Bangkok Thai (the Sears/Barnes and Noble/Target end of Wolf Road). Emperor's and Ocean Palace are the two consistently best Chinese restaurants in this area, and I would recommend Emperor's to anyone.

First of all, their menu is impressive, although a little less 'exotic' than Ocean Palace's (at Emperor's you can get Duck Feet, Conch five different ways, and a variety of Squid dishes, but it lacks the poetic touch. (See my review of Ocean Palace: reverence is the only appropriate emotion for "Virginia Ham and Fish Maw Soup").

My friend ordered the Shun Fan Golden Chicken, which truly looked like a feast meant for a king. It looked a lot like the soy sauce chicken I used to delight in at New York Noodle Town (in Manhattan's Chinatown), only it was a huge portion served in a regal mound and covered with crispy golden garlic.

I almost gave up vegetarianism right there on the spot.

But I had my dish, Shrimp with Peanuts and Hot Pepper, which was quite good and came with diced celery and carrot. I also ordered the Chinese broccoli (my favorite), and it was excellent. The other time I was at Emperor's I ordered trout, and it was so fresh they actually brought it out before cooking it. It was still alive. I was horrified and felt really really guilty and awful. That trip to Emperor's I considered giving up fish, just because that poor trout looked so unhappy. But I must say it was as fresh as you can get.

So go to Emperor's. You'll never run out of great things to order, and the service is excellent.