The Verandah Experience
Indian food in Houston is mostly pedestrian affair. With a couple of notable exceptions, fine dining options for Indian cuisine are limited. Most people (Indians included) have a binary choice between North and South Indian influenced styles of cooking. In the US, the Northern style was the first to arrive in 70’s and consists of popular naans, tandoor grilled meats, lentils or daal, and vegetable dishes or saags. South Indian food arrived later and is based around more spicy and vegetarian sorts of dishes. But with nearly a billion people, Indians know that there is a universe of south Asian cuisine, ranging from Bengali fish dishes to delectable Kashmiri cooking, that the world has yet to experience.
Chefs Sunil and Anupama Srivastava
Chefs Sunil and Anupama Srivastava have launched a new fine dining Indian experience called the Verandah Progressive Indian Restaurant, which hopes to fill in the intra-cultural gaps of Indian food. Located in the new Kirby Collection building at 3300 Kirby Drive, this upscale boasts an impressive interior that houses a see-through back glass wall that looks into the kitchen, a private dining area, and a beautiful copper accented bar that harks back to the colonial era. Tall ceilings give the cozy space an open feeling and the art that adorns the walls, some of which was created by Anupama’s own mother, add a personalized pop of color. The restaurant is admittedly not necessarily child-friendly, as it caters to a mature customer base and business crowd.
Having formally run the popular Indian restaurant, the Great W’Kana Café in Stafford, Chef Sunil’s vision is to explore beyond the standard Indian menu and to add a touch of sophistication. As an experienced French chef, he hopes to elevate Indian cuisine by incorporating the subtle Parisian techniques of layering flavors and the low end slow braising of meats, while maintaining the Indian identity.
Chef Sunil started our journey through his vision with a common Rajasthani street food of fried bread sticks called muttrey or namkeen, and a series of dipping chutneys that were spicy, earthy, sweet and tangy. The salad that followed was traditional but with a unique hit of Indian spices for flavor, not heat. Next was one of our favorites, a Bengali kati roll stuffed with flavorfully spiced tandoori chicken served with bowl of daal (lentil soup). A smothered lamb dish was next. This one was amazingly succulent and the sauce was subtle in taste. A very refined experience for an Indian dish. A chicken biriyani from the Hyderabad region of India followed. It is easy to mistakenly overcook this dish, but Chef Sunil delivered on both flavor and tenderness. Another lamb dish, this time grilled, was definitely the highlight of the tasting. Served under a glass dome filled with a white smoke, the presentation was all flair. Luckily, the taste was even better than the show. The lamb was prepared in a more Parisian seared style, but accented with layered Indian spices.
A desert tasting of three Indian classics was the finale. A light but zesty lemon curd, wonderfully small gulab jamuns, and an elegantly prepared kheer.
Chef Sunil and Verandah takes you on a culinary exploration of an age old cuisine. Though it’s impossible to encapsulate such a diverse landscape of cuisine in a single menu or restaurant, this is an excellent first series of steps along such a journey. We look forward to tasting the rest of what India has to offer.
