Khannery

Today mollpeartree and princeofcairo used a grocery trip to Patel Brothers as a pretext for coaxing us out to Khan Barbecue for a hefty late lunch with their friends from Columbus. Every time I visit Devon lately--and I think I'm averaging once every 2-3 months--I see new businesses opening. This time I took note of a "vegetarian and non-vegetarian" South Indian place (Abhiruchi), a new grocery (Mehrab), an Islamic bookstore, and a sweet shop. Also, Urban India and Pita Xpress Grill, two eateries which were under construction on my last trip, are open for business now. Clearly we have a lot of catching up to do.

For lunch, we ordered frontier beef, chicken chapli kabob, goat qorma, palak dal, and aloo gobi which was just gobi. (The server came to our table to say they were out of aloo, and I was like, "You know, there's a grocery just next door where they have them in twenty-pound sacks.") Every one of them was fantastic. I went easy with the beef because of the huge honking chunks of jalapeño; like POC, I appreciated how it incorporated tomatoes without letting them take over. Chapli kabob, a minced meat patty, was new to all of us and a hit all around. The server seemed to raise his eyebrow at our restraint in ordering, but we ended up with enough food to leave everyone stuffed with only a few scraps to spare.

Even though I'd treated myself to a Kashmiri tea (the closest thing they had to masala chai on the menu), I was eager to get to Patel Café for dessert. On the way, we detoured to the bookstore and then took care of the shopping, since the out-of-towners were a bit anxious to get going. (I had to buy some baby bananas because they were just SO CUTE. Eating them makes me feel like a giant in a children's storybook.) Sadly the cashew raisin ice cream tasted more of raisins than of cashews, but the Old Man let me steal some of his scoop of pistachio, so it was all good.

After that, it was a visit to Mughal Bakery to stock up on cookies. The only interesting new offering were "sesame cookies", a variation on the royal almond cookies we always buy. Disappointingly, they don't taste very strongly of sesame. Then a ride home on a crowded bus. After all that food, monshu was ready for another nap and I putzed in the garden, transplanting lemon balm and marjoram from the starter pots on the windowsill. I concocted a little soda with the oddly dark woodruff syrup I'd made Thursday night and found that it tasted acceptable after all. (I'd been worried I'd burnt it.)

Naturally we were still feeling pretty full when dinnertime rolled around, so supper was a salad of the chicken cooked in mojo last weekend with pickle relish (sweet and dill) and fresh herbs. My plan was to use the lovage to substitute for the celery, but we decided the stems were too fibrous and only put in the leaves. Looking to add some crunch, I tossed in some of the slivered almonds from Patel and we finished off the chips from last night. Quite a nice start to the GWO's first full day of vacation!