Review of the Kabab and Curry, part 2: Melanie, Charlie and I dine; I see a familiar face from the Great Gray Whale rescue; we visit two cats

It was Melanie who invited me to come and join her and other family members at the Kabab & Curry, Alaska's newest Indian Restaurant. She told me to arrive at 5:15 PM. As I prepared to leave Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and the unborn baby's house, I was a little worried, because I could see that I would be a few minutes late. I got into the car and then received a text message from Melanie, instructing me to ask for a table for four, should I arrive first.

I did arrive first - at 5:20 PM. Look how light it is, when so short a time ago it was total night at this time.

The Kabab & Curry had not yet opened, but I did not know this and the door was not locked, so I entered anyway. Everybody inside was surprised to see me. The waitress who greeted me seemed to feel self-conscious that I had entered early, before they were quite ready, but she let me stay inside.

I picked a table, sat down, and then Melanie and Lisa arrived. The waitress apologized, informed them they would not officially be open until 5:30, but allowed them sit down with me, anyway.

Charlie sooned joined us. By then, the restaurant was open and nobody felt self-conscious anymore. As we studied the menu and discussed what we wanted, I ordered a cup of Chai Tea.

Then, for some reason, I started to think about Dillingham, about what a pretty village it is. I wondered if the Yup'iq lady who I found giving away kittens in front of the AC store there was able to put them all in good homes? I remembered visiting Jacob there once, when he was overseeing a water and sewer project, and how, in his spare time, he was making a model replica of the B-24 that his grandfather, my father, flew in World War II.

He would later give that model to me.

I remembered putting him in the back seat of my airplane and then flying him out to Aleknagik, where people were catching salmon. I had planned to buy gas there, and then take him on a more grand tour of the Tikchik Lakes, but it was a Sunday and there was no gas to be had. 

I barely had enough gas to make it back to Dillingham, where it wasn't easy to get gas, either. By the time I did, it was too late to take the tour.

I remembered how hard the wind once blew, and how cold the driving rain was, and how I had to go to my plane and turn it around because the wind had shifted 180 degrees from the breeze that it had been when I first tied down. It had been a big challenge to turn that plane around in that wind and driving rain, but it had to be done and I did it.

God, I loved living like that! You cannot know how much I miss having a working airplane. I want to live like that again - before I grow too old and it becomes too late. This will be the case, all too soon.

I don't know why I thought about Dillingham after Charlie sat down, but I did.

I was shocked when, instead of Chai Tea, the waitress brought me a cup of Charlie Tea. "Take it back! Take it back!" I protested. "I refuse to drink Charlie Tea! I ordered Chai Tea."

"Oh, I'm sorry," the waitress apologized. "I thought you asked for 'Charlie Tea.'"

She quickly dumped the Charlie Tea and then brought me the Chai Tea, as Charlie came staggering out of the kitchen, shaking hot water out of his hair and wringing it out of his beard.

The chai tea was good. No, it was excellent. It was superb. It was savory. I wanted to drink 39 cups of it, but I knew this would not be a good idea, so I restrained myself.

As you can see, Lisa sat to my left, which happened to be to Charlie's right.

And Melanie sat to the right, which means that she also sat to the left. From her perspective, she sat neither right nor left, but at that ever-present place from which right and left extends.

This is our waitress. I forgot to get her name. Sorry about that. I will just call her, "Our Waitress."

I had planned to order South Indian food, like that that Vasanthi and Soundarya and the cooks at Soundarya's wedding had prepared for us, but the waitress informed us that, new as the restaurant is, they do not yet have their South India menu in place yet. She promised that they soon will.

Our Waitress then noted that several items on the Tandoori menu were not available this night, along with a couple of other items. This, she said, was because those items had proved to be more popular than expected and they had not ordered enough to meet demand, but would remedy the problem in the future.

I immediately decided that the unavailable items were exactly the dishes that I wanted to chose from. I didn't want anything else - only the absent Tandoori dishes.

"But don't worry," Our Waitress promised, "Everything on the menu is delicious. We haven't had a single complaint about anything. You can't miss, whatever you choose."

Truth is, when we were in India, we would not have eaten Tandoori, as Tandoori is "marinated meat cooked inside a tandoor (Clay Oven)." Our Indian family is Hindu, vegetarian, and everything that they fed us was vegetarian. And all the time that we were there, I never missed meat. 

Maybe because it was so hot in India that you don't need meat the way you do in a cold climate - but also because they prepare it so well that when you eat it, you have the sensation of eating a dish with meat, even though there is no flesh in it.

For the sake of my brief India times, I ordered off the vegetarian menu: Daal Makhani, "whole urad beans simmered with kidney beans at a very slow fire bringing out exotic flavors and are finished with a tadka of ginger garlic and tomatoes." That's what you see in the brass pail.

Charlie ordered Adraki jhinga - one of the available items from the Tandoori menu: "Smoothered with a marinade made with ginger, this is a delectable prawn apetizer. Is flambe' and served with tingling peanut chutney."

Chutney. Vasanthi makes that - and it is good stuff. Hot, and very good.

Now I am getting a little confused, but if I remember correctly, Lisa ordered Makhani,* from the curry menu: "Best Seller - Creamy Tomato curry flavored with house blended spices and fenugreek leaves from North India." It also came with her choice of meat and she chose chicken.

Melanie - I cannot remember the name of the dish that she ordered. I just can't. 

Actually, we had all ordered for each other, as we agreed to eat "Family style." We would share each other's dishes. We also ordered three servings of plain naan bread and two bowls of rice.

What can I say to describe the meal that followed? How do I communicate the ecstasy in which this fine food engulfed the tongue and sated the belly? It was superb, it was exquisite, it was sumptious, it was delicious, it was succulent!

It was pretty damned good.

Outside of India, it just may be the best India Indian meal I have ever eaten.

It just may be. Melanie and I had a pretty good one in Washington, DC, once.

Our Waitress was right. It seems you can't miss on this menu.

I can't wait until Margie returns from Arizona, so I can bring her here and let her sample all this delicious goodness. Kabab & Curry just may be my favorite restaurant in Anchorage now. Hard to say for certain. There is a Mexican restaurant on the corner of Northern Lights and Boniface that Jacob and Lavina took us to, once, which is heavenly.

And then there are a couple of sushi places that must be in the competition, too.

But right now, at this moment, with the taste and aroma so fresh in my memory, Kabab & Curry is my favorite restaurant in all of Anchorage.

Yet, I predict problems for Kabab & Curry. It is a very small restaurant. Five, maybe six, tables. Once people figure out how good this place is, they are going to need more tables, but I didn't see any place to put more tables. In fact, even before we finished eating, every seat in the house was taken. More and more diners will soon be coming.

Toward the end of our meal, I saw a face enter that reminded me of one I had once known. I had last seen that face close to 22 years ago. I wondered if it could be the same face, with a couple of decades of wear added to it?

The man who owned that face looked directly at me, but showed no sign of recognition. So I figured maybe it was just someone who bore a close resemblance to that man with whom I had shared a momentous experience 22 years ago. I thought this because I look exactly the same as I did 22 years ago, just like the young kid that I always feel I am, so he would have instantly recognized me, had it been he. 

That man was Jeff Berliner, a reporter for United Press International. It was October, 1988, and Berliner had come to Barrow to cover the Great Graywhale Rescue. He needed a place to stay and so he stayed with me, in the quonset hut that I rented for several years. And every day, he sent my gray whale pictures out over the wire and they appeared in newspapers all over the world.

All readers old enough to have been aware of the larger world at that time will recall the Great Gray Whale Rescue. For two weeks, even though a Presidential Election was less than one month away, it overshadowed every other story in the universe.

I won't say much about it, now, because Hollywood is making a big film based on the Great Gray Whale Rescue and when they release it I plan to run a series of posts that will show you how it unfolded in front of my eyes. Some of you have read about it in my book, Gift of the Whale, but I only had so much space to tell the story there and so gave an abbreviated account.

When the movie comes out, I will present a more complete account, spread over several days, right here, on this blog.

I could not leave without asking and, as it turned out, the familiar face did belong to Jeff, who went on to work for several years in Russia, and then came home to serve as an investigator with the Alaska Public Office Commission, better knowns as APOC. It was his job to keep Alaska politicians honest in their financial disclosures.

Man. Talk about a tough job!

Here he is, Jeff Berliner, who experienced the Great Gray Whale Rescue with me, standing alongside his wife, Michele Brown, an attorney who served as the Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation under Governor Tony Knowles.

Charlie went off to join in a low-stakes card game and the rest of us went to Lisa's, to visit her cats. Here she is, with Zed.

And here is Melanie, with Juniper.

Juniper, in front of Lisa.

Melanie, Juniper, and Lisa.

And then I came home, exhausted and full.

And I am exhausted now, too.

Once again, I have overdone a blog post. I should edit, tighten up, trim it down, seek out and destroy all typos and such.

But I am too exhausted. Blogs are works of great imperfection - and this one rises to that standard.

I will leave it as it is and go to bed.

*If you look in comments, you will see that Lisa has corrected me. She actually ordered chicken tikka masala: "Chunks of marinated boneless meat roasted on skewers in *Tandoor* finished in creamy tomato based curry."

While I am humiliated to have made such a flagrant error, this does give me an opportunity to add another adjective to describe the superlative cuisine to be had at Kabab & Curry. That would be, "piquant." I have no idea what "piquant" means, especially in relation to food, but its a damn-fine-sounding adjective and deserves to be used. Now I have used it, and can move on with my life.

I should also add the address: Lois at Spenard.

Comments

[Lisa]

I actually had chicken tikka masala.

[Michelle]

Do not edit! I enjoy it just....like....it....is. And now I'm really hungry!

[Grandma Nancy]

Please do not edit! I love reading your blog -- seems like a friendly conversation instead of the written word.

[majii]

I love the cat pics. They remind me of my beautiful kitty, Mr. Holley. Glad your meal was good.

[Ruth Z Deming]

lucky for me, bill, i was munching on popcorn when i read this blogpost. otherwise i would've had to order indian take-out which does not exist here in suburban philadelphia. love the phrase '39 cups of chai tea.' said like the true great author you are!

[CGinWI]

Darn it, now I am very, very hungry for Indian food, but the nearest Indian place is 40 miles away, plus it would be closed at this hour.

Juniper has a very sweet face.

[conchscooter]

It seems to me they put something extra in the food. There is a a rather bug eyed cumin-fueled speedy quality to the words. There was a mediocre Indian restaurant in Key west for ten minutes. The it went away. It seems rather unfair to put a good one in a snow drift.

[debby]

Your little wandering around in the world of perspective made me laugh out loud. Left becomes right and right becomes left, and the place where right and left begin...sounds like a discussion on politics! Glad Charlie managed to save himself from being drunk. :) I enjoy your ramblings, and meeting the people in your world, even though Melanie looks, in one picture, as if she's going to take your camera away from you if you do not stop snapping pictures.

I've lingered long enough in your land. It is time for me to get out the door for class.

[Ash]

Charlie tea.. That was so funny :D
In the 'Juniper, in front of Lisa' picture, if Lisa had her eyes open, they would both be striking almost the same pose.. :)

[Wasilla, Alaska, by 300]

Lisa - Yeah, but your kittens looked mighty cute.

Michelle and Grandma Nancy - You cause me to feel justified in being lazy.

majii - If I am ever in your neighborhood, let me know and I will photograph Mr. Holley.

Ruth - Thank you. Your suburb should get together, pool your resources and bring over a good cook from Bangalore.

CG - Boy, and we have one right here in Wasilla. It's not quite so good as Kabab & Curry, but still its good. Juniper is sweet, all the way around - even when she growls.

conchscooter - But I'll bet there's some good Caribbean restaurants to be found in your neighborhood. I can't think of any here.

Debby - I don't know how you are doing everything, now that you are going to school, too. Melanie and Charlie gave me that camera, so I am certain she did not want to take it away from me.

Ash - I'm glad to have made you chuckle. Lisa and Juniper are two of a kind.

[John]

Bill

I truly have been enjoying your blog. We lived in Wasilla for 16 years and really loved it but have been gone for over 10 years and enjoy seeing the changes but not sure if we would like some of them.