I was steered to Basil Indian Bistro by a friend who was taken there by a friend from India, who in turn had gotten the recommendation from another Indian friend. So that’s two from the subcontinent and two from here who are telling you the food at Basil is worth a trip.
This is chef-owner Hema Patel’s first restaurant, aside from a stint running a Subway, but her hand with a long list of familiar and less familiar dishes is a sure one. She was born in Gujarat, north of Bombay, but tackles some dosas from South India as well.
I like the way some Indian restaurants categorize their dishes as “Vegetarian” or “Non-Vegetarian,” as it’s done in India. The non-meat option is the default, the opposite of the way most Americans approach meals, and a good reminder that there’s more than one way to look at the food world.
Basil has as many vegetarian as non-veg dishes, the latter being mostly chicken and seafood, with a few lamb options, and the former encompassing eggplant, cauliflower, chickpeas, lentils, lots of paneer, peas, okra, spinach, and cashews.
My favorite dish was chicken methi, methi meaning fenugreek. Its benign but assertive flavor has been described as burnt-sugar or even maple syrup, but I can’t agree. It’s not sweet but rather… quintessentially Indian.
Another plate for the mild-mannered is kaju kyoha, a vegetarian dish based on cashews. This one is a little sweet; you could eat it for breakfast. To make its base, Patel says, milk is cooked down until thick, resulting in a rich, creamy sauce.
Chicken karahi is labeled “spicy” but isn’t off the Scoville charts; I rate it high for complexity. The bird is cooked with a dry mix of crushed red pepper, cumin, and coriander seeds.
All the chicken and sauce dishes are denser with chicken that you often find in Indian restaurants, where the sauce is king, as it should be. (I find this in Oaxaca, too, where you’ll get a lone drumstick but lots and lots of mole to soak up your rice and tortillas.) I was particularly happy that the abundant chicken was dark meat, a big boost to flavor. If only chickens could be reengineered to eliminate insipid breasts...
Patel says hers is the only restaurant in the area serving Kashmiri pulav, or Mumbai street-style tava pulav (also spelled pulao). My friend ordered the latter and got a pile of rice big enough for three people, with vegetables, nuts, dried fruit, and cooling raita on the side. In Mumbai, it’s cooked on the street over a fire, in a cast-iron pan on a griddle; Patel says she does it the same way.
Chicken tikka masala is one of the most-ordered dishes, along with butter chicken; it has a sharp and pleasant undertaste, maybe mustard oil. In the vegetarian column, bhindi masala was outstanding, cooked quickly to produce a slightly crisp texture, at just the right spice level and tenderness level. Get over your anti-okra prejudice — in the hands of a skilled cook it is a world-beater.
Patel offers a page of “signature dishes,” warning they may take longer, such as stuffed mirch: a pepper stuffed with a mix of cooked-down milk, sesame paste, and yogurt. We ordered garlic-lemon-butter shrimp from that list, and it was excellent but not better than the other, less expensive dishes.
For appetizers, I liked a generous cauliflower chili dish, which is deep-fried but so tender it doesn’t seem like it, cooked with bell peppers. Also spicy is vegetable Manchurian, 12 delicate pieces, enough for the table. Appetizers too can be vegetarian or not, the latter including a lamb chop kabab cooked in a tandoor.
The usual favorites are done well: garlic naan is huge, thick, buttery, with a big air-filled dome rising out of the bread like an octopus body. Apricot-colored mango lassi is also very large and does not disappoint. Samosas are served with a sharp grassy green chutney, fragrant with cilantro.
For dessert, the traditional gulab jamun are rich — again made with those cooked-down milk solids — and served in a warm sugar syrup. Mild and soothing suji ka halwa has a cream of wheat base but is livened with nuts and crushed fresh cardamom.
Much as I enjoyed the food, let me admit that as of yet, eight months in, Basil has no atmosphere. There’s no Indian décor of the type so often seen: no Ganeshas, no hanging textiles, just bare tables and bare walls. The food will have to create its own atmosphere — it’s that good.
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