When Jasumati Vaghji”™s plan to launch a food-truck serving Indian street-food collapsed six years ago, it was a case of God closing a food-truck window and opening a restaurant door. After running her own catering business from home and working in a café in Stamford, she was dispirited as her food-truck aspiration dissolved. But learning about an Indian restaurant that was for sale turned everything around. “As soon as I walked through the door, I knew this was it,” said Vaghji. “It was a little rundown with only a few customers at the time, but I knew I could do something with it.”
“Restaurant” is perhaps too grandiose a word for Masala Kraft Café, the six-table, 16-seat eatery on Hartsdale”™s “restaurant row,” which Vaghji took over in 2016, and which under her chef”™s whisk has amassed a strong local following. A boon for vegans and vegetarians, the café is also kosher-certified, making it a magnet for Jewish people who observe the strict kosher laws.
The menu combines some of the typical Gujarati dishes that Vaghji learned from her grandmother in Kutch, India, with more familiar Southern Indian dishes.
In the appetizer section, bhel ”“ a dish said to have originated in Gujarat ”“ is a golden dome of puffed rice, with crunchy sev (strands of deep-fried gram flour), peanuts and cilantro. Given a touch of sweetness with chutney and topped with ruby pomegranate seeds, it”™s a crunchy jewel of a dish that is both vegan and gluten-free.
Sev and sweet chutney feature too in sev puri, crisp puri “crackers” that you pop into your mouth whole, the perfect street or party food. And mixed pakoda, which also hails from northwest India, delivers a fresh, out-of-the-pan crunch, with its onion, spinach, cabbage and cauliflower mix, all bound together with chickpea flour and fried.
Samosa chaat, a freshly-made samosa (pastry) crushed and blended with yogurt and chickpeas, is a new assembly I also recently enjoyed. It”™s a fully-fledged comfort dish, with its smooth texture and easy, satisfying flavors.
If it”™s carbs you crave, go for Masala Kraft”™s dosas. They come with spicy mashed potato, mixed vegetables, paneer (Indian cheese) or just plain. And there are exceptional idlis, too ”“ those wonderful flying-saucer cakes of steam rice and lentils ”“ and medu vada, fried lentil and rice doughnuts that you dip into tangy tomato or tamarind chutney.
Another way to enjoy idlis and medu vada, along with an onion and tomato uttapam, or pancake, is in one of the caf̩Ӫs six thalis, combination dishes with all the elements served together on a single round stainless steel platter. They are served alongside rasam (a traditional South Indian tomato soup) and sambhar, a thin stew or broth.
The “signature special” curries include grilled paneer and vegetables, and potato with cauliflower and peas, although my recommendation would be the fragrant and visually arresting chana bhatura, a mildly spicy chickpea curry served with puffed bread. That bread is a revelation: flaky, croissant-like pastry fried in a flash and “puffed” to the size of a football.
Sandwiches, rolls and parathas make for an inexpensive lunch, as does the falafel wrap or pita. (“Yes,” said restaurant manager Sandra, who seems to know most of her customers and their families well and greets them like friends, “I know falafel isn”™t Indian but these are”¦amazing.”)
For dessert, featherlight mini gulab doughnuts come in sweet syrup and there is kulfi ”“ ice cream ”“ with mango or almond. Pick of the bunch for me, though, is a beautifully rendered phirni, or rice pudding, headily prinked with cardamom and flecked with almonds and pistachios.
As well as for the palate, the small space is something of a feast for the eyes, too. When the restaurant was closed during the pandemic, Vaghji took the opportunity to redecorate. She has always loved Indian handicrafts and wanted to up the aesthetic. “I don”™t use standard restaurant catering dishes either,” she pointed out, preferring copper and brass serving plates and bowls, in addition to heavy cutlery and silver beakers and water jugs. Colored crystal lampshades and jeweled umbrellas, all the colors of the rainbow, add an authentic Indian touch and I found myself almost swept up in the exotic atmosphere ”“ at least until Vaghji herself brought me down to earth.
“What about that lamp?” I asked her, as we chatted just a couple of weeks ago after an excellent dinner, looking up at a beautiful light fitting and imagining its plush Indian origin, a maharaja”™s palace or the like. “Actually, I got that one from Wayfair,” smiled Vaghji, her response as honest as her cooking.
