Thirty years in the past, when she was in highschool, Ahmedabad native Jeny Shah and her pals used to hit the restaurant simply off campus, the place they’d share huge plates of spicy masala fries, a well-liked dish by which conventional fries are tossed in spices, typically sauces, garnished with recent herbs and greens.
Lengthy in style in her native India, she barely noticed them after shifting to the States at 17, till she and her husband went to go to a good friend in Pennsylvania, who’d lately develop into the proprietor of a rising, Texas-based franchise: Tikka Shack.
“I used to be so stunned to see them on the menu,” Shah says of Tikka Shack’s model ($7.30). And certainly, they’re crave-worthy with pretty crunch, lined in onions, tomatoes, cilantro and tikka masala. (Eat ’em in-house for finest outcomes.)
“Wow, I beloved the flavour!” she stated. “Consuming them introduced again all the great recollections from house.”
Nostalgia is highly effective and, partly, motivated Shah and her good friend, Ankita Shah (identical identify, no relation) to open Florida’s first Tikka Shack location in Oviedo, the place for the previous two+ months, she’s been capable of share this teen-era favourite with new followers and convey that style of house to others who’ve been lacking it.
Based in Richardson, Texas, in 2016, the Indian fast-casual restaurant, that includes conventional and street-food dishes, plus a lil’ bit o’ fusion, has since cast paths into Arizona, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Companions Shah opened the Oviedo store again in April to a mob of pals, household and curious prospects who’d been ready months to test it out. A visual location on Alafaya Path, maybe three miles from UCF, had been stoking the hearth for a while.
I’m no fast-casual fanatic, however I, too, was piqued.
Conventional Indian love apart, a few of these evolutionary gadgets drew curiosity. (Biryani dry-rub hen wings? Cross the clipboard!)
I bided my time, breaking my sacred eight-week minimal protocol unofficially, simply as soon as, to seize a mango lassi for my kiddo, who semi-willingly paid the “mother tax” earlier than I handed it over.
It’s made each day in-house and proved surprisingly tangy in a world the place such issues are sometimes oversugared.
“You realize, there’s a science behind it,” Shah tells me, and again into the time machine we go.
“Once we had been children, and it was approach too scorching on the market, my grandmother, my mother and father, we’d all drink it earlier than we went out as a result of it cools down the interior temperature of your physique. It’s so good.”
The powers of yogurt however, you’ll get pleasure from yours simply as a lot within the sweater-necessitating air-con of most Orlando institutions.
My first official foray with Tikka Shack got here within the type of takeout, with the oven prepared for a ceremonial recrisping of these biryani dry rub wings ($9.90 for six). The flaps and drums had been on the small aspect, however very huge in taste and universally appreciated by the tasting group.
The Tikka Shack contingent up to now, Shah studies, is a combined bag of Indian and non-Indian prospects, with the latter oft involved about an excessive amount of spice. They’ve since discovered that except you ask for it, “Indian scorching” doesn’t apply.
Enjoyable truth: Not all Indian meals is spicy. This, actually, is sensible in a nation of 28 states and roughly 1.5 billion folks with assorted palates and assorted native substances at their disposal.
“Solely the unique and southern curries are somewhat spicy,” says Shah of the Tikka Shack menu. “The remainder aren’t usually spicy anyway.”
A observe of pleasure for the spice heads and a warning for the delicate followers: Tikka Shack is completely satisfied to change these ranges to your palate, however in the event you ask for spicy, you’ll get it. I upped the ante a bit on the samosa chaat app ($8.35) and was thrilled. The samosas themselves are among the many hottest choices right here, says Shah, together with the ghee-drizzled biryanis, naan wraps and ( I needed to attempt it) naan pizza.
I used to be skeptical, I instructed Shah. Seems she was, too.
“After I went to Pennsylvania, the naan pizza was the factor I didn’t even actually need to attempt,” she says. At her good friend’s urging, she relented.
“I ate the entire thing!”
With the naan as the bottom, the “pie” is roofed with tikka sauce, mozz, pink onion and tomatoes with a alternative of hen or paneer ($12-13). I went with the latter and was stunned at how a lot I loved it.
“For the previous 10 years, it has develop into in style in India,” says Shah. “It’s sort of like a curry bowl, actually, however as a substitute of the bowl, it’s like flatbread and every chunk has excellent taste.”
It’s not high-art baking. It’s enjoyable fusion. I’m right here for it. I believe fast-casual followers and frequenters will probably be, too.
Craft-your-own bowls permit visitors to pattern kabobs and curries with add-ons like naan, garlic naan or samosas for a payment. A number of combos can be found that construct the edges and gentle drinks in.
Our lamb kabob bowl was beneficiant, with a heap of rice and two girthy skewers ($14.80). Vegetarian chole masala ($11.50) and its stewed chickpeas and potatoes was my far-and-away favourite of the sampled curries, The delicate butter hen ($13.75) and spicier lamb goan vindaloo ($14.80) earned prime honors from my eating companions.
Mexican meals, says Shah, is the second favourite behind the mother-country fare in most Indian households.
“My household eats it as soon as every week,” she says. Though she rolls her eyes a bit on the identify of one among Tikka Shack’s most-ordered dishes, the naan tacos ($5-6), she admits the dish is an effective one for fusion.
It’s somewhat arduous to select up and fold to eat taco-style, however the shrimp coconut curry was a crowd pleaser with its crunchy cabbage and mango de gallo, a colourful, freshing, Indian-filtered tackle pico. She’s completely satisfied to share it, and all the things else, with the folks of her 25-year adopted hometown.
“We wished to have one thing right here like this,” she says. “It’s extra modernized inside, however it’s enjoyable and quick and has that very same, genuine style.”
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In case you go
Tikka Shack Indian Grub: 1500 Alafaya Path in Oviedo, 321-765-4272; tikkashack.com