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Maharani, a closer look
Aloha!
1/6/08 - Wassup, y'all!
Most of us in the islands have grown up realizing that Hawaii is a melting pot of diferent cultures, and are very much comfortable having friends of many different races. In fact, we're so cool wid'it we even tease eachother, cracking Po-da-gee (Portuguese), Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Haole, and other such jokes with reckless abandon. Check out this video at Frank Delima's official page, where the popular, long-standing, local comedian probably gets 80% of his material from ethnic jokes, including those of his own ethnicity! I sure am glad we can all laugh about stuff like that!
When I was a kid, I used to be really proud of our diversity, thinking we were the only place on earth with so many different races. However, all it took was a little bit of travel to realize we weren't alone. One single afternoon in Brussels, Belgium, at 24 years old, I wandered the snow-covered streets with a wide-eyed inquisitiveness and sense of wonder, in the process striking up conversations with a street musician/beggar from France, a student from Egypt, a grandpa and grand-daughter driven out of their own country by the Soviet Union (remember them?), and several others I can't quite remember.
Although Hawaii is still very much a melting pot, we pull heavily on the Asian side, with Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and various Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Thailand, and the Phillipines. We don't have much representation when it comes to African, Middle-Eastern, Central Asian, South American, or European (outside of French and Italian!) countries, which you see a lot when traveling outside the US, or even in the US, on the East Coast or some of the larger cities. While anyone here can rattle off several staple dishes of just about any Asian country, try asking about Egyptian, Turkish, Morroccan, Argentinian, and even Greek or Indian, and you're sure to draw a whole lotta blank stares. You're just not gonna see much in the way of hugely popular items like Turkish doner and shish kabob, Indian chaat, Middle Eastern falafel, Russian Piroshki, and Central Asian Samosa, foods as common as burgers and sushi across huge swaths of the globe.
The focus of today's closer look originates from one such very-huge swath of the world - India. Yeah, we do have several Indian restaurants, but I wouldn't exactly consider any of them in the mainstream of culinary activity here - in fact, I'm pretty sure there are many more Hawaiian islanders who have never once been to an Indian restaurant than there are those that have. Although Indian dishes may ring a bell when mentioned, most couldn't name one single Indian dish on their own, outside of curry, which is an enormously nebulous term for an innumerable variety of different stewed dishes enjoyed by almost every culture on the planet! In other words, it don't count!
Having been to just about every Indian restaurant on the island, I gotta say that my favorite has to be Maharani on S. King St., right across of Star Market and steps away from Down to Earth.
The whole experience most closely conjures up memories of walking into my Pakistani friend's housing apartment deep in Palolo Valley, where I'd sit on the floor with their entire family of nine, to feast, sometimes with our fingers, on large pots of curry, chapati bread, biryani rice, raita, and chutney. The smell of exotic herbs and spices hit you like a freight train as soon as you came in, infiltrating the walls and furniture, filling the house 24-7 with a deep, earthy aroma, whether anyone was cooking or not! In fact, they ate so much garam masala, cardamom, tumeric, coriander, and other such fragrant powders, a distinct smell even permeated from their bodies, leaching out of their very pores. It's like some of the remote islands of the world, where they eat so much fresh fish, they begin to smell like the ocean!
And then there was the Indian television always in the background, with some of the most elaborate sets, costumes, and people you could ever find, singing and dancing with all the energy and charisma Bollywood has come to be known for. Once you get over the almost cartoonish tackiness of it all, it really does get addicting, the free-flowing beats and outlandish rythmns producing such an electricity it's hard to sit there without really getting into the spirit of the moment. I can see why they actually put out more than double the number of films and have an even wider audience than does Hollywood, although they don't make nearly as much money, nor produce remotely as many world-wide highest-grossing films. Hollywood owns that department!
Sure enough, a large, flat-screen television sits in the dining room of Maharani, playing a steady stream of Bollywood movies all night long! If only they turned the volume up louder than restaurants that normally play elevator music or KUMU, they'd probably have a bona-fide nightclub in the works...
I like the fact that just about everything here is strikingly different from anywhere else, as there are not many who'd chance such bold colors and designs. Somehow though, it all seems to work, leaving you with a sense of otherworldliness found in even such trivial things as water glasses, here not coming as actual glasses, but in interesting designs of metal and bronze.
Last time here, I went with chicken vindallo, a popular curry dish I ordered mostly for the fact that it comes spicy-hot. You can actually order almost anything as spicy or mild as you want, but there are a few, like vindallo and tandoori chicken kebab masala, which wifey and I ordered tonight, that are best suited to extra heat and already come spicy without asking.
I actually preferred the vindallo, as the tandoori chicken masala we had on this fine evening seemed shy on the sophisticated blends of spices and herbs you hope for in a curry, instead coming a bit one-dimensionally heavy on tangy tomato sauce - canned tomato sauce, that is. I'm sure there was still herbs and spices all over this creation, but they don't pull nearly as much of their weight as in other curries I've had here or elsewhere. Nevertheless, it was still good, with large, tender chunks of tandoori-cooked chicken pieces and a spiciness rivalling Thai dishes.
With most entrees coming in strong, very bold flavors, we needed a lot of starch to smooth everything out. First was a plate for two of biryani, which is a basmati rice coming infused with saffron and ghee, a kind of clarified Indian butter that most often comes from water buffalo milk instead of cow milk, along with various other herbs and spices. It was kind of a cross between the moist, fragrant jasmine and the fall-apart drier, firmer, and much longer Chinese long-grain varieties. And perfect, I might add, for Indian curries.
Our next starch, always impressive here, was the naan bread, just one of a variety of different flatbreads baked fresh from their own tandoori oven, something only a few of the Indian restaurants on the island have the luxury of using. Coming either plain or with various toppings like garlic, coriander, and curry, they are large, pizza-sized breads that are sometimes eaten as a meal in themselves. It sometimes comes as a whole, semi-flat sheet, but tonight it was, for some reason, cut in half, which makes for a somewhat less dramatic presentation. Taste and texture-wise, however, you don't wanna miss out on this delicious bread, as these highly aromatic, fresh-baked flatbreads don't taste remotely anything like the ones you buy at the supermarket.
Our final dish of the evening was a House Specialty lamb curry. Unlike the earlier chicken curry, this one did have a great deal of complexity in its sauce, coming slow-cooked in tomato, onion, ginger, garlic, and other herbs and spices. The chunks of lamb inside were fork-tender, completely free of any gaminess whatsoever, and absolutely delicious. The thin, though highly-flavored curry was spectacular spooned over our biryani rice or when dipped with naan. These are precisely the kinds of flavors that make me crave Indian food every so often, especially because I can't just make a call to my Pakistani friends anymore, since most of them have moved to the Mainland! Boo hoo!
Maharani did have a bit of a reputation for rude waithelp and an ownership that didn't seem to give a care about anyone, but I was definitely pleased to find, at least on this last trip, that there were two young waitstaff manning the floor, both of whom were very polite, kind, and helpful, offering to make recommendations, filling our waters adequately, and checking in periodically to see if everything was going ok - a huge and refreshing change to the past, lemme tell ya! It gives us that much more of an excuse to return.
One thing that still hasn't changed, unfortunately, is parking. There are only two or three slots right next to the store, along with a larger lot accessed by a right turn from S. King on to Hausten St., which is the street right before the restaurant, then a quick left into the lot. Good luck, though, as I've never found an open slot there! Street parking is a better bet, but only after 6:30 pm when the city calls off the citation police. 6:30pm is already an hour-and-a-half past the opening bell, and, during winter, well past any signs of sunlight. You may also find a longer and longer line forming the further it gets from opening time at 5pm.
But don't let these obstacles deter you. Those separated from the home-land too long and missing great Indian food will, no doubt, be heartily encouraged walking into Maharani for the first time. Having never been to India before, I couldn't possibly lecture anyone on the finer points of traditional Indian cuisine, but with dishes like lamb roghan josh or dal, coconut prawn korma or saag, chicken tikka masala or malai kofta, or the many vegetarian dishes like eggplant tikka korma, shahi or palak paneer, and vegetable jalfrezi masala, I'm sure they get pretty darn close, if not hit it right on the mark! But hey, all I can say is that this place has some mean grindz, so go check it out!
Have a wonderful day and remember to never be afraid of a new experience, or one day you'll end up in the rocking chair wondering about the coulda's, shoulda's, and woulda's...
Take care and Aloha till next time!
Aku
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