Jimmy Jeong

Tasty Tidings From The Strip | Who says you can't find good foon in a strip mall?

Masalaz
4218-66 St., 484-0582

What a week it’s been for eating — I probably won’t see one like it again for a while. Highlights included a breakneck overnighter to San Francisco, where I discovered that a good taquería is really what’s missing from my life. Two mornings running, my traveling companion and I fueled our busy day with horse leg-sized burritos stuffed with carne asada or carnitas and beans, then ladled with selections from the salsa bar. The Alberta government must act now to help bring more people from Mexico to open taquerías in Edmonton — if not for ourselves, then for the sake of our children.

At San Franciso’s Hayes Street Grill, we made the acquaintance of two fish species we’d never introduced to our digestive apparati: the Hawaiian opah, a rich dense steak of tuna-coloured flesh that seared pearly white on the grill; and Hawaiian ohno, a delicate whitefish cooked to the verge of medium rare that fell apart on the tongue. They came with French fries — I felt abashed asking for ketchup alongside a $30 entrée, so I ate them without.

By the time I got home, I wasn’t sure I needed another food adventure. But the co-diner did need to eat something. I stabbed at the map (via Google) and perforated a strip mall in Mill Woods. Masalaz — yes, I remember now. After I ignorantly averred that Savoy’s (another strip mall gem near Southgate) was the only South Indian restaurant in town, the e-mail (singular) poured in, advising us that Masalaz also served South Indian food and deserved recognition as such.

Well, there we were among a steady ebb and flow of customers trying to get their orders in before Masalaz’ kitchen closed. Two young women bustled between tables, dropping off dishes, clearing plates, wiping up. Remarkably, they both came by our table to make sure we were seen to and in a flash we’d placed our order from the surprisingly large bill of fare — masala dossa with sambar ($6.99), chicken biryani ($9.99), Caribbean goat curry with roti ($10.75), and a mango lassi ($3) for my co-diner.

Masala dossa is as good a yardstick as any for judging Masalaz on the continuum of South Indian restaurants: it’s a large, fragile crepe rolled around spiced potatoes and possibly the most popular dish at Masalaz, if its presence on every table we saw is anything to go by. Our order was accompanied by coconut chutney tinted pink by hot stuff and a bowl of sambar, a rich, velvety lentil soup that, in this case, packed a spicy punch. Thus did Masalaz pass the first test, and this portion would probably have been plenty of food for one person.

Scarcely had we finished mopping up the soup when our entrées arrived, and we wondered how we would fit it all in. There was the plate full of saffron and white rice layered over chunks of chicken tossed with currants and whole spices and topped with cashews and fried onions, served with a papadum, acidic mango pickle, and creamy raita. Then there was the bowl of goat on the bone mixed with crumbly potatoes and Carribean spices, sided with a fresh, steaming circle of flatbread. We were taking leftovers home for sure.

The distinction usually made between North and South Indian cuisine is that the North indulges more in the sauciness while South Indian tends to be drier, though no less tantalizingly seasoned. The biryani looked simple enough, but boasted a complex interaction of ginger, garlic, cardamom, turmeric, ghee, sweet dried fruit, and spiced nuts. My co-diner, who had come to hate biryani during a two-year tenure in the Middle East where she ate it for lunch every day, was won back over to the charms of the present version.

The goat curry was more intensely flavoured, with distinctly more curry heat and more salt. Fall-apart potatoes acted as the medium for spreading the spices around the lightly pungent hanks of stewed goat, which tasted all the better scooped up with pieces of chewy roti. If you order this, you might want to consider adding a vegetable accompaniment to balance out its starchy meatiness. After all, Masalaz is priced reasonably enough that you can afford to take a few leftovers home.