Located at 911 N. Charles St., Kumari's sign boasts Nepalese and Indian fine dining. In an elegant second floor railroad space, there is an extensive bar along with a lovely window offering a view of Charles Street. and a back room with lower lights and more privacy. When they first opened I wondered what you must be wondering-what is Nepalese food, and how is it so different from Indian food? The answer is, I'm certain, quite interesting, but it is not answered too clearly at Kumari-there is a set of five dishes specially identified as Nepalese, but aside from that and some spelling differences the menu is Indian. Among those specially Nepalese dishes are two glorious dishes of offal (discarded bits of animals, particularly organs).
Bhitryas Special is a confluence of gizzards, hearts, and livers of chicken or lamb; it is adorned with the expected spices and slices of onion, as well as the always welcome cilantro. Slightly more obviously named is the Lamb Tongue; it is boiled, then fried, spiced and garnished. These things are not the objects of enthusiasm for the average American eater, but truly they should be.
Organ meats, and offal generally, have always produced rewarding cuisine. One need only think of pat?? or foie grois to realize the great gifts of organs. However Giblet gravy is about as far as most Americans ever get.
Today, there are certain chefs, particularly French ones, in search of clear aesthetic direction following Nouvelle Cuisine's standardization, who look with great enthusiasm to organ meats, to offal.
Also on Kumari's menu is awide selection of Indian food. The greatest surprise about Kumari's food is not its style or service, nor is it presentation. The most amazing thing is how appropriately their chicken is cooked. Usually every restauraunt in America-particularly those that offer free delivery-overcooks their chicken. The expectation is a stringy, dry thing rather than a supple and juicy piece of poultry.
Kumari delivers good chicken-their fish is universally overdone. If you like your fish the way I do, barely warmed through, the rubbery flaky flesh at Kumari will be sadly lacking.
The sauces that surround the overcooked fish are just as marvelous as the curries and sauces anywhere else on the menu-the fish itself is the let down. If the chicken is too perfect and the fish too tough, then the lamb is just right.
But the real concern at an Indian restaurant is the caliber of the curry sauces themselves.
Chicken Vindaloo at Kumari will make the worst weeks seem fantastic simply by coming at the end. It's intensely spiced-and I am an avowed hot-wing-eater-and the flavor of the sauce clearly comes through the spice and couples with the chicken.
This is the customary problem with the mega-spice items on Indian menus. They are not flavored as carefully as they really deserve simply because they have so much spice. Though the flavors are not as clear with so much heat, they can still be sensed. A vindaloo is a great thing because it's a spicy curry, but Kumari's version has wonderful subtlety through its background flavoring. This same thing holds for all the other dishes when you ask them to make them as spicy as the vindaloo - they remain subtle and interesting as well as highly spiced.
If you have $17 on hand, you should just have the Kumari Thali - it's an entire meal that's been well balanced and will let you just sit back and be pleased throughout the experience. You should order a mango lassi to go perfectly with the thali. Kumari's lassis are a cut above.
The vegetable entrees are not amazing. They are good, and many will make you think "I didn't know you could do that with vegetables," but none of them are good enough to write home about.
The various kinds of naan on the menu are a bit of a puzzle. If you were to order two or three of them, one chicked, one onion, one garlic, you wouldn't really be able to tell the difference.
Stick to the plain naan, and perhaps an order of tandoor roti or kima naan.
The soups and salads are not worth mentioning. Clark's law of appetizers - that they will be more interesting than the entrees because they do not have to appeal to everyone - does not hold in the case of Kumari. Pakoras are pakoras, and samosas are samosas. None of them are particularly impressive, but there are some stand-out starters: Tareko Macha and Sukuti are the highlights of these.
Some people don't like Indian desserts. They find them slightly grainy, and either not sweet enough or too sweet. I don't understand that mentality. Rasmalai are just fantastic. Together with Gulab Jamun they make cottage cheese a perfectly viable component for dessert.
Kumari doesn't surpass the normal desserts - though the Kulfi is worth the trip - but they deliver solid versions.
Kumari really does deliver high quality cuisine. The food isn't interesting to Americans just because its exotic - its also an example of quite fine cooking.
