Gourmet Indian restaurant focuses on family recipes, attention to customers

When Bash Anoth opened his restaurant in 2006 in a brick ranch house on the outskirts of Edwardsville, he didn’t think of it as a business venture. He still doesn’t.

“The restaurant was everything but a business idea,” he said sitting in one of the dining areas of Mr. Curry’s Gourmet Indian Restaurant. “It was social, cultural. I wanted a friendly place, where people could experience a different culture, where the customers come first and we can make them happy.”

In 2010, he opened a second location in St. Louis. Both offer made-from-scratch authentic Indian food, says Bash (pronounced BAHsh), who is in his “late 40s.” That includes his growing some of the spices used in menu items, having them specially ground to his specifications and using family recipes to create curry mixes and sauces.

Curry has two meanings in Indian cooking: Many restaurants use “curry” as a generic term for sauce-based dishes of meat, seafood and vegetables that can vary in spice content and heat.

Curry powders or pastes are actually mixes of spices, most notably coriander, turmeric, chili powder, cumin, fennel, cloves, cardamom, black pepper and cinnamon, said Bash.

His family started visiting the United States in the late 1970s, ultimately moving from the southwest coastal area of Kerala, India, and settling in Buffalo, N.Y. Bash arrived in 1990 and recalled how the family began making its own curry because they couldn’t find what they liked here.

“Buying mixes is frowned upon,” Bash noted. “Traditional recipes come from families. Mixing and freshly grinding (spices together) is a family thing.”

When he came to Illinois to attend Bradley University in Peoria, he found many of his non-Indian friends liked the food he prepared for them.

“I was the president of different student organizations and had friends from all over the world. When we had international gatherings, there was always more participation if there was food,” he said. So he created dishes reminiscent of his home in Kerala.

He earned a degree in electrical engineering, later a master’s in international marketing and eventually began working in his family’s consulting business.

“But, I always liked food,” he said, grinning and shrugging his shoulders. Culturally, it wasn’t an acceptable idea.

“Growing up, men didn’t go to the kitchen,” he said. “That was thought of as demeaning, not manly, a woman’s domain. ... The family is still not completely sure about me doing this.”

At his Edwardsville restaurant, business is half takeout and half dine-in. Mr. Curry’s exclusively takes reservations for dining-in, especially for big groups. Bash said the reservations are necessary so he doesn’t turn people away, and it allows him to maintain the quality of the food prepared.

Flavors fade quickly, so Indian dishes are made to order.

“Since we make everything fresh, it takes 20 to 25 minutes.”

Bash uses a traditional clay oven, called a tandoori, to cook most of the meat (beef, chicken and lamb), seafood (shrimp) and flatbread called naan. Curry sauces with names like tikka masala, korma and vindaloo all start with varying combinations of spices. Korma, for example, is mild, creamy and usually includes yogurt. Tikka masala is a bit spicier and has a deep red color derived from tomatoes and spices. A dish made with vindaloo is marinated first, then cooked with other spices and tends to be hotter than the other two.

Bestsellers include Chicken Tikka Masala (tandoored boneless chicken breast cooked in Mr. Curry’s Tikka Masala Sauce), and a South Indian specialty, Coconut Chicken Curry, chicken breast cooked in Bash’s coconut curry sauce and a blend of aromatic spices and herbs. Each is $10.95. Other specialties include Lamb Korma Curry ($11.95), tender filets of lamb cooked in Korma sauce with spices and herbs. Beef Vindaloo ($11.95) is marinated filets of beef cooked in vindaloo sauce with potatoes.

All of the meals are served with naan, a creamy lentil soup called Daal and Raitha, a condiment made with seasoned yogurt, tomatoes and onions.

The Sunday buffet ($7.95) is very popular, he said.

Bash also sells several curry sauces by the jar ($2.95/$3.95), as well as a base chai tea mix ($3.95).

And while heat is often associated with Indian food, Bash does not cook that way.

“We take heat out of the equation,” he said. “We have all ranges of heat, from a 1 to 5 scale, with lots of No. 0’s.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2015 at 3:47 AM with the headline "Gourmet Indian restaurant focuses on family recipes, attention to customers."