Rotterdam Good Food

Karavalli

Quality Inn, 2788 Hamburg St., Rotterdam, 355-9495. Serving lunch Tue-Fri 11:30-2:30; dinner Sun, Tue-Thu 5-9:30, Fri-Sat 5-10; brunch Sat-Sun noon-3. AE, D, MC, V.

Cuisine: Indian

Entrée price range: $10 (black lentil stew) to $24 (rack of lamb)

Ambiance: pleasant hotel restaurant

By B.A. Nilsson

We hailed Karavalli when it open-ed in Latham a couple of years ago for offering a more diversified menu than the standard Indian-Pakistani restaurant provides, rounding it out with an attractive dining room and helpful service. The price for this luxury is literal: It’s a little more expensive than its confrères.

No doubt emboldened by this success, they’ve opened two more local units. The newest is at 24 Caroline St. in Saratoga Springs; the most challenging is in Rotterdam, at what’s now the Quality Inn on Hamburg Street. Other hotels, other restaurants have stopped at this spot, with another Indian eatery the immediate predecessor.

The weekday lunch buffet—a staple of such restaurants—makes unusual demands on the place. I witnessed the ambitious rise and inevitable fall of that predecessor, but Karavalli seems to have figured it out. “Between 11:30 and 12:30, we have the GE lunch business,” says co-owner Santhosh Kochuparambil, “and we fill up quickly and go through everything we put on the buffet at least one or two times. After 12:30, it gets very slow.”

That’s when the kitchen has to make those chafing dishes look full and fresh, so even more diligence is required. During a visit I paid toward the end of buffet time one day, I was pleased to see the lamb ulli peralan (a piquant stew with shallots) refreshed, the vegetable saag inspected for signs of a too-long sit, a new serving of rice replacing (not just supplanting) the old and, of course, the tandoori chicken beckoning from its bed of translucent onions.

The selection changes from day to day, always featuring a couple of meat dishes (tandoori chicken is a mainstay), several different veggie items, salad, starters, and dessert. On Saturday and Sunday, a much more lavish buffet is offered.

Even as we assembled a meal from the dozen available items, a succession of others soon put paid to the notion that this afternoon’s business might be slow.

When I wrote about the Latham Karavalli nearly two years ago, I feared that the complimentary starter of crisp lentil wafers called papadum would be a short-lived phenomenon, but it’s still part of the experience. That and the traditional threesome of sauces (tamarind, spicy mint and onion) got us off to a pleasant start.

The appetizer list offers the first clues that Karavalli is different. Their signature dish is dosai, which arrives looking like a rolled-up windowshade. It’s actually a rice-and-lentil crepe that comes plain for $7 (which still includes dipping sauces) and spiced up for $8. In the latter category, I chose mysore masala dosai, which has a filling of potatoes and peas and side sauces that include a fiery pepper mix and a cooling chutney.

The same sauces accompany idly ($4), a smaller version of dosai in which rice and lentils go into a cold patty. Vegetable sa mosa ($4) is unexpectedly attractive, the deep-fried, potatoes-and-peas-filled pastries decorated with cucumbers, cabbage, carrots and other, less-alliterative garnishes.

Other starters in clude crispy eggplant ($6), kabobs of lamb and chicken ($8), aromatic potato patties called ragara ($6), kalmi kabob (“our answer to Buffalo wings,” $6) and more, including sampler platters.

My recommendation? Good as all this was, get a dosai for your table and stop there. It’s plenty, and the entrées aren’t small.

It’s worth noting that prices haven’t changed in two years. Rack of lamb is still $24, a Tandoor red snapper dish $20. The bulk of the entrées run in the $12 to $15 range, including several biryani dishes, which are labor-intensive rice preparations featuring your choice of meat (goat is one of them), jalfrezi (a pepper-and-onion intensive meat sauté) and a number of vegan and vegetarian dishes.

Most of the items have an easygoing hot-spice intensity, always an issue for the Old Country Buffet set. Anything hotter gets a two- or three-pepper icon beside its menu listing, and those three peppers always draw my eye. (And you always can ask to adjust the spiciness in whatever direction.)

So I’m a big fan of vindaloo, the hot, sweet sauce that goes so well with lamb (and, in some Indian restaurants, sometimes is the only choice that will prompt a sweat). Karavalli offers more alternatives, such as megalu chicken chettinadu ($14). Hot pepper, of course, goes into this dish, but the fieriness is rounded out with fennel, cumin, coriander and more, on a foundation of garlic and ginger.

On the other side of the table, my daughter indulged her love of grilled anything with tandoor seekh kabob ($16), skewered rolls of ground lamb served on a sizzle platter with its traditional garnish of grilled veggies.

We were given attractive, almond-shaped plates on which to spoon our entrées, which also facilitates sharing.

Satisfying the demands of her ongoing mission to sample every chicken dish known to mankind, my wife chose nilgiri korma ($15), the korma part of it promising a Mughalai preparation in creamy sauce of mint, cashew and almonds. It’s one of those dishes that ought to be a mainstream menu item.

Given the fact the Rotterdam Karavalli is closest to my home, I’m wishing them continued success here. It’s a good spot for a restaurant like this, and our experiences reassure me that they’re up to the task.

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