Kurry Xpress tasty, any way you spell it

Kurry Xpress, the new Indian order-at-counter eatery near 108th and Q Streets, is a no-frills, not-very-express affair that features curries and the aromatic rice dishes known as biryanis.

The food is served on disposables. Dishes are cooked to order. And there's often a wait of at least 10 to 25 minutes.

There's not much to look at or listen to: Peach walls, navy booths, chrome-edged turquoise chairs. A mounted TV, unplugged. No music. Just the hum of the soda cooler, the glug of the water bubbler, and the unmistakable scrape of a metal spoon on a wok behind the curtain that shields the kitchen.

But what Kurry Xpress lacks in ambience and conventional spelling, it makes up for in flavor, affordability and aroma.

Most entrees are $6 to $8 and big enough to share. And on recent visits, a happy swirl of spices was in the fare and the air: Cumin, cardamom, cinnamon. Ginger, curry leaves, toasted mustard seed. Roasting goat, garlic, ghee. Naan earning its blisters.

The naan, baked in a cylindrical tandoor oven, was as delicious as it smelled: quartered wedges of large round flatbreads with agreeable bubbles and char.

Vegetable samosas were better than many I've had at fancier spots: a jumble of cumin-spiced potatoes, peas and onions inside pyramidlike pockets of flaky pastry, served blazing hot with a choice of chutneys — tamarind (like a sweet-sour Indian barbecue sauce) or mint (a deep-green purée of mint, cilantro and chilies).

The Indo-Chinese fusion appetizer Chicken 65, ordered spicy, was decidedly so. Consider it the Eastern answer to Buffalo wings: bite-sized chicken pieces coated in spiced flour, fried, then tossed in an astringent red hot sauce.

To cool the fire, I needed a side of the house raita, a savory-sweet onion-cucumber-yogurt sauce. Mango lassi — a soft and foamy yogurt drink — also did the trick.

Perhaps I'm the Goldilocks of biryanis. Ever since Sinbad's closed, I've found them too hot or too bland anywhere else. But the goat biryani at Kurry Xpress was just right. It involved several large chunks of bone-in goat nestled in the middle of a large mound of thin, extra-long grain basmati unlike any I've tried before.

Its soft, slender grains have basmati's characteristic nutty flavor and wheaty-floral aroma, but they are so long and thin they look like short vermicelli.

Some strands were tinged yellow and orange with spices, and the dish was topped with half a hard-boiled egg. There wasn't much else involved: no nuts or raisins or bits of cinnamon bark. But the dish drew flavor from the spices in which the goat was marinated and cooked, the ghee (spiced clarified butter) with which the rice was cooked and the simple layering of the dish.

It was served with raita and salan (a thin reddish hot sauce with settled bits of chili pepper, ground spices and sesame seeds), so I could spice the biryani as I liked. With a good bit of salan, I found it downright addictive.

There are probably as many versions of chicken tikka masala in India as there are unique recipes for marinara in Italy. The sort at Kurry Xpress involves a rustic dice of green bell pepper and onion and cubes of tandoor-roasted chicken in a mouth-pleasing orange-brown tomato gravy without any artificial red-orange coloring. I particularly enjoyed its smoky undercurrent (the unmistakable flavor of things cooked in the tandoor) and sweet-savory interplay.

Other dishes also delivered: the cardamom-heavy Chef's Special Chicken; the creamy Hyderabadi lamb curry; the smooth, moss-green paneer saag with big chunks of mild house-made cheese.

But the Navratan (vegetable) korma stole the show: ruffled carrot chips, peas, green beans, cauliflower and lima beans stewed with golden raisins in a creamy yellow sauce with a sunny sweetness and a backbone of heat. The vegetables were a frozen mix, but the sauce was undeniably great. Co-owner and manager Rajesh “Raj” Kotha told me later it is thickened and sweetened with raisins and other fruit.

The chaats (Indian street-food-style snacks), chai tea, wraps and rice bowls from the posted menu aren't yet available. (Kotha said the kitchen had to be expanded to make those dishes. He hopes to offer them by the end of July.)

Most desserts also weren't available. The qubani ka meetha (a Hyderabadi specialty made with stewed apricots and a whipped cream or ice cream topping) had to be swapped for the more ubiquitous gulab jamun, milky doughnutesque balls in a super-sweet syrup. (Kotha said desserts are made in small batches and tend to sell out fast, but he's working on that issue.)

The same menu is offered at lunch and dinner, but entrees at lunch come with a sample of the day's appetizer and a garnish of lettuce and white onion. Nothing's over $10. A dinner for two with drinks and four sides (and leftovers) was $29 and lunch for four with four sides was about $52.

The restaurant seemed friendly and serious about its food.

We got a number and expected to fetch our order. But if the place wasn't too busy, the clerk delivered dishes and offered condiments. We overheard an employee confirming a pickup time for a large order because he wanted the naan to be baked at precisely the right time.

And we got a sincere-seeming verbal survey on the way out: “Was it good enough that you will be making another visit?”

You kan kount on it.

Contact the writer:

444-1069, nichole.aksamit@owh.com

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