Cumin the spice is brown. Cumin the Indian restaurant is burgundy, a swirl of cranberries and plums and mauves from floral clamshell-tufted upholstery to garnet-red faux wood tables. My companion and I dined there in the evening, enjoying the changes as the sun slowly fell and filled the room, finally slashing through the large western windows and, for 10 minutes late in the meal, the large glittering drops of a heavy sun shower outside. The yonder rise of Hamden’s freshly drenched Skiff Street glowed so brightly I had to look away.
That was about an hour after a complimentary appetizer of papadum arrived. The bubbly paper-thin wafers ate about as texturally delicately as anything can. But they also carried a ton of balanced flavor, posing savory and herbal notes with a pleasant spicy heat. Flawlessly delicious on its own (the best I’ve ever had, actually), the papadum came with mint chutney, tamarind sauce and onion chutney, each of which was also totally delicious.
Next came the Vegetable Samosas (two for $6.95), a must-try when I’m trying a new Indian place. Cumin’s were strikingly sculptural, rising sharply and straightly like the side of a Great Pyramid, albeit at a steeper pitch. The crust was thick, chewy and decadent, with a wide crimped handle at the base, and the three previously arrived condiments were even yummier in this context than the last. With or without them, the turmeric in the supple potato filling, punched up by a dash of salt, was bewitching.
The filling of the Vegetarian Momo (10 for $10.95), listed on the Indo-Chinese section of the menu, would’ve benefited from a similar amount of editing. Stuffed inside a classic East Asian-style wrapper—thin but elastic and somehow sticky to itself but nothing else—the mince of cabbage, mushroom, onion, garlic, ginger, cilantro and scallion was overly astringent. Fortunately, a spoonful of the sweetly nutty dipping sauce, its pool of creamy orange served inside a ring of dumpling deck chairs, went almost all the way to balancing things out.
The Chana Masala ($14.95), on the other hand, arrived fully integrated. Every version of this seemingly simple and ubiquitous dish offers a line of sight to the skills and tastes of the chef who made it. And the chef I saw here was a master of spice, even when fulfilling a dish ordered “mild,” and texture, cooking the chickpeas to velvet without sacrificing their form and distinction. The tomato gravy, meanwhile, felt both familiar and special. A big lace of clove amid all the layers of flavor was especially welcome, as was the absence of any of the whole cloves I’ve so often had to eat around at other places.
The meal concluded, by contrast, with a dish I’d never tried (or even seen) before: the Bagara Baigan ($15.95), a stew of slivers of baby eggplant in a peanut and sesame gravy. The gravy was broken, sadly, but an occasional swish of the spoon fixed that, and the flavors—nutty, earthy, umami, salty and finishing with a bloom of spice heat (we ordered it “medium”), all leavened by the soft flesh, lightly chewy skin and hint of bitterness from the eggplant—needed no assistance.
After the meal and the rain had ended, it was time for us to leave. But I shouldn’t leave this review without mentioning the polite and efficient service we received along the way. The people, the food, the atmosphere—it was all a treat, and we hadn’t even had room for dessert.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
