Shakin' Bacon

Channa masala, for example, is tricky because it seems so simple on the plate -- just chickpeas in creamy gravy -- but is damnably complicated in the kitchen. To get the mix of surface heat and savory spice to balance in a blunt cream sauce, slick with oil, is no amateur trick. To get the chickpeas themselves just right -- not too stiff, but certainly not mushy -- is work for madmen, because chickpeas are the fussiest of the legumes, always going wrong the minute you look away. Masalaa's cooks get it perfect one night, with every element coming together into a beautiful red-orange mélange of blazing spices and smooth cream and mellowing peas. Then they botch it another, serving underdone chickpeas in a too-oily sauce that's all spice with nothing on the other end of the scale. But that just shows that they're still in there tinkering, never content to let anything good enough lie for longer than the space of a single plate, a single night.

Which, when you get right down to it, is the single defining characteristic of any good restaurant anywhere. In New York, Denver or Calcutta, vegetarian or otherwise, ethnic or not, healthy or not, engagement is what makes the difference -- never leaving well enough alone.

Mark Manger

To your health: Masalaa's dosa is good for what ails you.

Location Info

Map

Masalaa

3140 S. Parker
Aurora, CO 80014

Category: Restaurant > Buffet

Region: Aurora

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Details

3140 South Parker Road, Aurora, 303- 755-6272. Hours: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 5:30-10 p.m. Monday-Friday; noon-10:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday

Onion bajji: $3.95
Mysore bonda: $3.95
Aloo bonda: $3.95
Paneer pakoda: $3.95
Dosa: $6.95
Kashmiri uthappam: $7.95
Idly: $3.95
Avial: $7.95
Aloo mutter: $7.95
Channa masala: $7.95
Biryani: $5.95
Thayir sadam: $4.95

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More About

• Buddy Holly
• Calcutta
• Dick Cheney
• Indian Food and Cooking
• Fruits and Vegetables

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And I can't help but wonder what would happen if the guys in this kitchen ever got their hands on a couple of pounds of bacon. All religious rules aside, I'll bet the results would be divine.