Approaching India From a Different Direction

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Approaching India From a Different Direction

Hungry City: Malai Marke in the East Village

Liz Barclay for The New York Times

The restaurant is on East Sixth Street in the East Village. Its name means, literally, with cream, as used when ordering tea.

The first dish to be depleted at my table was always the okra. Each time, the crenelated pods arrived still firm and green after a flare in the pan with a few workhorses from the Indian larder (garlic, ginger, onions, coriander), the flavor not disguised by spices but amplified, crisp and grassy, without a suspicion of stickiness. I could not stop ordering it.

On the menu, the dish is described as “okra you would eat at your in-laws’ house.” Now this was a family worth marrying into.

Shiva Natarajan, the chef and owner, has a sheaf of Indian establishments in the city, including Chola in Midtown and Dhaba in Murray Hill. Each starts from a base of North Indian fare (still the presiding, if no longer de facto, cuisine of Indian restaurants in New York) with slight tips of the compass toward regions less known: Chettinad, Gujarat, the former princely state of Hyderabad.

At Malai Marke, which opened in December in the East Village, there is chicken tikka masala, but resist. The finest dishes declare their provenance from India’s southwest Konkan and Malabar coasts: coondapur chicken from Karnataka, nearly maroon from Kashmiri chile powder; red fish curry from the backwaters of Kerala, whose sour, smoky taste is gleaned from the soaked dried rinds of kokum fruit, which acts as a kinder, gentler tamarind; shrimp ajadina, a staple of the Bunt community in Mangalore (and another credit to Mr. Natarajan’s mother-in-law), sautéed with roasted spices and underscored by the faint crackle of ground coconut and poppy seeds.

The restaurant’s name (pronounced Muh-LYE Mar-KAY) means, literally, with cream, as used when ordering tea. As slang, it’s looser, more suggestive, signifying general oomph: extra spicy, rich, sweet. (It may be applied to nongastronomic aspects of life as well.)

But aside from a threatening milagu curry from Madurai, in Tamil Nadu, weaponized with habanero and green and red chiles, the food at Malai Marke is remarkably subtle. Each dish tastes distinct, a matter of meticulous calibrations. In Keralan moilee, fish is poached in a turmeric-stained stew of thick and thin coconut milk, with just enough of the former to give it body without straying into oversweetness. For chicken xacuti from Goa, coconut is grated and melded into a paste with poppy seeds, Kashmiri chile powder and more spices than can be listed here; chopped coconut is thrown in at the end for texture, with a squeeze of lime and fresh coriander for brightness.

A few incursions to the north are merited. Paneer, grated and mixed with cream, tomato, roasted bell pepper and fenugreek, is like tomato soup and grilled cheese combined into a single dish, and possibly the best fondue you’ve ever had. Sweet-sour chaat masala with a streak of smoked paprika is scattered over cauliflower, deep fried and still sturdy. Tamarind-heavy chickpeas are mere accessories to vessels of luchi, half-collapsed poufs of fried and bubbled white flour.

It is almost mandatory to finish the meal with gulab jamun, orbs of fried milk dough in cardamom syrup. Here they are served warm, a small revelation, the dough still expanding, growing lighter in the mouth.

From the outside, Malai Marke could be just another vaguely dubious restaurant on the twinkle-lit East Sixth Street of a decade ago, before that Curry Row stronghold of bedspread-bedecked Indian restaurants gave way to purveyors of macrobiotic Japanese bento boxes and high-end tequila. Inside, the space is awkward, laid out like a horseshoe and requiring a U-turn, past counter seats, a lonely outpost of two-tops and the windowed kitchen, to reach the dining room proper. Still, the décor is appealingly uncluttered: stretches of black subway tile, cream paint and exposed brick, hung sparingly with copper bowls and empty wooden shopkeeper drawers.

On each visit, my dining companions filed in dutifully, trying not to grumble, expecting nothing. As they ate, their faces changed.

Malai Mark

318 East Sixth Street (Second Avenue), (212) 777-7729, malaimarke.com

RECOMMENDED Luchi bhaji; bindi sasuralwali; fish moilee; Alleppey red curry; shrimp ajadina; lamb dhansak; chicken xacuti; coondapur kori; paneer khurchan.

PRICES $11 to $20.

OPEN Daily for lunch and dinner.

RESERVATIONS Accepted.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Restaurant is a step up from the sidewalk; restrooms do not have handrail.