In Mason, Indian food takes on a whole new color at My Kolorful Kitchen

On a recent Wednesday at My Kolorful Kitchen, owner Aparna “Appy” Thukrel Kad let me know she was the restaurant's chef, server, busser and host. While I had never met Kad before, she seemed a little harried, perhaps because she was busy in the kitchen or because of the series of storms and tornado warnings that had many of us hunkering down in our basements the night before.

Kad had posted some feelings about those storms on her restaurant’s Facebook page that morning: How they reminded her of a storm she witnessed as a 12-year-old girl living in the northeast Indian city of Siliguri when the roofs of houses blew away and the trees and light poles had fallen. Her family lost power for five days.

Siliguri is located in a subtropical region that experiences frequent storms and severe monsoons. It was accustomed to such things, but Kad, whose family had just moved to the city from Bombay, marveled at how its residents treated the next day like any other, moving about their business as if nothing had happened at all. “That’s what life spirit is about,” she wrote.

Because of the storm and the gloomy weather that followed, Kad decided to serve a menu that served − as she described in her Facebook post − as “a cozy blanket” meant for cold and rainy days like this. The kind of food that comforts you during hard times. The kind of food that gently restores your will. It included dishes such as potato mint curry, a mild chicken korma, warm tomato-laden chicken tikka masala and bread pakoda. After reading her post, I decided I needed one of those blankets, too.

The tiny six-table dining room at My Kolorful Kitchen belies the restaurant’s name. White-painted brick walls with white-painted wainscoting make it seem austere if not a little bit cold. What I would later learn is that it’s the food that provides the color at My Kolorful Kitchen and that it’s Kad who provides the warmth.

The menu, which changes daily, was written in red ink on a dry-erase board above my table. I started with the bread pakoda, a popular Indian street snack where spiced potatoes, onions and other vegetables are sandwiched between slices of bread coated with a chickpea batter and lightly fried. “Here you are,” Kad said as she placed it on my table. “Indian comfort food.” I couldn't remember if I'd ever had a bread pakoda before, though I've had plenty of pakoda (often spelled pakora) fritters. No matter, I loved it. The turmeric and chile spices were warm but didn't overpower the filling. The crunch of the bread yielded a pillow-y soft interior.

My second course arrived quickly (turns out Kad has some help in that kitchen), a combo platter of chicken tikka masala and Gujarati dal divided by a strip of rice, each dish zig-zagged with a squirt of chutney. The chicken tikka's gravy was thick with crunchy crushed onions and minced chicken. It was remarkably light, its subtle smoky tomato flavor serving as the star of the show. The Gujarati dal, with its sunny turmeric color and a flavor that was equal parts bright, spicy and sweet, was equally as good. Gujarat is a state in western India known for a cuisine that encompasses those flavors, as well as vibrant colors and sparing use of spices. It's the kind of cuisine that seems right up Kad's alley.

Kad admits she wasn’t much of a cook before opening her restaurant. When she cooked at home for her husband and two sons, she kept things simple. Her specialty was butter chicken and not much else. But when the pandemic hit, she decided she wanted to go a little deeper. Like most of us, that god-awful period of time left her longing for not just comfort food, but comforting aromas and the comforting colors of her childhood in India, too.

She started by watching YouTube videos of Indian chefs preparing dishes, then replicated them at home. She obsessively watching cooking shows like “MasterChef India,” eyeing each contestant’s technique and how they riffed on traditional recipes. Over time, she started reaching out to her favorite Instagrammers and, eventually, her favorite Indian chefs.

“I reached out shamelessly to every chef in town,” she told me. One of her biggest influences was Navjot Arora, who owns a Michelin-starred restaurant in Irvington, New York. The two became acquainted after Kad’s son met Arora’s daughter, who are both students at Indiana University. Arora invited Kad to Irvington to cook with him and learn more about the business of owning a restaurant. She now considers him a good friend.

Dreaming in color

Eventually Kad started a blog where she posted photos and long informative descriptions of what she was cooking up. Her friends noticed and started asking her to cook some of the dishes for them, too. Those friends encouraged her to approach the owners of Adesso Coffee in Mason to see if she could do a regular pop-up of sorts. It was a great experience, but when a storefront opened across the street from Adesso, Kad decided to go it alone.

Of course, Indian food can mean a lot of things. Each state in India has its own cuisine and, like the U.S., flavors and cooking techniques vary by region. While Kad grew up in Bombay (now Mumbai), her travels throughout the continent exposed her to the foods of almost every state in India. She thinks of her cooking at My Kolorful Kitchen as a hybrid of Indian cuisine with a particular focus on the cuisines of the south.

Sometimes the dishes Kad makes come to her in a dream. It’s something that recently happened with her Bhutte ka Kees, which she describes as Indian grits, spiced with ginger, cumin and other spices.

“Bhutte ka Kees has always intrigued me,” Kad wrote on Instagram. “How could such a basic and simple recipe be such a favorite?”

While they taste wonderful, like grits, they aren’t too visually appealing.

Kad wanted to make a version that was more colorful and, perhaps, a bit more appetizing to look at. Since corn pairs beautifully with green peas and mint, she decided to use the Bhutte ka Kees as a bed for pea and mint-stuffed fritters, yielding not just an ideal color, but an ideal flavor to boot.

For Kad, Indian food is more than just cream and ghee and a liberal use of spices. Her food is more about flavors and textures and, of course, colors. She wants everything that comes out of her kitchen to be unique. “I am self taught, so I try to make sure every dish tastes different,” she said. “My mom and dad both said the spices should not take away from the flavor of the food. I’ve always tried to stick to that.”

My Kolorful Kitchen, 124½ E. Main St., Mason, 513-375-2936.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: At Mason's My Kolorful Kitchen, Indian food takes on a whole new color