Silly Indian Restaurants

"Curry Hill" is becoming a joke...a caricature of itself. Take for example these two shining examples.

Trying to follow in the successful footsteps of Roomali, a place opened up on Lexington called Rolls "n" Curry with an outlandishly bright pink and blue awning. I've been there twice, figuring I'd give it a shot, especially as seeing that they had chicken 65 on their menu. Alas, both times I've gone they either didn't have chicken 65 that day or were so confused that I told them to forget about it and left. But now things have gotten even stranger. There is a new sign underneath the main awning that says "Kennedy Fried Chicken". It's hard to read in this photo, sorry. The first person who can explain what this means...I will buy you an order of chicken 65.

Another one is Cardamom, a business that must be burning a very large hole in the owner's pocket. As mentioned before, the word on the street is that the restaurant is still open because the wealthy owner gave it to his wife to keep her busy. Busy at what exactly? The place is closed by 7pm nearly every night and I have yet to see more than 6 people dining in the restaurant at any given time. And I promise you the new sign that was jerry rigged in front that reads "Indian Chinese & Indian" will not create lines of people waiting to try this very confused cuisine.

The rest of the neighborhood, with the exception of Copper Chimney which is quite nice, Pongal which is as well, and a few others, is looking like utter crap. And I mean worse than just a year ago. Let's just say I could have posted several pictures of restaurants with fish tanks in their front windows with water but no fish in them.

I have a feeling that things are going to change soon in Curry Hill. With rents increasing, a more young and sophisticated group of people living in the area, this type of stuff will and already is, starting to fail. I won't be surprised (and actually happy) if only Pongal, Copper Chimney, Curry Leaf, Kalustyan's and Sarivanaas are still around in two years time.

That being said...there will probably be some great restaurants taking their place...hopefully.


UPDATE (3/21/06): Apparently Kennedy Fried Chicken is a loosely-based chain that can be found throughout Manhattan. But that still has nothing really to do with Rolls n Curry. In any event, this link will keep you entertained and well-informed of the history of Kennedy Fried Chicken and others of its ilk. Also happens to be a cool website in general.

http://www.forgotten-ny.com/SIGNS/friedchicken/chickenshacks.html