First Bite: Honest

This story begins when I received a Facebook message from a friend I hadn’t heard from in a while, and I was immediately intrigued. The friend was chef Vasisht Ramasubramanian, whose name you might remember as the opening chef at Chauhan Ale & Masala House, followed by a stint working in the kitchen at Barcelona Wine Bar. I had heard that he had taken some corporate gig, but had lost track of him until he slid into my DMs with the news that he was in town for a while opening a new Indian restaurant called Honest.

Chef V. (as he kindly allows me to call him) has been traveling the country helping to open new locations of this restaurant group, originally based in Ahmedabad, which has more than 100 restaurants in India and a couple dozen more in the U.S. and Canada. Although he’d already left town for his next assignment, he suggested I might want to drop by the new space at 55 E. Thompson Ln., Suite 105 to check it out. So I did. And wow, was I impressed!

Owner Panjak Patel told me the location used to be a Radio Shack, and that he had basically stripped it to the studs to build out his attractive, airy restaurant and dream Indian kitchen with multiple stations for each regional section of his voluminous menu of more than 150 items. Cooks are cross-trained, but each one specializes in a particular cuisine: Punjabi, Bombay chaat, South Indian, Indo-Chinese, and more. I also asked Patel about the digital sign mounted high on the wall that looked like the take-a-number system in a deli. He revealed that the numbers corresponded to an individual station so that servers would know when and where to pick up an order for their tables. Genius!

I’m far from fluent in Indian cuisine, and with such a diverse menu, I basically put myself in Patel’s hands, a strategy I wholeheartedly suggest. What followed was a parade of plates to the table for me and my dining companion, each completely different from the one before.

If you read my recent story about Pie Town Tacos, you might remember how surprised I was that I kept preferring the vegetarian options there over my usual carnivorous tendencies. At Honest, there’s no choice in the matter because the menu is 100 percent vegetarian and they can make just about any dish vegan if requested. I was also impressed that they accommodate Swaminarayan and Jain requests — two spiritually motivated diets that exclude garlic and onions and, in the latter's case, also prohibit eating vegetables grown underground to prevent harming insects and microorganisms that grow on the roots.

The depth of flavors, contrast of textures and rich luxurious sauces got me to thinking, “Hey, I could do this vegetarian thing if it all tasted like this!” A starter of dahi puri stuffed with potatoes and sauced with sweet yogurt was meant to be consumed in one explosive bite, although they were large enough to cut up into quarters if you don’t mind a little mess. The cheese masala pav was another delightful mess with vegetable curry-stuffed bread ladled with creamy cheese.

Outside of a nice tomato and Duke’s sandwich, I can’t think of the last time I was really excited about a meatless sandwich, but that was before I ordered the Bahubali. It’s actually the most expensive item on the extremely affordable menu at $12.99, but it was worth every penny. Sort of like the Mumbay version of a club sandwich, the griddled quadruple decker is a favorite street food and a best seller at most Honest locations. Each layer is covered with a different topping of jam, cheese, vegetables and chutney, and the contrast of sweet, spicy, smooth and crunchy was something I’ll return for soon and often. Plus it comes with chips, so not a bad deal at all.

After that, the meal became a blur of exotic spices, differing heat levels and textural delights, but I’ll try to hit some highlights. Chef V. told me not to miss out on the Manchurian off the Indo Chinese menu, specifically the dry version instead of with gravy. (There was nothing at all dry about this dish, although Patel told me to go ahead and get the gravy next time.) The dish featured fried vegetable dumplings coated with garlic and ginger and a host of other spices, plated with a tiny paper American flag that made me nostalgic for the old All-American Burger at Shoneys. If you’d told me that this was a plate of the best boneless chicken wings ever, I would have believed you. (Despite what this guy says!) Unlike some sort of chicken substitute, these vegetable dumplings exhibited the perfect crunch and deeply layered spice profiles.

I took a little tour of the kitchen which was full of busy chefs, despite the fact that there weren’t many people dining at the early hour we arrived. Apparently the local Indian community has already quickly embraced Honest and keeps them hopping for dinner and on weekends, plus they do a decent takeout business as well. While back in the kitchen, I watched a cook making the naan in a barrel-shaped gas oven with a flame underneath that sounded like an F-16 hitting the afterburners. Slapping the dough against the side of the cylinder, the cook produced a delightful crispy and buttery flatbread that you can also order in other varieties like garlic, chili, cheese or just about any combination of those flavors. We used our butter naan to shovel creamy paneer handi gravy into our gullets until we feared we wouldn’t be able to unwedge ourselves from the booth.

Did we overdo it? Sure, but it was for science. Even with that crazy amount of food, much of which went home with us, the bill was only about $60 including some masala tea and delicious mango lassi. A normal meal for a person not looking to eat their way across the subcontinent could easily be had for less than $15-20, and with so many choices, you could visit every week for a year and not try everything. So again, if you’re unfamiliar with some of the dishes or you just can’t choose, ask Patel or his attentive staff, and I’m confident that they’ll point you in the right direction. And the first direction to point yourself is down Thompson Lane toward Murfreesboro Rd. until you reach Honest!