The Indian word chaat means "to lick your fingers." If you’re at Chaat Café, it means go with friends. Chaat refers to a variety of savory snacks often eaten with afternoon tea. Chaat is usually vegetarian and served with generous amounts of yogurt and chutney. It typically involves a crunchy element, and thus many components are fried.
At Chaat Café, start with samosas, pyramidal packages of diced potatoes wrapped with pastry and fried a golden brown ($3.50). This is a good choice for beginners, as they are not overly messy or spicy. Papri chaat is a small bowl of homemade chips (providing the crunch), potatoes, garbanzo beans, and lentils covered in yogurt and tamarind chutney ($3.50). While the variety of textures and alternating sweet, sour, and salty flavors made this dish interesting, be prepared for the heat - the chutney has a mean streak. When you’re done, Chaat has several pitchers of water standing ready and a heap of good-quality napkins to swab down the scene.
With a dozen or so of these snacks, Chaat Café is a good place to come with some friends for some, well, chaat and a decent cup of house chai tea. But Chaat knows that appetizers aren’t enough to tie one over, metaphorically speaking that is, which is why they offer a full selection of dinner and lunch entrées. Chaat’s self-proclaimed invention, the tandoori wrap, uses naan, the traditional Indian leavened bread that has been baked by being stuck to the sides of a tandoor oven. The naan encloses your choice of chicken, vegetables, paneer cheese (like pressed cottage cheese), or lamb. All wraps are made to order, come with spicy potato or cucumber salad, and at $4 to $6, are a good value.
More traditional fare is present as well, like a variety of curries accompanied by either basmati rice or naan and biryani, fried rice dishes. The lamb curry came with four hearty chunks of meat in a sauce thick enough to stick to your chin without falling off ($7). The meat was not fall-from-the-bone tender (even if there were bones) but was well flavored with cumin and plenty of spice. We faced a similar dilemma with one of the specials, mint chicken tikka, where the meat was dry but well flavored ($7).
Instead, choose one of several stuffed naans, particularly the chicken pesto ones, which hang off the plate and are large enough to make a meal. Chicken pesto naan is filled with an even layer of minced chicken that has been fried with garlic, butter, and basil ($3.50). A side of spiced yogurt cools any hot spots. Chaat’s stuffed naan makes pizza look mundane.
Black-and-white photos of Indian movie stars shine down on you as you eat, while Desi pop tunes serenade overhead, providing the perfect setting to enjoy your chaat.