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Sharing the Flavors of Home
The foods of Southeast Asia are becoming part of the culinary scene in Southwest Michigan, opening the door to a cuisine known for its vibrant and complex flavors informed by centuries of tradition.
“The world has no boundaries,” says Renu Singh, who owns Desi Tadka Groceries in Stevensville, Michigan, with her husband, Atul. “The flavors of Southeast Asia, such as curry, saffron, cardamom, ginger, lime, galangal and coconut, now are part of where we live here. That’s why I called my store Desi Tadka, which is Hindi for local flavors. Because those are the flavors that people who aren’t from Southeast Asia are willing to embrace when they come to my store.”
Seven years ago, Nelo Femondes, who hails from Goa in West India, opened Memories of India in St. Joseph, just a few miles away. It would remain the only Southeast Asian business in Southwest Michigan until Singh opened her grocery store. Recently Thrijani Kantareddy opened KT’s Rasoi Indian Cuisine (rasoi is the Hindi word for kitchen), also in Stevensville; a third restaurant, Indian Street Food, is scheduled to open within the next month or so.
“There are about 500 Southeast Asian families here; many of them work for Whirlpool Corporation or the hospital,” says Singh. Her husband and Kantareddy’s both work at the appliance manufacturer, as did Kantareddy, who has an MBA. She left her job there as a quality assurance engineer to open her restaurant.
“I wanted to own my own business, and I come from a large family who would gather for festivals, so I knew how to cook for huge groups,” says Kantareddy. For her part, Singh says, “As a woman, I wanted to have a business. And I thought it was important to have a grocery store where people could buy the ingredients they need for cooking instead of having to go to South Bend or Chicago to find them.”
The sprawling grocery store is stocked with items not only from India but also countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, all part of the region that Singh describes as Southeast Asia. On Thursdays, Singh gets supplies of vegetables that are common in those countries, such as opo squash, curry leaves, Chinese eggplant, Indian bitter melon, guava, lychee, mangoes and ridge gourd. She also carries Halal baby goat and chicken, which are hard to find in Southwest Michigan.
Anticipating her customers’ needs and fulfilling them is part of Singh’s business philosophy. That includes the addition of a colorful automatic cotton candy vending machine that looks like an oversized photo booth to make her destination fun for parents shopping with children.
“A lot of our customers are Americans who are eager to try some of the dishes they’ve had in Indian restaurants or just want to learn how to cook a new cuisine,” says Singh, who is from Lucknow, in the state of Utta Pradesh in Northern India. She plans to expand into the space next door and give cooking lessons. In the meantime, she not only works hard at sourcing a wide range of products but also providing recipes and cooking instructions for shoppers.
At KT’s Rasoi, Kantareddy wants to go beyond biryanis and naans (though she also offers those on her menu) so her customers can experience the vast array of dishes found in India. She and her husband are from Hyderabad, an extremely large and cosmopolitan city in Southern India.
“The Southern Indian cuisine tends to be spicier than what you find in the north,” she says. “But I make sure that, for people who don’t like spicy food, that’s it’s not too hot. Making food that people enjoy gives me great pleasure. I want everything to be fresh and made from scratch.”
To accomplish this, Kantareddy often starts cooking early in the morning, as many of the foods she serves take a long time to prepare. Many of her recipes she learned from her mother and grandmother.
“Most of what’s on the menu when we open for dinner was made that day, but some foods like dosas and idlis, I have to start working on the day before because I need to soak the rice and lentils which are used in the batter for five hours or so, grind them into a paste and let them ferment for another eight to 10 hours,” she says. Idlis are a savory steamed cake, and dosas are similar to crepes. She makes 10 types of dosas and three different idlis.
Other menu items include uttapams, a type of savory pancake; rasgullas, a dessert cooked in a sweet syrup; an assortment of biriyanis; and Indian-style street foods.
“I love that people are happy and say good things about our food,” says Kantareddy. “To me, though it takes a lot of time to make good Indian food, it is worth it. I think of it as an art.”
Desi Tadka Groceries
2648 W. John Beers Rd.
Stevensville, MI
269.588.0048
desitadkagroceries.com
KT’s Rasoi
4075 Hollywood Rd.
St. Joseph, MI
269.235.9515
ktsrasoi.com
Jane Simon Ammeson lives in Southwest Michigan. She writes about food, travel and personalities. Follow Jane at janeammeson.com/.
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