美国国家公共电台 NPR A Visit To Houston's Himalaya: Pakistani And Indian Food With Deep Texas Roots

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Just off a Houston freeway, in a strip mall with an Indian tailor and a South Asian grocery store, is a small restaurant with an outsized reputation. It's called Himalaya, and its chef and owner is a Houston institution.

KAISER LASHKARI: How are you?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lulu.

LASHKARI: Good. I'm chef Kaiser. Would you like some hot tea? Hot chai? Indian chai?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes.

Chef Kaiser Lashkari is a large man with a bushy, salt-and-pepper mustache. He's constantly in motion - greeting clients, inspecting steaming dishes carried by busy waiters, calling out to his wife, overseeing the kitchen. He offers us food before we've even sat down.

LASHKARI: Let's feed you first. That's what we're all about - to put a smile on your face with good food.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That food has made this humble¹ eatery among the best restaurants in the city, topping the lists of every Houston publication and more recently, after a visit from Anthony Bourdain in 2016, the country.

We'll let you choose what we eat.

LASHKARI: OK, wonderful. Thank you.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Creamy chai is set on the table - then vegetable fritters and spicy² samosas³.

LASHKARI: One each. Just grab it Indian-style with your hands. No formalities. All fat-free, sugar-free, cholesterol-free and zero calories.

(LAUGHTER)

LASHKARI: Most of it is doctor recommended for weight loss.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: He is a gregarious⁴ host.

LASHKARI: If I was not a chef, I would have been a part-time standup comic, I think, you know?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Kaiser Lashkari grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. And he studied medicine.

LASHKARI: I was in med school in Pakistan. And I had finished three and a half years. I had two more years to go to become a doctor. I told my parents that this is not where my heart is. They thought that I had flipped⁵ my noodle because everybody - every Indian and Pakistani parent in the 80s wanted their kid to either become a doctor, lawyer. Or No. 3 option was engineer. Nobody had heard of being a chef. I really broke their heart by not becoming a doctor.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But his heart was in cooking. He moved to America, got his master's degree from the Conrad N. Hilton School of Hospitality at the University of Houston. And he settled in the city. At first, he was mostly catering⁶ Indian weddings. And then 14 years ago, he gambled everything on this place.

LASHKARI: When we came here in 2004, I had $1,100 in the bank. This was a Colombian restaurant that we bought over.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: He kept the Colombian restaurant's painting of a traditional Latin American market scene with a tiny cross perched on the archway. It dominates the whole hall.

LASHKARI: So this is the story. In Islam, you can't remove a picture which has a cross in it. That was my wife's understanding. She - that's what she gave me to understand. And she said, don't ever remove this. And then this restaurant became very lucky for us. We - from being hand to mouth, we became self-sufficient. So this proved to be a lucky painting. Plus, this was a colorful painting, and this was all we could afford at the time. So we want to keep it, and we want to keep that cross as long as I'm alive and kicking.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's a sign of how so many communities have built Houston into what it is today - influencing each other, melding into something unique. Lashkari has applied⁷ that to the dishes he serves. His signature chicken curry⁸, cooked in huge metal pots in his sweltering, fragrant⁹ kitchen, is made with Mexican tomatillos and cilantro. It's incredibly delicious. And we ate that along with the best saag paneer, a spinach¹⁰ and cheese dish, that I have ever tasted.

LASHKARI: We do a lot of fusion¹¹ right now. This restaurant is famous for its fried chicken. It's fried the Southern way, but it's - the chicken - the raw chicken is marinated with Indian spices. My white gravy¹² is made with cashew nuts and almonds and coconut¹³. So it looks like a white gravy of the chicken-fried steak, but it's totally different.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So Pakistani and Indian food with deep Texas roots.

LASHKARI: Yeah, yeah.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: One of the things that we're looking at is how multicultural¹⁴ Houston is and how many different types of communities live here. Have you seen that change over time?

LASHKARI: Yeah, it's become more diverse - more ethnic¹⁵ restaurants coming in onto the scene, more Vietnamese restaurants, more Arabic restaurants, more Japanese restaurants, more Chinese restaurants. Besides that, there has been a great influx¹⁶ of Indian and Pakistani population. So yes, things have changed. One thing hasn't changed. I still don't like sloppy¹⁷ Joes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: (Laughter).

LASHKARI: You know.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I hear that you're thinking of retiring.

LASHKARI: I want to say the same thing that Al Pacino says in "Godfather" - that every time he wants to quit the mafia business, they pull me in. And every time I want to retire, some customer comes and tells me how much he enjoyed the food. And there I am, back to the drawing board, trying to think of something new to make and put on the menu. I'm working on a few more things, whereby I could have a Himalaya goes West kind of restaurant. Yes, it's contradictory¹⁸ to what I said - that I want to retire. And then I want to...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I was about to say.

LASHKARI: ...A part of me wants to open a second place where everything is Indian and Pakistani-style hamburgers, Indian and Pakistani-style fried chicken, Indian and Pakistani-style pizza. I've already done some tacos, some tamales with the Indian spices. So sky's the limit. As long as there are other ethnic foods to draw from, I'll be busy.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's chef Kaiser Lashkari, speaking at his Houston restaurant, Himalaya.

LASHKARI: Save a little space for the desserts.

1 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

2 spicy   

adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的

参考例句：

• The soup tasted mildly spicy.汤尝起来略有点辣。
• Very spicy food doesn't suit her stomach.太辣的东西她吃了胃不舒服。

3 samosas   

n.萨莫萨三角饺( samosa的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The food will be samosas, chicken curry and rice, and naan bread. 食品将是五香三角菜饺，咖喱鸡肉饭和印度飞饼。 来自互联网
• A: How about some vegetable samosas to start and today's special chicken curry? 甲：那么先尝一尝蔬菜炸馅角然后再试‘日精选-咖哩鸡’好不好？ 来自互联网

4 gregarious   

adj.群居的，喜好群居的

参考例句：

• These animals are highly gregarious.这些动物非常喜欢群居。
• They are gregarious birds and feed in flocks.它们是群居鸟类，会集群觅食。

5 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

6 catering   

n. 给养

参考例句：

• Most of our work now involves catering for weddings. 我们现在的工作多半是承办婚宴。
• Who did the catering for your son's wedding? 你儿子的婚宴是由谁承办的？

7 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

8 curry   

n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革

参考例句：

• Rice makes an excellent complement to a curry dish.有咖喱的菜配米饭最棒。
• Add a teaspoonful of curry powder.加一茶匙咖喱粉。

9 fragrant   

adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的

参考例句：

• The Fragrant Hills are exceptionally beautiful in late autumn.深秋的香山格外美丽。
• The air was fragrant with lavender.空气中弥漫薰衣草香。

10 spinach   

n.菠菜

参考例句：

• Eating spinach is supposed to make you strong.据说吃菠菜能使人强壮。
• You should eat such vegetables as carrot,celery and spinach.你应该吃胡萝卜、芹菜和菠菜这类的蔬菜。

11 fusion   

n.溶化；熔解；熔化状态，熔和；熔接

参考例句：

• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc. 黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
• This alloy is formed by the fusion of two types of metal.这种合金是用两种金属熔合而成的。

12 gravy   

n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快

参考例句：

• You have spilled gravy on the tablecloth.你把肉汁泼到台布上了。
• The meat was swimming in gravy.肉泡在浓汁之中。

13 coconut   

n.椰子

参考例句：

• The husk of this coconut is particularly strong.椰子的外壳很明显非常坚固。
• The falling coconut gave him a terrific bang on the head.那只掉下的椰子砰地击中他的脑袋。

14 multicultural   

adj.融合多种文化的，多种文化的

参考例句：

• Children growing up in a multicultural society.在多元文化社会中长大的孩子们。
• The school has been attempting to bring a multicultural perspective to its curriculum.这所学校已经在尝试将一种多元文化视角引入其课程。

15 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

16 influx   

n.流入，注入

参考例句：

• The country simply cannot absorb this influx of refugees.这个国家实在不能接纳这么多涌入的难民。
• Textile workers favoured protection because they feared an influx of cheap cloth.纺织工人拥护贸易保护措施，因为他们担心涌入廉价纺织品。

17 sloppy   

adj.邋遢的，不整洁的

参考例句：

• If you do such sloppy work again,I promise I'll fail you.要是下次作业你再马马虎虎，我话说在头里，可要给你打不及格了。
• Mother constantly picked at him for being sloppy.母亲不断地批评他懒散。

18 contradictory   

adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立

参考例句：

• The argument is internally contradictory.论据本身自相矛盾。
• What he said was self-contradictory.他讲话前后不符。