Café Spice Brings Zest to Cockeysville

Sometimes someone’s loss is someone else’s gain, and that is certainly the case with Towson’s closing up shop and heading down York Road to Cockeysville.

Owners Rani and Girish Garg recently moved the restaurant, specializing in Indian cuisine, to Yorkridge Center North (10540 York Rd.).

The new space is both comfortable and dazzling. Against a backdrop of bright colors and patterns and beneath a ceiling adorned with intricately decorated umbrellas, Rani Garg provides a personal touch, greeting regulars with hugs and checking on each table personally.

Admittedly, I am no connoisseur when it comes to Indian cuisine. In the past, my experiences with Indian food have consisted of me being out with a group, watching someone order numerous dishes, and winding up with lots of foods that I don’t know the names of on my plate.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed these dinners, but now that I know I plan to return to Café Spice often, I’m on a mission to school myself in the ways of Indian dining, to figure out what I like and don’t like, and specifically, what everything is called.

Fortunately for my taste buds, and perhaps unfortunately for my indecisive nature when it comes to food, nothing I tried at Café Spice fell into the dislike category.

I liked the naan, flatbread freshly baked in the restaurant’s clay charcoal grill. We opted for the garlic naan ($2.99), and it was delicious, as is anything with “garlic” in the title.

Café Spice offers 14 different kinds of Indian breads, but these aren’t even part of the appetizer menu, which includes classics like the vegetable samosa, a fried pastry stuffed with potatoes and peas ($2.99) and chicken manchuri, an Indo-Chinese dish ($6.99).

For our main course, we tried daal makani ($10.99), a boldly flavored vegetarian dish made up of lentils cooked with fresh herbs and onions in a tomato-based sauce. We also ordered regional favorites chicken tikka masala ($13.99) and chicken malabari ($13.99) as well as a side of chapathi ($1.99), thin, whole wheat bread baked with butter. Along with a number of other sauces and curries, the tikka masala and malabari are also available with lamb ($14.99), goat ($14.99), fish ($15.99) and shrimp ($15.99). Additionally, the malabari can be ordered with crabmeat ($19.99). Each of these dishes is served with a generous portion of basmati rice.

According to the menu (and Indian cuisine-eating friends of mine), the creamy, red tikka masala is one of the most popular dishes with its robust blend of spices. And I happily took the leftovers of the chicken malabari, a fragrant south Indian curry infused with coconut milk, ginger, garlic, herbs and spices.

Not just for baking bread, the clay grill allows Café Spice to offer classic tandoori dishes like tandoori chicken ($12.99), marinated in yogurt and spices, and seekh kabobs ($14.99), minced and marinated lamb cooked with onions and spices.

I was too stuffed for dessert, but I’ll be back to try the rasmalai, cottage cheese dumplings in sweetened milk ($4.99), mango ice cream ($3.99) and gaajar ka halwa, a carrot pudding ($3.99).