RADHA’S INDIAN GROCERS
Flavors are so elusive and so intense. In my travels to Greece and Germany this fall and even here in Asheville the flavor of food plays a big part.
A few days ago Susie, Todd and I ate lunch at Gypsy Queen, a Lebanese restaurant, with a food truck and discovered on this banal strip of shops that run along Patton Avenue three adjoining undistinguished looking, but fascinating inside, strip stores that sell Lebanese food, Mexican food and Indian food. Asheville has authentic food from all over the world. Patton Avenue is one of four main strips of boxy stores in Asheville that run north, south, east and west. Patton Avenue runs west in West Asheville. Patton Avenue, like most strips, is decaying in spots with stores constantly moving in and out. In the old days on Saturday night Patton Avenue was where teenagers would cruise up and down connecting with and waving at each other and slowing traffic down. In later years they would walk through the Mall when it was bustling, another form of cruising. I don‘t know where they go now. They probably cruise invisibly on the Internet keeping their eye on each other and making comments and connections.
But my guess is that rents are much lower on Patton Avenue then they currently are downtown and are an easy place to start up a business a place to welcome in newcomers to the country and give them a foothold. All of these places are recent startups. No one comes to Patton Avenue for any other reason than to go to a particular shop or restaurant and then go straight home again. There is good lighting, abundant parking but no elegant stores or fine dining or any other reason to visit Patton Avenue.
The day we discovered Radha’s Indian Grocery on Patton Avenue was the first mild day after the latest snow storm, with the temperature just over 50 degrees farenheit but comfortable outdoors in the bright sunshine. Susie had been to the Gypsy Queen the week before and the place was jammed with people eating indoors maskless, but today it was carry out only with a strict mask rule and we had to eat outside in the sun. Omicron must have hit in between.
Gypsy Queen has delicious Lebanese food. I got a wonderful rice and lamb dish for $5 and brought half home and a can of roasted eggplant for later.
Right neck door we discovered a Mexican tortilla shop where they sold still warm and soft tortillas, 35 for $3.50 and tamales wrapped in corn leaves right out of the oven for $2.50 apiece. I bought both pork and chicken tamales for a later meal.
The next store after the Tortilla store was Radha’s Indian Grocery. The Indian family running the store had lived in Canada and were Canadian citizens and soon after becoming Canadian they shifted to Greenville, South Carolina, an hour away and opened the first Radha’s Indian Grocery which is doing well. Radha’s has long aisles everything an Indian family could want to eat a completely Indian diet.
When I was in there again yesterday there were a number of white Americans shopping and several Indians, probably just as American. When you visit buy some of their fresh warm samosas and for a treat buy some samosa chutney to dip them into, and have a hot cup of sugary, milky chai from a spigot at the check out counter and imagine yourself in India.
And if you are still hungry stop by the Tastee Diner on nearby Heywood Road and get a Korean Hot Dog with kimchi on top.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 