Inside Roti, the walls are like an Indian advent calendar—little shuttered windows cut into the overbuilt walls that open onto visions of everyday Indian life. Paintings of men walking oxen and women doing household chores and views of small-town events speak to a kind of charming, slice-of-life sweetness. Walking in the door off lower Queen Anne Avenue—from the much more realistic world outside, with its scattershot mix of bars and Thai restaurants, after-dark action in Dick's parking lot and equally (though differently) charming visions of gap-toothed punks pacing the boundaries of their mini-ecosystem in front of the Mecca Cafe, the urban yuppies and change-grubbing street people all rubbing shoulders on the crowded sidewalks—is like stepping through the halides and straight into someone's slide show of their vacation to rural India.
Peter Mumford
Looks are deceiving at Kohli’s gorgeous restaurant.
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Roti 530 Queen Anne Ave. N., 216-7684, rotirestaurantseattle.com. Open daily; lunch 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m., dinner 4:30 p.m.–9:45 p.m.
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Roti is warm inside, and dim and close. The ceiling is a grid of colored lights. Every support pillar has been bulked out with carved wooden facings lit from within, and every flat surface not expressly meant for the serving or consumption of pakora, naan, or curry has been set with statues, delicately hammered tin bowls, and towering sculptures of gods and goddesses riding horses or sitting lotus-style with looks of preternatural calm on their stone faces. The soft music, all drums and sitars and sharp discord, seems to fall from above like rain.
This is what I like about Roti, what I fell for the moment I stepped inside. I like the space. I like the clutter and closeness of it. I like its slightly threadbare feel, with its worn carpet and carefully laid tables, the weirdly bright buffet table in the back, the soft cloth covers on the menus. The curvy tin cups that the waiters fill with water grow cold to the touch and make everything taste vaguely metallic—like well water drawn from great depth. I like the quick, competent service, the hollow tap and scrape of metal spoons against metal bowls, the deep banquette along the right-hand wall which seems to enfold me when I sit there. I like the quiet of Roti, even when I'm not the only one inside.
What I don't like is everything else.
Open for more than seven years in this location (after coming down from higher up the hill), Roti has stood the test of time in a competitive neighborhood. Owner and chef Davinder Kohli, who runs the place with his wife, Avinash, made his bones as a hotel cook in New Delhi before attempting to bring the authentic flavors of Northern India to this storefront in the middle of Seattle.
When he did, he made a decision to do things right in his kitchen: to get whole spices (less a grace note to the Indian canon than the core of its existence) into his pantry straight from the source and have his crew grind them fresh each morning; to make his naan from scratch and cook it to order; to work from his own recipes only, uncompromisingly; to not cook down to a clientele who might be unfamiliar with methi chicken, onion bhaji, potato vara, or dum aloo. I really like the picture at the top of the Roti website showing a bunch of cooks and chefs in their white jackets, toques, and turbans, looking for all the world like some kind of badass culinary commando unit just waiting to cut throats and cook tandoori lamb.
On paper, Roti has everything going for it. It should've been great. And it was—right up until the first plates arrived.
"Can a person die of ghee poisoning?"
That was my first question to my wife Laura when I stepped outside to call her between courses on my first night at Roti.
"You really want me to look that up?" she asked.
"No, I'm just saying..."
"Saying what?"
"That I'd be a pretty good research subject for lethal levels of butter in the blood right now."
Ghee—the clarified butter used in most Indian cooking—is wonderful stuff because it's like plain butter, only better, stronger, silkier, and more powerful. It is the Lee Majors of butter, rebuilt and redesigned by Indian cooks for making incomparably ethereal sauces smooth and strong enough to hold the weight of a dozen spices without ever blunting or overpowering their kick.
But like uranium or the films of Jeremy Piven, ghee is best utilized or enjoyed in small, discreet doses. Like any butter, it makes everything it touches better, but can easily be overused.
My first plate of lamb rogan josh from Roti's kitchen was swimming in ghee—covered with a thick layer of greasy red oil which no amount of stirring would dissipate. I could have drunk the butter off with a straw, and had I thought that might've helped the dish overall, I might've tried it—except that beneath all that ghee was just a weak, oddly flavorless onion and tomato gravy and a few chunks of lamb meat with the consistency of stew beef. The overall effect of the grease, the thick, dull sauce, and the meat put together was something like watching a lava lamp filled with melted butter in which globs of speckled sauce and chunks of lamb were set bobbing. And when it came to actually eating the rogan josh, I probably would've been better off cracking open my stoner college neighbor's favorite Friday-night mood-lighting device and drinking whatever weird shit it is they fill lava lamps with.
