Samosa selection spices up Morningside Heights

In a city without an especially strong tradition of authentic Indian cuisine, searching for Morningside’s most succulent samosa proves daunting. Fortunately, Indian Cafe, Indus Valley, and Curry & Kabab offer passable presentations of this classic Indian street food.

Fried, pyramidal pastry pockets filled with lentils, potatoes, and a pastiche of other vegetables might initially sound like an infinitely variable dish—after all, simply altering the basic spices in a curry radically changes the entire flavor profile. Regrettably, Americans have come to expect a relatively uniform samosa product: mildly pungent, salty, and slightly greasy to the touch. This samosa homogeneity, unfortunately, proves problematic when attempting to distinguish one restaurant’s interpertation from another’s.

For example, Indian Cafe, one of the closest Indian eateries (108th Street and Broadway), serves an appealingly golden samosa without any excess oil coating the crispy exterior. Indian Cafe’s parent company, Restaurant Hospitality Group, underscores every plate with their motto, “Authentic Cuisine. Authentic Prices.” RHG actively ensures that these samosas are indeed “authentic,” at least for American palates. The rather bland, turmeric-colored interior, dotted with a few lonesome peas and the occasional potato chunk, tastes unremarkable. In concert with pickled onions and green curry sauce, however, even this tamed samosa poses a threat to overly Americanized expectations.

Indus Valley (100th Street and Broadway) prepares a better—albeit extremely similar—samosa. Cooked to a deeper brown, these pastries taste nuttier, richer, and fluffier. Chunky and satisfyingly seasoned, the filling easily trumps Indian Cafe’s unimpressive attempt. Although noticeably greasy and perhaps bordering on overdone, Indus Valley’s samosas at least feel like a (more refined) version of something available from a street vendor in Mumbai. Nevertheless, many Western-attuned palates still prefer a milder creation.

Dripping with oil, misshapen, and utterly satisfying, Curry & Kabab’s samosas deliver shocklingly strong flavors in diminutive packaging. Located between 106th and 105th streets on Amsterdam, this charming hole-in-the-wall neighborhood Indian affair makes no pretense at refinement. The meat samosas burst open with cumin-spiked ground meat of uncertain providence. But with such rawly energetic texture and piquant flavor, who’s asking? Inside vegetable samosas, swirling mosaics of tender potatoes and peas provide reason enough to fearlessly indulge in these uniquely greasy compositions. Without question, Curry & Kabab’s delectably authentic samosas beat out all neighborhood competition.