The Sweet Spot for Vegetarian Indian Cuisine
Some of the best vegetarian Indian food in New York City is in the back of a candy store in Jackson Heights.
Maharaja Sweets and Snacks is a tiny storefront wedged between a mobile phone kiosk and the kind of grocery store that sells most of its food from the sidewalk. It’s on the outer edge of Jackson Heights’ thriving Indian neighborhood, but it’s been a central part of the community for more than 15 years.
From the outside, it looks like a candy store. Or put more simply, it is a candy store, and a hugely popular one. On a summer visit, Maharaja was packed with families buying colorful treats from the long glass counter at the front of the store for the final night of the holiday Eid (giving, receiving and eating candy being an important part of Eid, like all great holidays). Given the length of that counter, the sheer variety of confections in it and, well, the name of the place, you might think this is it. It’s a candy shop! Get candy and go home!
But push past the smiling dads in colorful shalwar kameez and you’ll find about a dozen tables and chairs neatly arranged in the back. This is where they serve the “snacks,” though that’s drastically underselling it. “Snacks” are a bag of potato chips or your mom giving you exactly 10 grapes in a little plastic bowl. Maharaja is way beyond “snacks.” In fact, this candy store has a secret double life as one of the best Indian restaurants in New York City. And everything on the menu is vegetarian.
The greatest and most terrifying thing about going to a vegetarian-only restaurant when you’re a vegetarian is being able to order anything on the menu. After years of vegetarianism, you get pretty good at quickly scanning a menu for the two or three things you can eat, and then quickly deciding which of them you feel like. It’s cozy and comfortable—a little skill that helps you get through the world. You might even enjoy baffling servers by making baroque custom orders. I’ll never forget asking a waiter at a Tampa Chili’s for a complicated Mexican burger with everything but the patty. When he brought it out—avocado, lettuce, cheese, tomato, special sauce, etc., etc.—he said no one had ever thought to ask for it like this before, and the kitchen staff couldn’t get over what a great sandwich it was. Not since high school graduation had I been more proud of myself while seated at a chain restaurant.
So, to suddenly find yourself wandering in the open air of the whole wide menu, free to pick anything you want from the dozens of dishes? It’s not uncommon to find you’ve just been staring indecisively for what feels like hours, shooing the waiter away over and over, while you ever more anxiously try to determine what in the world you want, when you can have absolutely anything.
This is the state I was in as the tide of the crowd surged around me and slowly drained out, back onto the streets. What in the world to have?
Maharaja serves north Indian food, and as such, has a fantastic selection of chaat, serving nine different versions of the classic street snack. I love dahi puri, one of those great foods which comes partially disassembled and takes some knowledge and skill to eat. You get a few hollow pieces of puffed dough about the size of a golf ball, which you crack open and fill with the delicious mixture of chickpeas and chutney before doing your best to eat in one bite. Also fantastic is the papri chaat, a big yogurty mess of fried dough, potatoes and chickpeas that you attack mercilessly with a fork.
That’s the appetizer. For an entrée, it’s much more difficult. I found myself wandering back and forth endlessly between something familiar, like channa masala (chickpea curry) or a mutter paneer (peas and cheese), and something that you see less often on the city’s Indian food menus: vegetable kababs, dal makhni (lentils and cream), even sarson ka saag (a mustard green curry). In the end I chose malai kofta, essentially vegetarian meatballs floating in a richly spiced and creamy tomato sauce. It’s more or less impossible to stop pouring onto rice and scooping up with Maharaja’s naan, one of the only foods it’s appetizing to spy a little shine of oil atop.
For me, this was a special trip. But for the dozens of people who streamed in and out while I stuffed my face, it couldn’t have been more everyday. It’s a place to drop in for a casual dinner with your family where they don’t mind you pushing the tables together and making some noise, or staying and chatting long after you’ve finished your food. It’s somewhere you can get a big bag of treats for the kids on your way home from work. It’s part of the neighborhood, and if you go, you can pretend you’re part of it, too. That’s every bit as special as anything on the menu.
