Vimala's Curryblossom Café

I love to travel the state looking for interesting places and people. One special place and person that I visited last year was Vemela Rahendran at Vemela's Curry Blossom Cafe in Chapel Hill. My food is from various parts of India. My parents were from Kerala, so I cook a lot of food from Kerala. I grew up in Bombay, so I cook food that is from the Maharashtra state of which Bombay is the capital. And I also cook food that is Punjabi because samosas mean a lot to me that used to be my favorite food to eat as I was a child. And so I love making Punjabi samosas exactly Vemela samosas and cooking are well known in the Chapel Hill community, but she's respected for even more. She's a community activist and for years served dinners from her home, giving money earned from the dinners to charities. But the health department didn't I ran into the former owner of the space in downtown Chapel Hill who said the space is available. And further to that, within a few hours, I got pledges for funds, micro loans to fund the process. If you try to find Vemela's Curry Blossom Cafe from Franklin Street, you might have a hard time. It's actually located in the courtyard, so I wanted to walk through and show you exactly where it's located. This is a beautiful space and I can't wait to try her food. Vemela's Curry Blossom Cafe is family run and she believes healthy, delicious food is a h So she uses ingredients consciously harvested and locally grown in a menu of favorite foods from her childhood. I was born on the coast of India and my earliest memory is of my mom serving all kinds of seafood even when I was two and a half and three years old. I loved shellfish and all kinds of fish. So PEI mussels are in season right now, so we brought it in. It starts out very much But I took it to the next level to make it Indian and as if it's from Kerala. It's a beautiful orange sauce that's absolutely out of this world delicious. To share her love of this cuisine, Vemela offers cooking classes so anyone can learn the craft of recipes What I was looking for when I started developing this recipe was for the crust to be flat and smooth and have layers as you bit into it. You saw the layers that were flaky and it looked A lot of people think that my samosa is baked in an oven A specialty on the menu is the masala dosa, an enormous Indian crepe made from a rice batter and spread in swirls of varying thickness to create crisp and chewy textures. It's then filled with a hot potato and cabbage mixture that'spicy, not hot, and served with different chutneys. Mmm, mmm, that is y Spicy and great texture just The crepes, part of it's kind of doughy. The other part is crispy. Wonderful. And to honor a North Carolina tradition, she also offers pork barbecue and vegetarian collard greens. Mmm, bimala. Nice job. And let's check out these collard greens. Mmm, they'really good. Way to go, bimala. On occasion, bimala adds the touch of live music. Tonight, it'southern Roots, featuring Rick Keena on guitar, Richard Tazwell on keyboard, and Dave Shore on dr We've been together for a n At Bimala's Curry Blossom Cafe, it's good to receive. And it's good to give. For North Carolina Weekend, After Dark, I'm Deborah Holt Noel. Bimala's Curry Blossom Cafe is located in the courtyard downtown Chapel Hill at 431 West Franklin Street, and she's open Monday through Saturday from 11. 30 a. m. to 9. 00 p. m. For schedule of performances and information on upcoming dates for cooking classes, visit her website at hurryblossom. com.