In between supervising the small kitchen and checking out the fresh supply of spices and meats at her Tallula Restaurant in San Francisco, chef and owner Harveen Khera recalls her childhood and then recounts how she went on to be a chef serving dishes like Tea-Smoked Cornish Game Hen and Tandoori-Fired Skirt Steak with Foie Gras Makhini, morels, sweet potatoes, saffron tomato sauce or Tallula's Salad, made with jicama, cucumber, radishes, kohlrabi, tamarind-ginger vinaigrette.
'Who are these people?' she recallsasking her parents in their home near London.
'Beta, Love, they are your massies.'
'All of them?'
'Ha.'
Harveen remembers one of her aunts telling her mother: 'Look at her. She is so fair. She will have no problem finding a match.
'I'm only 12,' she recalls saying with some indignation.
‘Oh now is the time to start looking. You don’t want the child to become too Westernized She already talks back,’ she remembers one of her aunts saying. She calls that aunt ‘the fat one.’
‘Who will want these Westernized Indian girls anyway? They don’t cook. They don’t speak our language correctly,’ the fat one continued. ‘And their noses are not in the books.’ She was smacking her fuschia lips, and sparking a smile that the jewels she wore, Harveen remembers.
‘What will you do when you grow up?’
‘I want to be an artist.’
A frenzy of giggles, squawks, grunts, general chatter broke out, Harveen remembers. ‘No one was speaking to one another, but everyone was commenting loud,’ she says. ‘What? What madness is this?’ asked one massie.
‘Be a doctor,’ said another.
‘She’s intelligent, isn’t she?’ declared another.
‘Beta, be a lawyer. An engineer. Something with prestige,' pleaded one of them. Harveen remembers how suddenly “someone had a handle on my ear and directed me to the kitchen.”
‘Be an artist and set the table,’ she was ordered.
Harveen Khera -- who likes to use just her first name -- can consider herself an artist today. As she sets tables at her 50-seater restaurant she dreams of recipes that would make her two-year-old restaurant, which has got the attention of major publications ranging from the New York Times to Time magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle, even more successful.
‘For much of this year the talk of the town among avid San Francisco diners is a daring, bohemian-looking, tri-national venture called Tallula,’ wrote Brian Miller iin the New York Times last December. The restaurant presents Indian-style cuisine executed with French sensibilities and based on California ingredients, he continued, praising among other items, grilled sardines with mango and cucumber relish.
Zagat wrote soon after how San Francisco groupies gush over this ‘sexy’ restaurant calling it ‘the most exquisite restaurant to show up in years,’ offering ‘the latest twist on the small plate craze,’ a memorable marriage of ‘Indian and French cuisines.’
Michael Bauer wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle: ‘The must-order main course is the golden trout in which the whole fish is crusted in fennel, boned, and placed back onto the plate with the head still intact. It’s stuffed with mung beans and seasoned with a lemon ginger vinaigrette.’
Harveen left England 17 years agowhen she was 18 for San Francisco. One reason for her departure was a desire to be independent of her massies and their expectations.
Cooking, she had a gut feeling, was something she could venture into. She started out as a dishwasher and worked in many more capacities becoming the assistant to many well-known chefs in the area.
Harveen wonders if she could have developed a taste for fine food, had she not been a rebel from her childhood. She had always dreamt of her own fusion kitchen and worked for a number of well-known San Francisco restaurants such as Bruno’s and Delfina towards fulfilling her dream.
Though she always remembered the lovely food her mother and grandmother used to cook, she could not forget the overcooked food either. She recalls how she had once refused to eat overcooked food at home. When she was ordered to eat it, she had tried to swallow the food. But she was ordered to chew it. ‘How can you taste it if you don’t chew?’ a relative had asked her. “I sat there forcing myself to sit until it was gone,” she recalls with a chuckle. “I sat for six hours and was sent to bed. I didn’t eat it.”
Having lived in California, particularly in San Francisco and watched the way chefs melded culinary traditions from many countries, she felt she could emulate them.
Among the dishes that drew immediate attention to her restaurant was the desi version of Ceviche, a popular Mexican seafood starter, that was server with grated coconut and green chilly.
“Everything we offer here is an unusual mix,” she says, adding that it took her and her co-chefs over a year to perfect the menu. Her cuisine is a balance of several worlds, she says, adding that she believes in bringing peace through food.
She also wanted a catchy name for the restaurant. “After having decided to offer eclectic Indian food, I was certainly not going to give it a traditional name,” she says with a hearty laugh. A friend suggested the name Tallula, the name of her Pomeranian. The dog itself was named after the brassy, rebellious actress Tallulah Bankhead.
She recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that her kitchen philosophy is simple: ‘Open minds, open palates, right?” she said. ‘I put a lot of thought into each dish because I wanted them to be pleasing on many levels. I not only wanted the flavors and the spices to be euphoric, I wanted them to also be good for you physically as well.’

SF Weekly

Girls Gone Wild
Girls just want to eat spicy food and see movies together
By Meredith Brody
Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Even though I knew it was only a coincidence that I was invited to join Lee and Becky for Afghan food and a movie, and that a couple of weeks later, Wendy and Alisa also proposed Afghan food and a movie, it felt like a trend to the cool-hunter in me. Would the new single-girl signifier be digging into a plate of mantoo or a bowl of aush, rather than the time-honored visual of dipping into a Chinese takeout box with chopsticks, or a pint of Häagen-Dazs with a spoon? (God knows I've eaten lots of takeout Chinese and premium ice cream in front of the TV, but never in such slovenly fashion. One of the pleasures of eating Chinese is finishing the plateful of rice soaked with the remnants of the dishes you've heaped upon it, and good ice cream needs to be tempered a bit to release its full flavors. Plus if you scoop it into a bowl, the likelihood of finishing the entire pint in one sitting is considerably lessened.)

Lee had introduced me to the charms of Niles, a tiny East Bay community that survives as an antiques row and on the memories of its brief history as a center of silent film production, when Charlie Chaplin, among others, made films for the Niles Essanay Film Manufacturing Co. Niles itself is remarkably unchanged from those days: The oak-dotted rolling hills that rise behind its main street still look as they did when cowboy actors rode up and down them. The plucky promoters of the annual Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival, named in honor of the pioneering Essanay star, have created the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, housed in Niles' first movie theater, where they show silent films, accompanied by live music, on Saturday nights (www.nilesfilmmuseum.org). Lee and I have pretty much exhausted the somewhat limited dining possibilities of Niles proper during the Broncho Billy festivals we've attended, so she proposed dinner before the intriguingly titled 1920 film Sex, starring the rather prosaically named vamp Louise Glaum, at Salang Pass, an Afghan spot in nearby Fremont, already famous for its many Indian restaurants. (Afghan food incorporates Indian, Pakistani, Asian, and Middle Eastern influences.)

We chose the regulation-height table and chairs over sitting at low tables in a special section of the nicely decorated storefront and dug into an array of delightful dishes, including vegetarian aushak (leek-stuffed raviolis topped with yogurt sauce), a delicious quabili pallow (a pilaf of long-grain brown basmati rice, baked with raisins and cardamom, and topped with shreds of braised lamb shank and carrots), borani kadoo (soft sautéed pumpkin flavored with garlic, saffron, and cardamom, and sauced with yogurt), and the best, most silky-textured firni (rose water- scented milky pudding) I've ever had. (That firni haunts me. I must eat it again.) The koobideh I ordered, an enormous, dense, thin patty of ground beef spiced with chopped leeks, cumin, and a stunning amount of chili powder, was dauntingly hot; I cooled down with sips of dogh, a lassilike yogurt drink. The combination of the exotic food with the exotica of the movie (notably an orgy scene featuring chorus girls riding on the backs of wealthy admirers, and a "dance" number with Glaum dressed as a spider-woman caught in a web) made for an enchanting evening.

My sister Wendy had heard about the six-month-old De Afghanan from an Afghan salesgirl at the nearby Macy's in Walnut Creek (there are also two branches of the restaurant in Fremont), and I was able to join her and Alisa for dinner there one hot Saturday night. (Though not, alas, for Bewitched afterward. But that may have been just as well, according to Wendy.) The restaurant, in a minimall, is dominated by a large open grill-kitchen, and is sparsely decorated with a few travel posters. I was dismayed that they were out of dogh and that the iced tea machine had broken down; that pretty much took care of the cold-drink possibilities, since we're none of us big soda drinkers. (Well, maybe a Coke, if it's got some rum in it to help it along.) We settled for ice water. We started by sharing bolani gandana, thin naanlike bread stuffed with a slippery mixture of sautéed chopped leeks and cilantro, which was fried, cut into squares, and served with cool yogurt; and borani badenjan, a garlicky chopped eggplant and tomato sauté, also sauced with a dab of yogurt. I liked my chupan kabob, charbroiled well-done lamb chops that tasted almost like mutton, and also Alisa's generous serving of quabili pallow; but I kept sneaking bites of the chaplee kabob my sister had ordered, which is De Afghanan's version of the thin ground-beef patty I'd found almost too hot to eat at Salang Pass. This dish was moister and less fiery; I loved it. The firni here was less creamy, more tapiocalike; we also tried their rose water-perfumed ice cream, sheer yakh, with an icy texture like the Indian confection called kulfi, topped with pistachios.

The jamais-deux-sans-trois part of me wished I could come up with a convenient Afghan restaurant in the Castro for dinner during the 10th annual Silent Film Festival, which may be my favorite film fest of all time: tightly paced (nine programs over three days), cleverly programmed (ranging from the familiar -- Harold Lloyd, Clara Bow, Lillian Gish -- to the unknown -- a poetic Indian movie about the prince who became Buddha, and a Brazilian feature from the father of Cinema Novo -- all accompanied by appropriate, brilliantly performed live music), and featuring a genuine dinner break, so you don't have to choose one kind of sustenance over another. But, lacking a local Afghan spot, I picked Tallula, an Indian-influenced small-plates-and-bigger-ones establishment, open for a couple of years, that I'd previously visited only once, to try the spiced pommes frites, on a tip from my astute colleague Jonathan Kauffman. He was right, and the masala-dusted, hand-cut, big fries made it into our Best of San Francisco® issue as "Best French Fries."

I was a little stressed because we had barely an hour and a half for our Saturday night supper, but the charming hostess assured me it would be all right as we wended our way up and down staircases to reach one of the dining rooms in Tallula's eccentrically configured Victorian: "There are lots of people going to the festival here tonight." I steamrolled the girls a bit, ordering an array of small plates to share -- tilapia seviche, lobster and pea dhosa, steamed mussels, pommes frites; Martine managed to slip in a request for a dinner special, ahi tuna, and Hilary insisted that I'd hit upon all her choices during my rapid-fire requests. When I asked our server for her suggestions, she mentioned the paneer tart, happily, for though I'd avoided the enticing steak tartare (with its garnish of quail egg, mango pickle, and pickled turnip), remembering that Lee, who was on her way to join us, was a vegetarian, I hadn't chosen much else that she could eat.

In the event, she professed herself well-satisfied with her meal, which consisted mainly of the nicely spiced fries, crisp and cuminy outside and floury within, served with an aioli tinted pale pink with mango pickle; the cubed golden-and-red-beet salad that came with the velvety slices of barely cooked, cool-at-the-center ahi tuna (which we carnivores gobbled up); and the paneer tart, a flaky pastry crust filled with a custard of the very mild fresh cheese, invisible under a lovely heaped salad of baby greens in a chili vinaigrette, topped with crunchy walnuts, and sided with fig chutney. When I remember the appetite with which Lee devoured the purple pansy that decorated the dish, I kick myself for not ordering another item that she could have eaten: the aloo tikki, alluringly described as lemon and cilantro potato pancakes served with tamarind date chutney. And while I was at it, I would have requested a second helping of the lobster and pea dhosa, which is one of the best things I've eaten in months, and which I'll blame for distracting me from my guests' needs. The carefully extracted pink meat of an equally carefully cooked lobster claw rested atop a delicate, lacy brown crepe, rolled around more diced lobster meat and fresh green peas, nestling on a lake of lemon beurre blanc. There was just a hint (thank God) of truffle oil. The crepe was both supple and slightly crisp to the tooth; the stuffing was divine. It was rich and light at the same time. I also enjoyed the pillowy soft tilapia seviche, white as could be, crunchy with tiny onion dice, perfumed with lime juice, cilantro, and green chilies, and served in a pappadum bowl, and, even more, the big steamed mussels drenched in coconut milk, scented with kari leaves and fenugreek -- but oh, you kid, that crepe. Harveen Khera, the chef who creates these poetic Indian-French dishes, has a good handle on just what delicious is.

Thanks to the thoughtful service, we even had time for dessert. The kitchen was out of the hazelnut-chocolate mousse, which I would have chosen in deference to the three noted chocoholics I was dining with, but since Hilary had kept us generously supplied during the movies with her new favorite chocolate bar, a Lindt offering flavored with orange peel and chopped almonds, we settled for a lovely warm almond cake, shaped like a tiny bundt cake, drenched in orange blossom consommé and served with vanilla bean kulfi, and a dual serving of crème brûlées, one lightly flavored with mango, the other with green tea.

The girls urged me to visit the bathroom on our way out, largely because it was lit only by a myriad of candles and smelled so good, like a combination of sweet spices and warm candle wax. In leaving, I thanked our server and the hostess for taking such good care of us, and they both alluded to the happy family of workers that the place has created. On the way back to the movies, I was thanked profusely by my guests, who thought that choosing Tallula had been a stroke of genius on my part. I knew that the real geniuses were working back at the restaurant.

San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, April 22, 2005

Spicier dishes enhance Tallula's artistic setting
by Michael Bauer, Chronicle Restaurant Critic

Harveen Khera, the chef-owner of Tallula, has an artist's sensibility. Stylish touches show up everywhere, starting at the entrance.
The curved metal awning, long devoid of its canvas covering, is covered with dozens of open umbrellas. Inside, scenes from Indian movies dance across gauzy curtains covering windows that look out over the Castro; they create a surreal effect as the images meld with the parade of pedestrians and traffic moving along 18th Street.
Diners climb narrow, curving stairs leading to a warren of cozy dining rooms, each done a little differently. Khera painted one room a deep crimson and strung and hung more than 5,000 capiz shells from the ceiling. Another room has a slanted open-beam ceiling with beveled stained glass on the wall. In all, the various dining rooms seat 60 and all have the Bohemian atmosphere of an artist's loft.
When I originally reviewed the restaurant nearly two years ago, Khera wasn't cooking, but since then she's taken over the kitchen and aptly maintained the Indian-inspired menu. Under her, the dishes seem a little more rustic and spices are used with a freer hand; you're sure to leave with your tongue pleasantly tingling.
One of the best ways to start is with the pani puri ($6), five wafer-thin puffed shells filled with a mung bean mixture and accompanied by a little pitcher of fire water. You pour the green chile broth into the crisp cup and pop it into your mouth. It's particularly good with one of the clever sake drinks (all $5), such as the Napier, which is served with a licorice stick in place of a straw.
Pomme frites ($7), dusted with a blend of spices and dipped in a pickled mango aioli, are another warming teaser. For a milder start, Khera offers pea consomme ($7), which is actually a thick puree highlighting the sweet essence of spring, made even more interesting by the dollop of minted paneer on top.
The creative menu is weighted to small plates. One of my favorites is the lobster and pea dhosa ($16), a fleshy crepe rolled around lobster and arranged on lemon beurre blanc with the haunting whisper of truffle oil. The claw and coins of seafood rest like a corsage on one end, creating a stunning tableau. Other items include steamed mussels with coconut milk ($14), asparagus with lemon and coconut ($9), sardines with mango cucumber relish ($9), and Khera's version of steak tartare with pickled turnips and mango ($14).
The seven large plates also offer some interesting twists, such as tea- smoked Cornish game hen ($20) with caramelized onions, currants and a pomegranate reduction. Buffalo vindaloo ($18) is given added distinction with slices of tandoor-roasted beets and whole caramelized radishes. Branzini ($20) is flavored with a tamarind consomme, and lamb chops are accented with blueberry chutney ($19).
Indian-style desserts tend to be very sweet, but that's moderated somewhat at Tallula. The rice pudding ($8) is seductively steaming, the basmati creamy with coconut, flecked with pistachio and with a blueberry reduction. Warm almond cake ($8) captures the essence of the nut, nicely accented with orange blossom consomme, while the bread pudding ($8) is enriched with Marsala and caramel ice cream.
Khera, who has worked the front of the house at many places around the city, has trained her staff well. They're exceptionally pleasant, can offer suggestions about wine, and are quick to help unravel the meaning of the drinks with intriguing names and descriptions, such as Scarlet -- "I decided to dress for the engagement. Strawberry nipples and sugared lips.''
It's just one more indication of Khera's artistic sensibility, and another reason Tallula is one of the Bay Area's most interesting neighborhood restaurants.

SF Weekly

Hello, Dahling
Overcoming our jaded cynicism at Tallula
BY BONNIE WACH
From the Week of Wednesday, April 6, 2005
 
Write about restaurants in San Francisco for any length of time and a couple of things start to happen. For one, you put on the pounds. (Disclaimer: This may not be true for other food writers; sadly, I am not one who can sample merely a forkful.) For another, though there are an estimated 3,500 places to eat in the city, you (and by you, I mean jaded, cynical me) frequently find yourself unable to come up with a single one that sounds new and interesting -- even if it is, in fact, new, and all reports indicate that it's interesting.
But then every once in a while you get blindsided, and suddenly the town is alive again with possibilities. So hip, hip, hurray for Tallula (4230 18th St., 437-6722, www.tallulasf.com) for that gift.
As opposed to restaurants that shout their presence from the rooftops, Tallula is the kind of place you could walk right past -- a few times -- before the tantalizing smell of tandoori and simmering garam masala pulls you in like a come-hither look from a scented belly dancer. The belly dancer in this case was not a figment of my olfactory imagination, but a scene from a Bollywood movie that was being projected on the curtain in the front window. Way cool. I searched for the door and found it at the end of a walkway covered by an awning made of interconnected, open umbrellas. Way, way cool. Inside, I was ushered into a breadbox-size lounge and bar to wait for my friends. A piano player with a shaved head and black safety glasses twirled out jazzy riffs while I sipped a sake cocktail at a candlelit table and gazed into the kohl-etched eyes of the screen dancer. (If you do nothing else, read the enigmatic cocktail menu, which describes drinks via the channeled voice of '30s and '40s actress Tallulah Bankhead, the restaurant's inspiration. The Cleo: "Flying in from India with cherries in her beak, whispering, 'Tamarind, where are you?'" The Pomeranian: "Daisy is inviting her friend. Yappy little bitch.")
I hadn't even gotten to the menu, and already the pants were being charmed right off me.
After my party arrived, we were spirited up a spiral staircase into a warren of saffron- and turmeric-colored jewel box rooms, each with its own delightful, stylistic surprises. Ours had wooden benches, mother-of-pearl discs swaying from the ceiling, and a private, petite wrought-iron balcony. Very Interview With a Vampire.
Segue to dinner. The menu is Indian, but not curry-house Indian. Indian by way of France and California, brimming with complex seasonings that make you want to sneak into the kitchen and sniff the spice jars. Flavors seem vaguely familiar, but then are applied to dishes you wouldn't expect. Take the seviche. So many fusion restaurants do variations on seviche that almost no combination surprises me. But Tallula's rendering -- buttery tilapia marinated in lime juice, cilantro, and green chilies, finished with coconut milk and served in a spicy-crisp pappadam bowl -- is fun and original, with clean, bright flavors that prep your palate for the barrage of small plates to follow. There are many to swoon over, but if I had to name one, it would be the watermelon radish, jicama, kohlrabi, and sprouted mung-bean dhosa, which in this version is more like a French crepe than a crispy pancake, infused with fenugreek and dal and topped with kicky roasted-tomato saffron sauce.
"It's a dish that grabs you by the back of the head and gives you a scalp massage," says owner/chef Harveen Khera. At Tallula, that seems completely within the realm of possibility.

San Francisco Examiner
September 29, 2004
What's Your Curry?
Tallula dispels myths about Indian food
Small plates are all the rage in Bay Area restaurants, but Tallula, found in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, one-ups other small-plate establishments' tired twist on tapas with a very modern and uniquely French take on traditional Indian cuisine.
Talulla's owner, English ex-pat Harveen Khera, a 17-year veteran of S.F.'s restaurant scene who's done time at some of local foodies' favorite haunts, including Delfina and Foreign Cinema, brings dishes her grandmother prepared for her as a child respectfully up to date and, in the process, seeks to dispel the "all curry, all the time" myth about Indian cuisine.
" Americans tend to think [of Indian food as] curry and high-heat," Khera says. "But to me, it's really about flavor -- and lots of it."
Thus, every one of Tallula's signature dishes contains layer upon layer of textures and seemingly disparate tastes with which Khera manages to strike a beautiful balance. The result is a menu packed with an array of exotic world notes and similarly robust flavors.
For instance, ceviche, a popular Mexican seafood starter, gets Southeast Asian treatment with grated coconut and green chili.
" It's an unusual mix," concedes Khera, who says it took her nearly two years to develop Tallula's ever-evolving and season-oriented menu.
"But I think it's a good balance of both worlds. It's sort of like bringing peace through food," she jokes.
Spices are Tallula's secret weapons, with house blends imbuing each dish with palate-stimulating oomph that has guests saying "wow" after every bite. Khera's tandoori-fired corn on the cob is dusted in a savory, north Indian spice mixture called "garam masala," which she coyly describes as "oh, a pinch of this and a pinch of that."
Two other good examples of Tallula's delicious culling of Eastern and Western flavors are the pani puri, a crispy puff-pastry filled with a mixture of moong beans, chick pea, potato and corn with just a splash of tamarind and served with a cilantro, lime, Serrano chili and mint "fire water;" and second, the aloo tikki, lemon and cilantro potato pancakes fried to a golden brown and served with a tangy tamarind and date chutney.
" Open minds, open palates, right?" jokes Khera. "I put a lot of thought into each dish because I wanted them to be pleasing on many levels. I not only wanted the flavors and the spices to be euphoric, I wanted them to also be good for you physically as well."
A similar amount of thought went into choosing Tallula's location. Khera says that when she decided to open her own restaurant, she knew it had to be in the Castro.
" It reminds me a lot of SoHo in London," she says. "It's got that same energy. You know, always bustling, so many influences. I find that very inspiring."
Tallula's maze of cozy, sponge-painted and romantically lit dining rooms, each of which seats about 20 guests, allows for a more intimate dining experience than downtown restaurants with their large and often sterile dining rooms. Thus, dining at Tallula feels more akin to being a guest at an intimate dinner party.
" I'm so glad you felt that way," says Khera, "because that's really how we think of our guests -- as family. We don't want them to rush. We want them to stay and relax, enjoy themselves, have a drink and a chat."
Which brings us to Tallula's one-of-a-kind drink menu. In addition to an impressive selection of beer and wine, Khera's also come up with some inventive sake concoctions, each of which comes with a story inspired by colorful quotes from the restaurant's namesake, feisty old-school stage and screen siren Tallulah Bankhead.
As for why Khera chose to name her restaurant after Bankhead, she says she's always admired the actress's energy and spirit.
" She was indefinable," Khera says. "I admire that. People ask me, 'What kind of food do you serve?' I say, 'Good food,' and leave it at that. Some things in life don't need to be defined or analyzed. Tallulah Bankhead was trying open minds. Likewise, I'm trying to get people to look at food, particularly Indian food, in a very different fashion."

*Nirvana review temporarily unavailable

San Francisco Examiner
May 5, 2004
Cooking Culture Clash at Tallula
By Patricia Unterman
One-year-old Tallula is a personal, eccentric restaurant conceived by Harveen Khera who was born in England, but is Indian in palate. She also happens to be a local food and beverage industry veteran. At one time she owned the famous Tunnel Top bar on Bush above Stockton, and she still is a founding partner in Chez Spencer, another one-of-a-kind operation. Her current creation, Tallula, spins a culinary fantasy; a marriage between California, France and India, set in a warren of charmingly decorated rooms.
These dining parlors are reached by spiral staircase in a remodeled 1917 San Francisco Victorian that was once a Castro cabaret. Each small room has its own set of chairs, its own earth tone color scheme sponged on the walls, and its own gallery of oil paintings. The menu is similarly eclectic. Like the little rooms, each dish brings a different experience. However, Khera's vision makes the gentle Tallula masala (the Hindi word for a spice mix) work -- along with a healthy pinch of playfulness.
As at many restaurants in San Francisco, you can put together a meal of small plates, here divided into Puri and Chaat sections. For those of you who know Indian snacks, none of the offerings in these categories come close to being authentically Indian, but they delight in their own way. A lobster and pea dhosa ($16) is a soft pancake with a filling of body and claw meat, and fresh peas, all voluptuously napped in beurre blanc and truffle oil. No Indian would ever mistake it for a crisp/tender dosa and no Frenchman would consider it a crepe. Whatever this waif of a dish is, it's fun to eat.
So are seared sea scallops ($13) with a blackened, spice-infused crust, paired with a pretty pastel pastiche of avocado and pink grapefruit segments in a light, curry-lime vinaigrette. A dish like Tallula's Salad ($8), a slaw of julienned jicama, cucumber, radishes and kholrabi in a thick, brown, fruity, tamarind and ginger sauce left me a bit perplexed. I wasn't sure what I was tasting.
But, when it comes to spice dusted, skinny french fries served in a mini metal pail with a mango chutney-flavored mayonnaise on the side ($7), everyone understands the concept, and in fact, can't stop eating them.
I liked the main courses best of all. A couple of juicy, tandoori roasted lamb chops with a sharply dressed arugula salad studded with ruby-like deep fried beet chips, and an oniony mint chutney on the side ($17), was the plate of my dreams -- sparkling salad, savory meat, lively relish. Sliced rare flank steak stood up to a smoldering, buttery, tomatoey, curry sauce ($18), somehow balanced by salty, earthy, sautéed mushrooms.
I adored the coconut ice cream sundae ($7), a parfait in a tall narrow glass, with perfectly proportioned layers of caramel sauce and chunks of almond brittle.
Tallula has created its own set of refreshing cocktails with sake and aromatics that really go with the food, as do floral white wines like reislings on the not inexpensive wine list. The drinks and wine complete the experience.
After my first meal at Tallula, I was on the fence about this graceful if unusual food. But after the second visit, I was won over by Khera's sensibility, an authentic expression of her multi-cultural being. An evening that takes in Tallula and a film at the nearby Castro would define what it means to be a San Franciscan these days.

New York Times
December 14, 2003
Choice Tables: Good Things Come on Small Plates
By BRYAN MILLER
IN early September, after five days of rummaging around restaurants in San Francisco, that most fervent of dining cities, it became evident that the big trend there was small plates. ''This is nothing new on the East Coast, but it's catching on here big,'' a local restaurant critic told me as we stabbed at miniature lemon pancakes with chutney at a popular new spot called Tallula. The appeal of this style of dining is threefold: it allows you to have as little or as much as you like; it offers a chance to sample a wide assortment of food; and it presents the devious delight of eating the last morsel on a miniplate before it completes its rounds.

Tallula
For much of this year the talk of the town among avid San Francisco diners is a daring, bohemian-looking, tri-national venture called Tallula. According to my sneaker-clad waitress, who squeaked over to my table wearing a loose flowing blouse and dark pants, the restaurant presents Indian-style cuisine executed with French sensibilities and based on California ingredients.

Say again?

In fact, it's more Indian than anything else. Arriving is a bit like walking into one of those lose-your-way fun houses. The restaurant is a series of little rooms, with a very narrow spiral staircase linking the ground floor bar with the upper level. You may want to start on ground level with a glass of wine and a small plate at the bar, where customers perch on upholstered ottomans and nibble on the likes of aloo tikki (the aforementioned little lemon and cilantro pancakes served with a terrific tamarind and date chutney) and grilled sardines with mango and a cucumber relish.

I was installed on the mezzanine at a small burlap-draped table overlaid with brown paper. Yellow walls, exposed pipes, old wooden floors and dim lighting add to the moody aura in the four small dining rooms. It is easy to go overboard with the small plates here, especially those like the intense ripe tomato soup brightened with kaffir lime -- a terrific flavor combination -- served with squash blossoms stuffed with paneer (a firmly pressed Indian fresh cheese). Curiously, my waitress asked if I preferred the soup warm or cold. At first I thought it was a house joke, but it wasn't; I went for cold, which I am now sure is preferable. Main courses, just slightly smaller than a regular portion, are in the $12-to-$16 range. Luscious roasted saffron peaches served with more paneer was a highlight among the desserts.

Gloss
October 10, 2003
Eat it :: by Eryk
On why she called everyone 'darling', "Because all my life I've been terrible at remembering people's names. Once I introduced a friend of mine as 'Martini'. Her name was actually Olive" -Tallulah Bankhead (1903 - 1968). Tallula, borrowing it's namesake from brassy film star Tallulah Bankhead (1903 - 1968), who apparently had over 500 lovers of both sexes, is the kind of quaint little place that you wish you would have found on your own. And if you were lucky enough to of stumbled upon it, you certainly wouldn't waste any time enlightening a few friends.

Located snugly in the Castro, from the outside, the petite restaurant is almost imperceptible, but upon entering, the delicate space opens to reveal a lavish Mediterranean expanse. The space is perfected; having a lofty, uplifting feel, an atmosphere of serenity pervades, the feeling of old-world charm is intoxicating and the rustic décor soon becomes heartwarmingly familiar. Feel just a bit of sympathy for the energetic wait staff, though, as they calmly traverse the narrowest spiraling staircase with the greatest of confidence. Together the staff works diligently as one cohesive unit: informative, accommodating, bright-eyed and always cheerful.

The sake-based cocktails, aside from the flirty strawberry concoction known as "Scarlet"; being a dainty sparkling wine number, are all brilliantly conceived, fantastic tasting and cleverly disguised as brisk movie scenes on the drink menu. Here, you don't order a drink because of its contents; you order it based on the amount of drama you require for the evening. Try the licorice and lemon-spiced "Napier" or take a spin in their chilled "Bentley" martini. Be aware of the well-conceived wine list; try the full-bodied, woodsy GranMets Rioja from Spain, with a meal, and don't forget a pot of gourmet tea.

The lush menu is definably Indian, flirting with Thai and very reminiscent of tapas. The menu is divided into Puri, Chaat, Tandoori and Chullas, with each category becoming increasingly complex. Like Garanimals kid's clothes, order several plates for that mix and match flair. The panko Crumb Encrusted Eggplant and roasted Portobello Mushroom with tomato chutney is alive the flavor. The Spiced Pomme Frites (think crispy, light, perfectly seasoned fries) are a wonderful addition. Aloo Tikki, lemon and cilantro pancakes served with tamarind date chutney, is simply amazing Indian soul food; great texture, deep spicy flavors with bursts of crisp red onion and deep hints of cardamom and cumin. But, what is most exquisite is the "buddha's fire", spicy yogurt-based dipping sauce, which is intended as a compliment to the salty fried chickpeas and fennel-flecked chips served as a snack. This unique sauce ads warmth, depth and power to all it touches. Don't forget to order some naan, what's better than crispy fried bread to soak up all those wonderful sauces?

Be warned satiated diners, the desserts are hazardous. So good in fact, that they must...must be completely finished. Every last deep, dark, intense, chocolate crumb of the Chocolate Espresso Terrine, served with raspberry compote and chantilly cream, has to be enjoyed. Wasting a drop of caramel-drenched, almond-packed coconut ice cream is a mortal sin. You'd be a fool not to finish the cardamom-spiced rice pudding or even think of not finishing guava, concord grape or white peach-black pepper sorbet.

Prices are conservative considering the amount of thought poured into each dish. Tallula's dishes are opulent but subtle with an outward notion of simplicity, further inspection reveals, however, layers of depth. Flavors are extremely well balanced, not a one is overly spicy or pungent or underwhelmingly bland.

PaperCity
September 2003
What's Cooking
The Castro is better known for its good-looking men than for its remarkable restaurants. However, a new gem called Tallula may help change that stereotype. Specializing in innovative Indian/French food, the restaurant charms with its menu and sexy ethnic decor. The rich red, gold and peach-colored space spans three levels that connect by means of well-worn wooden stairways. Touches like shells suspended from the ceiling add to the spot's playful energy. Don't miss menu favorites such as pommes frites with Indian seasonings, tandoori squab and steamed mussels in coconut milk. Fennel-crusted golden trout is a must.

Time Magazine

The Four-Bite Feast
A graze craze catches on, serving up mini-meals
that are full of flavor and easy on the wallet
By TERRY MCCARTHY/LOS ANGELES
Aug. 11, 2003
The signature dish of the Los Angeles restaurant A.O.C. is a small plate of English peas cooked with their own tendrils and a touch of green garlic. Cost: $8. Suzanne Goin, chef of the 8-month-old eatery, also offers bite-size portions of chicken with sorrel, black rice with squid and curried cauliflower. The dishes are all highly flavored and served up quickly. There are no entree-size portions. "I was afraid people wouldn't think of this as a place to have dinner," says Goin of her diminutive-dining concept. "But they went for it very quickly. I was surprised." Within weeks A.O.C. became one of the hottest restaurants in the city, as diners caught on to the newest trend in food: small plates.
Starting from a base in California, the graze craze is spreading across the country. Inspired by tapas, Middle Eastern mezes and East Asian small dishes, chefs are offering diners a greater variety of flavors on a multitude of mini-dishes, usually for less money than traditional-size portions and without a load of calories. Several cookbooks have recently been published that focus on the trend, including Meze: Small Plates to Savor and Share from the Mediterranean Kitchen (Morrow) by Diane Kochilas. The extravagant multi-tiered creations of the NASDAQ-fueled '90s have faded. Now the emphasis is on taste, according to Adam Busby, a Culinary Institute of America instructor at Greystone restaurant in the Napa Valley, Calif. "The philosophy is, Less is more," says Busby, who is teaching his students to use a range of pungent flavors from the "sun-spice belt" of Latin America, North Africa, southern India and Southeast Asia.
The godfather of small-plate dining in the U.S. is Thomas Keller, who in 1994 opened the renowned French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley, which offers tasting menus of up to 15 courses, each with tiny portions. "I want to leave the impression with guests that 'I wish I had another bite of that.' Then you know you've hit them at the peak," says Keller. His "four bites and you're out" philosophy was once regarded as eccentric but more recently has won over an increasing number of top-line chefs. This year the Zagat restaurant guide for San Francisco declared, "The graze craze is here to stay."
In Los Angeles, the newly opened Bastide restaurant of chef Alain Giraud has only tasting menus at dinner. In New York City, chef Gerry Hayden divides the menu at his chic Amuse into $5, $10, $15 and $20 columns so diners can customize their meals to suit their tastes--and wallets. In Chicago, there's newcomer Piattini ("small plates," in Italian). Mantis in Washington, which features pan-Asian tapas, recently opened its doors, and on the Strip in Las Vegas, the restaurant Prana has been offering Southeast Asian small plates to hungry gamblers since May. In Atlanta, there's a twist: trendy restaurants like Bluepointe are retrofitting bar food so guests can make an affordable meal out of several such appetizers.
But the epicenter of small-plate dining is the Bay Area, where out-of-work dotcommers are seeking to reconcile their gourmet habits with shrinking budgets. Diners can sample rabbit-sausage flatbread for $12 at A Cote in Oakland, or they can snack on stuffed dates with chorizo and blue cheese for $8 at the Spanish-Moroccan Baraka in San Francisco. The Russian Hill restaurant Pesce last year shifted away from traditional full-service Italian food to small plates in the Venetian cicchetti style, like swordfish rolls or octopus-and-potato salad.
"To eat small plates is fun," says Harveen Khera, owner of the recently opened Tallula restaurant in San Francisco. "Most people get bored after three or four bites of anything. It's a way of keeping your palate fresh." Tallula bills itself as French-Indian and has dishes like spiced pommes frites with mango ketchup and tandoori squab with cashews and spinach, each costing from $5 to $16. Says Khera: "You have so many flavor profiles going on, you're kind of on a roller-coaster ride in your mouth." And if one wild ride isn't enough, you can always order seconds.
--With reporting by Amy Bonesteele/Atlanta, Elizabeth Coady/Chicago, David Hare/Las Vegas, Laura Locke/San Francisco and Lisa McLaughlin/New York

San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday August 24, 2003
San Francisco Masala: Quirky Tallula Takes Indian to New Heights
By Michael Bauer
We were strolling down the street, trying to find the new Indian fusion restaurant Tallula when we were beckoned into an alleylike doorway by a woman dressed in black and wearing a headset. "Are you looking for Tallula?" she asked in a breathless whisper. When we nodded, she waved us further into the space. "Would you like a drink in the bar before dinner?" she asked, pointing to the shadowy room visible on the other side of the screened door. "No, I think we're headed to the table," I said.
"Then follow me," she purred in the same semi-whisper as she guided us up an impossibly narrow staircase. If felt like we were heading off to some forbidden destination, and as we rounded a hairpin turn we left San Francisco behind.

The warren of dining rooms feels like something found in the New Orleans French Quarter, or New York's Greenwich Village. The tables are covered to the floor with trimmed burlap overlaid with blue tablecloths and topped with bistro paper. The gold and orange walls have an elegant aged, weathered look, and the stained glass at the windows and covering the skylights bespeaks a different era. The faint and exotic aromas of curry and cardamom add an intriguing, exotic note.

If you're lucky enough to get one of the knowledgeable servers, she will explain that the menu is based on Indian flavors with French technique and California ingredients. All the dishes are meant to be shared. She'll even assist in selecting the wine and steer interested diners toward the list of innovative sake cocktails. If you get one of the untrained staff, you're pretty much on your own - which could be why one young couple dressed for a special occasion huddled and whispered over the one-page menu, and then got up and left. It's too bad, because the restaurant - conceived by Harveen Khera, who has worked at the Boom Boom Room, Bruno's and is a partner in Chez Spencer - is both cutting edge and fun.

The fun begins at the bar, which has a moody, speakeasy feel, even though windows overlooking the heart of the Castro keep diners in touch with the constant parade of pedestrians heading up and down 18th Street. Customers sit on low-cushioned benches and stools opposite the bar, which is tucked under a dining mezzanine. It's a great place to sip a sake cocktail and nibble on an appetizer or two such as the pani puri ($5), five paper-thin, egg-shaped deep-fried pastry shells. The chef arranges a dollop of tamarind-date chutney and moong beans in the bottom and places a small cruet of "fire water" on the side. Diners pour the green chile broth into the egg and eat the entire pastry in one crunchy and explosive liquid bite. There's also a heaping plate of pommes frites ($5) dusted with garam masala and served with a mango pickle aioli that wakes up the palate and introduces what is to come. Another reason for having a few appetizers in the bar is that the seating is more comfortable than in the upstairs dining rooms. In one room, the bench is so rustic you could rough up your clothes sliding into the narrow space against the wall. In another, the bleacher-style seat is so narrow that your back may begin to ache. Yet the experience is so engaging that once your backside begins to return to normal, you'll remember only the vibrant food. It's crafted by May Lawrence, who is Malaysian and has worked at L'Amie Donia, Elisabeth Daniel and Chez Spencer.

One of the most exciting starters is the chilled tomato soup ($7), a thick, brick-colored broth with chunks of peeled tomatoes suspended throughout, flavored with cardamom and other spices that transport the taste buds to India. Alongside, Lawrence places two crisp-fried squash blossoms, stuffed with paneer, a mild Indian cottage cheese. It's a wonderful match with Napier ($6), a sake drink punched up with star anise and lemon. Mussels ($11) are heaped in a bowl with the slippery essence of the sauce clinging to the shells. The broth, made with coconut milk, keri (curry leaves), fenugreek and garlic, takes on a fiery demeanor from serrano chiles. We tore off pieces of the onion-topped naan because it quelled the spice, but it was also great with just about everything else on the menu.

Tallula's salad ($7) also provides a pleasant cooling contrast. The heaping mound of jicama, cucumber, radishes and kohlrabi is sparked with a slightly sweet, lightly spiced tamarind-ginger vinaigrette and topped with a drift of toasted noodles that add a dry, crunchy counterpoint. Chef Lawrence has a way of contrasting flavors and textures within each dish, as shown in the chorizo-like lamb sausage ($9) threaded on a skewer with nubbins of kidneys and set on a creamy bed of pink lentils and fan of thinly sliced pickled turnips. This one crunchy condiment is a miracle worker, perking up the blandness of the grains and taming the gaminess of the organ meat.

The seven larger plates have a lot to offer, too - particularly the lamb chops ($16) rubbed with curry and served with chickpea croquettes and cooling mint relish, and the marinated flank steak ($15) fanned on a bed of cashew- and pearl onion-flecked spinach. Kehera chicken curry ($12) is long-cooked and delicious, served with saffron rice and peas, although a little more salt would have helped to further balance the flavors. The weakest dish was the house-cured duck ($16), which featured chunks of meat interspersed with hunks of caramelized pineapple, a combination that ended up tasting like a not-very- sophisticated version of Chinese sweet and sour.
The must-order main course is the golden trout ($17), in which the whole fish is crusted in fennel, boned and placed back onto the plate with the head still intact. It's stuffed with mung beans and seasoned with a lemon ginger vinaigrette.

The best dessert (all $6) is roasted peaches lightly infused with saffron and topped with paneer. The cardamom rice pudding with a black cherry sauce is also a pleasing way to end. The only real loser, in fact, is the sorbet trio - strawberry ginger with black pepper, guava and apricot sage. While the combinations sound interesting, chunks of ice marred the texture, and the main flavor was sugar.

Although a few dishes may need refining, Tallula brings a unique perspective to the Bay Area dining scene. Lots of places are doing small plates these days - you can find restaurants offering Asian, French, Italian, Spanish and Moroccan - but no one is highlighting Indian, a long-neglected cuisine. With its natural affinity for fresh ingredients and bold, brash flavors, it's a perfect fit for the Bay Area. Tallula, with its quirky interior and mostly well-prepared food, doesn't disappoint.

ENTICING, ECLECTIC CHOICES AT TALLULA
Tallula's wine list, like its menu, is innovative. From the whimsically described sake cocktails to the unusual selection of still wines, the selections complement the robust nature of the food. For example on the Cleo ($6) sake drink it's described as: "Flying in from India with cherries in her beak, whispering 'Tamarind, where are you?'" or the Napier ($6): "He called. I reminisced. Bittersweet were our kisses. Lemon and licorice." You get some idea as to the flavors, but if you want to know the specifics you'll need to ask for a translation.

The unusual wine list may also require assistance. If you want Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon, you're pretty much out of luck. However, neither of those varietals goes with the nature of the food, and the list expertly reflects the aromatic and slightly spicy nuances of the Indian-inspired dishes. The 27 wines include the 2001 Thomas Fogarty Gewurztraminer ($24), the 2001 Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand ($28), Minges 2001 Gleisweiler Holle Riesling ($30) and the 2001 Gundlach Bundschu Rhinefarm Pinot Noir ($36).
For the most part, prices are reasonable. However, asking the staff for guidance can be problematic. One night the server was great at matching one of the 12 by-the-glass selections with an appetizer; on another visit the waiter didn't have a clue.In addition, there's an interesting list of beers, and to finish, several sweet wines and four teas.

Zagat
Groupies gush this "sexy" Castrolite is "the most exquisite restaurant to show up in years", offering " the latest twist on the small-plates craze", a "memorable" marriage of "Indian and French cuisines", served by a "knowlegeable staff"; the "romantic" converted tri-level Victorian is divided into a "labyrinth" of opulently colored dining rooms and a "cute bar" area where a "beautiful crowd" can be seen sipping "clever" sake cocktails.

San Francisco Bay Guardian
July 16 – 22, 2003
Up with Pappadam
By Paul Reidinger
FOR YEARS THE Castro was, gastronomically speaking, a no-fly zone. There were plenty of restaurants, and delightful places they were, but not to eat in. The scene began to shift in the mid 1990s, when spots like Mecca and 2223 started popping up with good food. But if they were, or became, destination restaurants, it was more because of the partylike spell they cast than the cooking – highly competent, sometimes interesting, never compelling – that found its way onto diners’ plates.
Tallula, then, which opened in May in the vertiginous old Ryan’s space, is apparently a Castro first: a restaurant whose food is so distinctive, and so splendid, that people from all over the city will – or at any rate should – brave the parking furies and the general tumult of heart-of-the-Castro 18th Street to eat there. Tallula’s central idea is, like so many great ideas, really quite simple, and a variant of a wider idea that has produced some of the city’s most interesting restaurant menus in the last few years: take the flavors of one of the world’s rustic cuisines and reinterpret them as stylish Franco-California bistro offerings. At Tallula (the name refers vaguely to camp diva Tallulah Bankhead) the flavors are those of the Indian subcontinent, and the recombination results in a spectacular succession of Indian-influenced dishes that are simultaneously familiar and not.

The space abets the mood of intelligent whimsy. The address was last occupied by a straightforward trattoria, Incontro, that served decent food but seemed uncomfortable with all of the levels and the network of romantically narrow, creaky, and sinuous stairways connecting them; the place was like a handsome man in an ill-fitting suit. The old building’s layout is so far from modern expectation – from the spare, soaring, open floor plans of so many contemporary places – that you naturally wonder, as the treads groan beneath your feet, just what you are getting yourself into. Yet you cannot help but be hopeful, so long as the building doesn’t catch fire, in which case escape would be a tricky business, at least if you end up, as we did (twice), in the small dining room on the top floor, where French doors open to a terrace, and the city seems far away.

Chef May Lawrence’s kitchen joins the current trend of offering smallish plates for sharing. In that sense the restaurant realizes a certain communal ideal – every dish belongs to everyone – while generating a fair amount of mess as plates and overladen forks pass back and forth, as they will robustly do. Sometimes the culprit is splintering pappadam (which appears in several guises, the first as a set of triangular sails rising from a complimentary dish of spiced, fried chickpeas), sometimes it’s one of the chutney or curry-cream sauces, but always it’s the elegant tastiness of the food.

Only one dish received so much as a divided vote from us. That was the aloo tikki ($6), basically a pair of chubby potato fritters jacked up with lemon and cilantro and napped with a plummy sauce of tamarind and date. My companion found the fritters to be lacking the desirable crispness of good latkes; I enjoyed their soft, citrusy interior.

But ... we loved everything else, from the recognizably south Asian to the unmistakably Californian. On the first point: dosas – south Indian crepes – elegantly filled in one version with baby leeks and morel mushrooms ($9) and spectacularly stuffed in another with lobster, corn, and morels ($12), the latter preparation also featuring a pool of curry cream. On the second point: frites ($5), served with a ramekin of mango-pickle dipping sauce that resembled lavender mayonnaise.

The kitchen borrows with abandon from cultures far and wide, giving cod seviche ($10), say, a Thai-style bath of coconut milk, lime, chiles, and onion and presenting the cubes of fish in an edible boat of pappadam. Artichoke hearts ($8) are roasted in an earthenware crock with bread crumbs, paneer (a mild, and usually quite fresh, white cheese), and preserved lemon, while anchovies, simply grilled on a skewer ($8), arrive atop a mixed dice of mango and cucumber, with sesame seeds and bits of fresno chile suspended in a drizzle of white wine vinaigrette.

The big dishes are simpler. Squab ($12) is roasted in the tandoor and served with unassuming little heaps of kohlrabi and shredded radishes. Curried lamb chops ($16) also take a turn in the tandoor before being plated on a lawn of finely minced onion, with a chickpea hush puppyfor company. (We loved the hush puppy, found the lamb slightly overcooked.) And khera chicken ($12) resembles a confit in its moist meltingness – which makes the surrounding bed of pea-dotted basmati rice especially useful.

The desserts are, at $6 each, a pretty good value in sophistication. A warm almond cake, densely tender with that characteristic marzipanish hint of grit, wore a cap of vanilla kulfi while swimming in a shallow pond of orange consommé, which looked pretty but tasted mainly of sugar. The chilled chocolate soup, poured into a tall latte glass over chunks of cardamom pineapple and topped with whipped cream, was a study in textures. So was a coconut ice-cream sundae, served in a martini glass, topped with toffee, and accompanied by a pair of tuiles that guarded the base of the glass like watchful dogs – a reception committee, you might say, to greet you at your final destination.