EAT&DRINK
twice-fried chicken is crisp-skinned
and moist, but hard to distinguish from
regular fried chicken, and the kimchi-flavored yogurt is reminiscent of bottled
ranch dressing. The halved green grapes
scattered on the plate seem like refugees
from a salad bar.
Talde has been concocting recipes
“since I was eight or nine years old,”
he told me. “I grew up with 96 first
cousins, and there was a christening or
baptism every other day. The aunties
would bring amazing dishes like oxtail
or shrimp noodles. When I’d ask my
mom to cook them, she’d say, ‘I’m cook-
ing something else. If you want that,
Nearly every table, Talde said,
orders pretzel pork and chive dump-
lings—four dim sum pillows served with
tahini-mellowed Chinese mustard and
sprinkled with what Talde calls pretzel
salt. The salt crystals are big and do add
interest to the tasty dumplings. Also
worth ordering are tuna-tartare spring
rolls, made from cannoli-like tubes of
deep-fried rice dough stuffed with raw
ahi tuna and crispy shallots.
Crispy oyster and bacon pad Thai,
a Park Slope favorite, stars oysters
dredged in rice flour and fried. You
can’t taste the bacon, but a Thai-style
fish sauce with tamarind, lemongrass,
kaffir lime, garlic, sugar and roasted
peanuts picks up the slack.
Beef short rib kare kare (pronounced
kar-eh) with Hong Kong (thin egg)
noodles was full of flavor. “It’s not meant
to be a traditional kare kare,” said Talde,
referring to the Filipino classic in which
various meats are stewed in peanut
sauce. “It’s meant to make you happy.”
He braises his short ribs in coconut milk.
Slathered with brightly pickled Thai
chile relish, the dish would be happiness
on a plate were the portion not scanty for
its $18 price.
“I’m not into dessert,” Talde confessed. His mango “pie”—chunks of
dried mango braised in coconut milk,
wrapped in a sugared roti flatbread
and deep fried—is dense and decent. I
would rather finish with the flatbread
called the Everything Roti. Pan-fried
to order, it tastes of coconut and is
topped with toasted shallots, poppy
seeds and coarse sea salt. At $4, it’s
the menu’s lowest-priced item and
the one I liked the most.
—KAREN TINA HARRISON
TIFFIN
CHERRY HILL
FOOD: Indian
AMBIENCE: Colorful but spare
SERVICE: Genial; focused on takeout
WINE LIST: BYO
PRICES: Appetizers,$4–$7; entrées,
$12-$15; desserts, $4
HOURS: Monday through Friday, 11 AM
to 10 PM; Saturday and Sunday, noon to
10 PM
AX, D, DC, MC, V X
1892 Route 70 (Marlton Pike) East,
Cherry Hill (856-888-1155; tiffin.com)
Munish Narula, the New Delhi- born entrepreneur (and Wharton MBA) behind Tiffin,
the Philly-based chain of casual Indian
eateries, opened his first Jersey Tiffin in
Voorhees last year. Business was good,
so he did what he’s done since opening
the first Tiffin in Philadelphia in 2006—
asked his customers (in this case, the Jer-
sey ones) where he should open the next
Tiffin. Cherry Hill got the most nods.
The 30-seater with persimmon walls
and parquet-tile floors opened in December. One night, top- 40 tunes played intermittently, punctuated by screams from
a (horror?) movie some of the staff were
watching behind the counter. Despite the
distraction, I was drawn to the display
behind the counter—tubs of cinnamon,
cardamom, mace and other spices that
give Tiffin’s cuisine its layers of flavor.
Chef Ashok Budhamagar, originally
from Nepal, ably executes the chain’s
classic menu. “Instead of offering
everything under the sun, like many
[other Indian restaurants in America],”
Narula explained, “we keep the menu
small and focus on quality.” Budhamagar
cooks each sauce separately, and in them
I could detect the glimmer of individual
spices: cardamom in the lush cashew
Table
Hopping
with
Rosie
With all the
latest news
about restaurants,
chefs, and
food events,
updated weekly.
Get the
scoop
on NJ’s
restaurants
Only on
www.njmonthly.com
