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<\/p>\nTucked back into the depths of a Levittown strip mall, the new Crown of Spices is a hidden gem spot for South Indian food. You don’t see it from the road,\u00a0but when you approach from the parking lot, you’re greeted with an elephant sculpture wearing a bedazzled golden headdress, overlooking a Levittown park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You can tell that partners Ajin Sekhar and Gunasekaran Gounder\u00a0are pulling out all the stops for their first restaurant in the United States, which opened last month. The partners from Tamil Nadu,\u00a0India also own two separate\u00a0restaurants in the Indian cities of Salem and\u00a0Kanyakumari, according to Sekhar. It took them nearly two years after they leased the place\u00a0to open Crown of Spices in Levittown, and in the meantime, they hired a chef from Tamil Nadu to work each recipe over and over.<\/p>\n
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A pot of mutton biryani is paired with two curries, the thalassery fish curry (top left) and the mutton chettinadu. Credit: Newsday\/Andi Berlin<\/p>\n
The cavernous dining room has a flashy look that matches its maximalist menu, which spans more than a dozen pages and will have your head spinning by the time you reach the biryani section. Thalassery fish curry, Andhra fish curry, Gongura mutton curry … many of these\u00a0hard-to-find dishes hail from the southernmost states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which is a tropical region with dishes sharing some similarities to Sri Lankan cuisine. <\/p>\n
Crown of Spices’ Instagram is filled with\u00a0dishes cooked and served in large\u00a0banana leaves, including thali meal combo platters and even a street food dish called kizhi parotta that’s almost like a curry sandwich. Sekhar says the Indian banana leaves impart a special flavor and aroma to each dish.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They hadn’t yet started serving some of these dishes during a recent lunch, but the one I was able to get\u00a0was so epic, I’ve been\u00a0chomping at the bit to come back and try more. The fish pollichathu ($19.99) is an iconic recipe from Kerala, which involves rubbing a whole fish in a fiery\u00a0masala paste before wrapping it in a banana leaf and throwing it on the grill. The pomfret fish arrives at the table bundled up inside this leaf, which is crackled from the grill and piping hot to the touch. Handling the steaming hot fish inside is a challenge, but once you get some of the meat off the bones and onto your fork, it’s a wild ride of chili and earthen spices.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sekhar says they grind their\u00a0spices from scratch, and you can tell the difference in the curries, which taste fuller and fresher than your usual fare. A thalassery fish curry ($21.99) is a gut punch of tangy tamarind and coconut milk, which is typical of Southern Indian cuisine. And the mutton chettinadu ($21.99) doesn’t shy away from using the bonier pieces of the goat, drowned in a thick curry that’s so dark with spices it looks like mortar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To soak it up, the kitchen also prepares an array of Southern Indian breads, including one called nool parotta, which manages to be both flakey and stringy. Sekhar says the bread is handmade back in the kitchen and cut into small strings that you can pull off in a satisfying way.\u00a0This wasn’t listed on the menu, another reason why it helped to ask the server to guide you.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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