Manoj Tiwari came to Milwaukee to buy a hotel. The deal fell through, but the native of India stuck around long enough to open a new restaurant.
Zaafaran, a moderately upscale Asian eatery that offers two distinctly different cuisines, opened last week across the street from George Watts & Son. The restaurant features the unusual combination of Thai and Indian food, not with fusion creations but by serving traditionally prepared dishes from the two cuisines.
The menu reflects Tiwari's biography. Moving from India to Thailand as a young man, he built a hospitality company that includes two resorts in Pattaya on the Gulf of Thailand and restaurants in Bangkok and the Indian city of Pune. After 19 years in Thailand, he relocated his family to Cambridge, Mass., for the sake of his children's education.
Tiwari is now looking to expand into the U.S., and Zaafaran is his first American venture. The abortive hotel purchase brought him to Milwaukee, and he liked the city enough to make it the beachhead for his operations in this country.
A designer from Silver Spring, Md., was brought in to re-create a space that had formerly housed The Magic Pan, Ed Debevic's and Los Mitos. A sleekly modern look with Asian accents gives Zaafaran a cool, clean profile. The dining room is currently configured for 160 persons but can be expanded to 220.
Small and large private rooms can accommodate 10 and 80 persons for parties and corporate meetings, and an outdoor patio will be set up for 35 customers. The restaurant also has a full bar and small lounge.
Milwaukee chef Ian McGee, who trained at MATC and has cooked at Soche and Osteria del Mondo, was hired to run the kitchen. Inexperienced in Thai and Indian cuisines, he was tutored by Tiwari's wife, Neeta.
Some of the recipes are taken from the other restaurants Tiwari owns, but he is acutely aware that Milwaukeeans' palates are likely to be different from his customers' preferences in Thailand and India. "We are changing the flavors a bit to get it right for the market here," he said during an interview in his new restaurant's dining room.
He is encouraging his staff to solicit customer feedback. "We will find out what people like and re-engineer the menu," Tiwari added.
A sampling event at Zaafaran last week revealed the kitchen is striving for nuance and subtlety, frequently missing qualities in local Indian fare.
Thai dishes come primarily from the country's northern cuisine, which is most familiar to American diners. Tiwari plans to slip in some southern Thai -- think coconut -- and northeastern Thai cooking as his bistro becomes established.
The new restaurant is also emphasizing plate presentation. "You eat with your eyes," explained Sandretti, who for years was a chef and front of house manager with Madison's Food Fight Restaurant Group.
Zaafaran's extensive appetizer menu ranges from chicken, pork or shrimp satay ($8 or $9) and vegetable and lamb samosa ($8 or $9) to edamame dumplings ($7) and pakora ($6), a vegetable fritter with a spicy mint yogurt emulsion.
Traditional Thai tom yum ($5 or $6), a lemongrass chili broth that is prepared vegetarian or with shrimp, and tom kha ($5 or $6), spicy coconut milk soup that is vegetarian or with shrimp, are offered. Try the paneer shashlik ($9), a zingy salad of Indian style semi-soft cheese, snow peas, red pepper, spinach and spicy tomato vinaigrette.
Thai and Indian cuisines both feature curries, but they are unmistakably different. A wide variety can be found at Zaaharan, from the Indian dal palak ($10) and dal makhini ($10), both lentil dishes, to the Thai massa man neua ($13), which features beef, potatoes and roasted peanuts. All curries come with a choice of rices -- sticky, jasmine, basmati or pilaf.
Noodles dishes from Thailand include pad thai with chicken or shrimp ($11 or $13) and the exceptional 5 Treasures ($15), consisting of prawns, mussels, calamari, scallops and clams with garlic, chili and whole wheat noodles. Thai fried rice, with vegetarian, chicken, beef and shrimp options, is available for $8 to $14.
Dinner entrees begin in price at $15 for a minced and spiced lamb seekh kebab with rice pilaf and mint chutney, and top out at $22 for stir fry scallops with a crispy rice cake and $25 for a wok seared beef filet with shiitake mushrooms and Thai black pepper sauce. Sides, all $4, include four kinds of nan (Indian bread) and smoked eggplant curry.
Among the five desserts, priced at $8, are a chai tea tart with tea-infused white chocolate mousse, orange caramel and spice crumble cookie, and the seductive Crying Chocolate -- warm chocolate cake with soft center, Thai peanut sauce and banana creme.
Zaafaran is open for lunch Monday through Friday. Diners can choose between a $9.95 buffet, which is mostly Indian at this time, and menu items ranging from $4 to $10.
Everything on the menu can be carried out, and online ordering will soon be available.
Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.
During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.
Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.
