Jhupdi, a Vegetarian Taste of India

Few Americans have been to Gandhi’s home state, Gujarat, where they can taste the sweet, rich, gently spiced (by Indian standards) vegetarian cuisine of that rural region of western India. Fortunately, you don’t have to make a trip halfway around the globe for that experience. Just drive to Anaheim and visit Jhupdi.

“Jhupdi” (pronounced something like joop-ree) is the Gujarati word for the little straw huts all over Gujarat in which weary travelers are served food. Accordingly, the owners of this restaurant, Jamini Mehta and Raksha Patel, have decorated the spacious dining room by lining the walls with straw mats and hanging colorful Indian banners across the ceiling.

To make the Indian diners who frequent this restaurant feel at home, the restaurant also has a big-screen TV constantly tuned to a Hindi-language satellite station. If that and the old-country atmosphere don’t win them over, the food surely will. Prepared by a team of hard-working women clad in formal saris (you can glimpse them through the kitchen door), this is absolutely the best Gujarati food I’ve ever had in this country.

Gujaratis are inveterate snackers, and the front section of the menu is devoted entirely to snack foods. No. 4 is dahiwada, golf-ball-sized orbs of deep-fried lentil and garbanzo flour mixture, redolent of cumin and ginger. With their crunchy crust, they resemble falafel. They are served hot with a sweet-tart tamarind chutney on the side.

*

My favorite snack at Jhupdi is No. 9, methi gota, a plate of puffy, melt-in-your-mouth fritters. They are something like hush puppies, made from garbanzo flour batter flecked with the highly aromatic herb fenugreek (fenugreek is better known for its seeds, which contribute a maple-like aroma to many curries). Another popular choice is sev usar. Though the crisp yellow noodles called sev are often eaten cold, like an American snack food, this is a hot snack; the noodles come on top of spiced peas.

If you prefer a more formal meal, try ordering a thali, a variety of foods served on a traditional metal tray. The starches--steamed basmati rice and the grilled bread roti--are replenished as often as you wish. The side dishes and condiments are not--but you won’t need them to be.

The last time I had a thali here (the menu’s “village full thali,” to be exact), I left both dazzled and sated. On the tray itself were a crimson red garlic chutney, a turmeric-stained mango pickle, a sprinkle of palm sugar and some chopped onions. Small metal side dishes held a thin lentil soup, stewed green beans thickened with garbanzo flour, khichdi (an aromatic nonsweet pudding of rice, lentils and cashews), stewed eggplants (bengan auro) and spiced lentil wafers (masala papad). They were all great.

For my money, the best time to eat here is midday on the weekends, when the restaurant serves a lavish buffet brunch. This is the only time, really, when you are likely to get the justly renowned dish undhyoo, which I consider the glory of the Gujarati kitchen.

*

In Gujarat, undhyoo is prepared in a clay pot that is turned upside down and buried in a fire pit. It’s a hearty casserole that can contain whatever the cook throws in, but the basics are papri (yellow split peas), broad beans, yellow dal, green beans, big chunks of potato and--the most important ingredient--purplish slices of eggplant.

At Jhupdi, the undhyoo is cooked on top of a stove, but it’s still the best dish the restaurant makes, and stunningly well spiced. It contains all the ingredients mentioned above, and also Tater Tot-shaped bullets of mashed garbanzo beans for added richness and density.

Gujaratis also eat a huge variety of desserts, many of which are made by slowly boiling down milk and then adding flavorings such as yogurt, minced nuts, fruits and sweet spices. One day the cooks had made shrikhand, a thick lemon-yellow yogurt pudding colored with saffron. On another there was gajar halwa, a milk fudge made with heaps of shredded carrot.

If you’re tempted to become a vegetarian any time soon, Jhupdi presents as convincing an argument as the one Gandhi made for civil disobedience.

BE THERE

Jhupdi, 2751 W. Lincoln Blvd., Anaheim. (714) 527-3800. Open 11:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays; brunch Saturdays and Sundays only, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Closed Mondays. Parking lot. No alcohol. Cash only. Lunch for two, $12-$23.

What to get: dahiwada, methi gota, sev usal, village full thali, undhyoo.