The Tamale Place

Double dose of spice

Masala and The Tamale Place put their markets where your mouth is

Terry Kirts

A worker at the Namaste Plaza market

Culinary legend suggests tamales first fed warriors on the go in the ancient Americas. Today, this labor-intensive Latin American street food finds Americans too often via a can, obliterated by an unctuous red gravy. Until recently, getting light, fluffy tamales steamed in actual cornhusks in Indianapolis meant, well, hopping a plane for Guadalajara. While some restaurants had them, the great ones were rare.

Things have changed thanks to The Tamale Place, which, though only carryout, offers what must be the widest variety of homemade tamales around, from basic chicken to chocolate tamales for the sweet tooth. The brainchild of husband-and-wife team Angela Green and Vladimir Ronces, seeking a market for this ubiquitous dish from Ronces’ native Mexico, the place has provided Westside diners with tamales for parties and dinners since 2003.

But go early if you want to get some. While Angela has recruited some family members to help in the kitchen, this place often sells out by mid-afternoon. The first time I stopped in, around 5, the kitchen crew was already cleaning up. A handwritten sign on the door bore my dinner’s fate: no tamales. Inside, however, evidence of the work these women put into their wares abounded, particularly in bags of corn from which they grind their own masa, the main ingredient in tamales.

A second trip proved more fruitful, though pork tamales wrapped in banana leaves had already vanished. Nonetheless, we brought home a good sampling. Tamales here are $1.75 or $20 for a dozen. If you think that’s a tad steep, wait until you see these extra-large versions stuffed with tender meat. One makes a hearty lunch; two may send you over the edge.

Among standard tamales, the pork in green sauce and chicken in red sauce were both quite mild, though the corn was light and airy, and the meats virtually greaseless. Unfortunately, these needed a lot more sauce to up the flavor quotient. The beef, chile and cheese tamales had plenty of tasty beef, but the cheese was bland, and the chiles lent little flavor. Not until we got to the chicken and beef chipotle tamales could we really appreciate the homemade sauces. While “chipotle” ranges from mild to sweat-inducing, these derived a deep earthy flavor from smoked jalapeños.

The best of the bunch were the chicken mole or “tamoles.” These actually had plenty of a rich but not sweet sauce of chocolate and spices. A gentle surprise arrived in tamales with cinnamon, pineapple and raisins. A bit light on the fruit and quite sweet, these provided an appropriate antidote to the savory tamales we had stuffed ourselves on for lunch.

Masla

When an international restaurant has a market next door with fresh produce delivered on Tuesdays and Fridays, you can bet they aren’t serving you something out of the freezer. Such is the case at Masala, where the Namaste Plaza market, recently moved from Fishers, sells everything from spices and chutneys to fresh baby eggplants and Indian sweets. Next door is a restaurant with the same owners, Venkat and Haritha Talvarthi, that offers a nice selection of Indian standards you can make at home later with items from the store.

The restaurant has a sort of makeshift feel to it, though it’s clear that the real business here is at the lunch buffet. A cluttered desk up front, a darkened “bar” to the side and inconsistent music made it seem as though dinner were an afterthought. Little on the menu at Masala will be surprising to fans of Indian cuisine. Indeed, an Indian family at a nearby table ordered a whole cast of traditional dishes as if from memory.

While the menu lists snack items or “chaat” and a soup with goat trotters, a.k.a. goat legs, these weren’t available. Nor were the thalis, complete meals with sides and sauces. “Chicken 65” ($4.99), a barroom snack from Southern India, offered tender chunks of chicken with a few onions and a garnish of curry leaves. The special spring dosa ($7.99) included two giant rice and lentil crepes stuffed with potatoes, vegetables and cheese with both a mild, creamy sambar sauce and a cool coconut chutney.

For entrées, lamb roganjosh ($10.99) brought tender chunks of lamb in a little crock with a spicy onion gravy that lived up to the restaurant’s name. While our waiter, Venkat, suggested they could make this milder, we never settled on the spicing. If this was “standard,” timid diners should beware. A delicious vegetarian dish of those baby eggplants ($8.99) cut in quarters in a quite rich peanut sauce was also quite piquant. Garlic naan ($2.49) made great sopping for sauces. Only gulab jamun ($2.49), milk dumplings in a quite warm sugar syrup, were disappointing, almost too light and sweet. But, all in all, it was a surprisingly good meal and a fun place to shop in a Northside strip mall aching for culture.

The Tamale Place
5242 Rockville Road
317-248-9771

Hours:
monday-saturday:
9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

Food : 3.5 Stars
Atmosphere : 3 Stars
Service : 3 Stars

Masala
9546 Allisonville Road, #132
317-849-2996

Hours:
Tuesday-Thursday:
11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; 5:30-9:30 p.m.
Friday: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m..; 5:30-10 p.m.
Saturday-Sunday: noon-3 p.m.; 5:30-10 p.m.

Food : 3.5 Stars
Atmosphere : 3 Stars
Service : 3 Stars