I love that we have such diverse cuisine available in our area (even during a pandemic). Case in point-Cross Culture Restaurant in Haddonfield. They specialize in Indian cuisine. It’s not only tasty and helps spice up your dinner table, it is also healthy. For instance, they offer many vegetarian dishes and a number of them are gluten-free. Chick peas and cauliflower are used to coat some of their appetizers and entrees instead of breading. The result is a holiday for the senses. We enjoyed our meal on Halloween, so that seemed appropriate.
Cross Culture is an interesting BYOB restaurant in a town with lots of history, style, and some seriously good restaurants. Even during this pandemic, there were other folks (including young trick-or-treaters) enjoying the cool autumn day. The sidewalks are wide enough to socially distance and everyone I saw was wearing a mask.
We have dined here in the past and enjoyed our meals, but we are not doing dine-in yet, so we decided to try take-out. I forgot that besides having great food, they are also very reasonable. Our meal came to less than $50 and we had enough food for another meal (the photos below do not represent all of the food we received).
The Food
Appetizers
We chose the mixed appetizer for two that included the following: Vegetable Samosa, Pakoras, and Papadam. The Samosa is a mildly spiced fried turnover filled with potato and peas). Pakoras are fresh vegetables dipped in a delicately spiced batter and fried. Papadam are crispy lentil flat breads.
Naan
You can’t have an Indian meal without trying their Naan. Though our favorite is the Garlic Naan, we ordered a combo with Plain Naan, Garlic Naan, and Onion Kulcha.
Entrees
For my entree, I chose the Baingan Bhartha. It is a staple on most Indian dinner menus. This entree consists of eggplant roasted in tandoor (a clay pot), cooked with green peas, fresh tomatoes, onions, ginger and garlic. My wife chose the Chicken Curry. It came with curried chicken pieces cooked in light Asian spices.
Wine
I decided to try a different wine pairing for this meal. My go-to wines for spicy food have generally been a Riesling, an Albarino (if it includes seafood), and recently, even a Gewurtztraminer. I wanted to try something different this time. In the past, I have usually thought of Traminette as primarily a summer wine to enjoy mostly on its own. But I also knew that the off dry version that Bellview makes would probably go well with spicy dishes such as those shown above. But I also wanted to experiment and try it, as well as the wonderful Ravines Dry Riesling (from the Finger Lakes). The result: While I still love Riesling (especially this one), I found a new companion for my spicy Asian-inspired dishes-Traminette. Bellview’s 2018 Traminette definitely fills the bill here. Its off dry taste and floral fragrance both seem to work quite well with these spicy dishes.
Dessert
You can’t go wrong with chocolate and Port. Sharrott’s Port-style wine is wonderful. We also had a great chocolate bark with almonds and sea salt. In this particular case, the sea salt may have been a little too heavy and did not pair quite as well as my favorite (Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Pounder-one pound of delicious chocolate, that in small quantities is good for you). Still pretty darn good, all the same!
Cheers!
You can still download a copy of my ebook, New Jersey Uncorked. Go to Apple’s iBook app and use the code Fall2020 to get it for $9.99.
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