Southeast Indian Food Cart Tiffin Asha Announces Brick and Mortar

Portland's dearth of quality India food is finally abating, and the latest proof is PoMo's announcement that Tiffin Asha is going brick and mortar at 1670 NE Killingworth St. (across from Hat Yai and Podnah's Pit). The N Mississippi food cart plans to open in November, and moving beyond curry and rice, chef Elizabeth Golay, an alum of Seattle's Poppy, will serve dishes from the Andhra Pradesh region in Southeast India, where co-owner Sheila Bommakanti's family's from.

The Tiffin Asha menu is mostly all about magnificently prepared dosa. For the uninitiated, think of dosa as a warm wrap in a fermented dal and rice Indian crepe, and at Tiffin Asha, they're massive. The food cart's claim to fame is the Hot Chick: a dosa stuffed with pakora-fried Draper Valley Farms chicken topped with black cardamom-infused honey, pickled greens, and saucy yogurt cheese for $8.

Along with a variety of breakfast and lunch dosas, you'll find vada holes (savory dal donuts with coconut-chili fleur de sel); steamed idli cakes, made with fermented rice and dal; and gun powders, an explosive spice powder eaten like chutney.

Golay owns and operates Tiffin Asha with Sheila Bommakanti, and PoMo reports Bommakanti will run the front of the house at the new restaurant. The food cart will close August 14, and the Tiffen Asha brick and mortar plans to serve weekend brunch, as well as dinner five nights a week. Mmmm... Indian brunch.