New Indian Restaurant Delights Local Diners

FINALLY! A great Indian restaurant in Napa!!! ...

Aroma Indian Cuisine, located in beautiful Napa, California, specializes in authentic Indian cuisine. Napa's only Indian restaurant opened on Jefferson Street in March, and already Aroma Indian Cuisine is becoming the new hot spot where people gather to savor good food and spend quality time with friends and family.

From the Napa Valley Register, April 20, 2015, by Sasha Paulsen...

Aroma: a family brings the cuisine of India to Napa

Prabhjot, left, and Harjeet Bhangoo, with son, Rehmat. Aroma Indian Cuisine on Jefferson Street in Napa.

When Harjeet “Jeet” Singh Bhangoo talks about food, his eyes flash and sparkle, and his smile lights up his face.

“I am crazy about food,” he says cheerfully. “I think about it all the time. When I am asleep, I dream about it.”

This wasn’t always the case, admits the chef and restaurateur who recently opened Aroma Indian Cuisine in Napa. When he arrived in the U.S. from India at the age of 16, he wanted to do anything but work in the family restaurants.

But, he discovered, a passion for food — cooking it, serving it, feeding others — seemed to run in his blood. He found he was fascinated with the spices, the traditions and the rich possibilities of the cuisines of India.

This was evident when he and his wife, Prabhjot Bhangoo, sat down in the new restaurant to chat. The lively conversation was paused only when he jumped up to go to the kitchen to bring back cups of chai tea, samples of spices, mango cocktails and a dish of Navratan Korma, nine vegetables simmered in a cashew sauce).

Eight years ago, when they opened Aroma restaurant in Benicia, they met Napans who were driving to Benicia for a fix of genuine and delicious Indian food, and who urged him to consider establishing a second Aroma closer to their homes.

“Our ties to Napa have always been strong,” Prabhjot Bhangoo said. “Our son, Rehmat, was born at the Queen of the Valley hospital, and our doctors and nurses were many of the people who came to our restaurant in Benicia.”

Prabhjot, who holds a masters degree in business administration from John F. Kennedy University, manages the business side of the restaurants, leaving Jeet free to do what he loves — work in the kitchen, create new dishes, supervise the front of the house and make sure his guests are happy.

“He is so amazing,” she said of her husband. “I tell him he is psychic when it comes to food. He can tell just by smelling something what is needed.”

His wife’s name means “light of God,” Jeet explained. “She is the light of God for me to do all of this. You need the support of others to create a restaurant. There is so much work involved, but it’s possible with the support of others.”

“He works so hard too,” Prabhjot added.

At this, Jeet laughed. “I said since the new restaurant opened, I am working 24 hours a day. She said to me, ‘How can that be? I know you sleep at night.’ I said, ‘Yes, but I dream I am working.’”

“This is true,” his wife agreed. “The other night, I woke up and he was talking in his sleep about taking orders.”

“I like to create,” Jeet said. “There are so many possibilities. One time, we had a woman who came into the restaurant. She told the server, ‘I can’t eat garlic, onions, oil — He came to find me. ‘What can we give her?’ he asked. I went to see her. I asked her, ‘What can you eat?’ She told me, and I made up a dish for her. She was so happy. So I was happy, too.

“Some people think Indian food is all spicy. It can be, but we can make dishes mild, medium, hot or extra hot.” The long-simmered sauces are combined on order with meats, seafood, chicken and vegetables, and then the spices are adjusted to a preferred taste and the right aroma, he explained.

The connections between health and traditional Indian foods run deep, said Jeet, who draws from the cuisine of his home region in the north of India. “It is a large country,” he noted, “with many regional foods, like the U.S. My own home in India has a climate very much like Napa — so it is easy to fit the traditions here.”

The knowledge and use of spices is handed down generation to generation, Jeet said. Central to his cooking are traditional concepts of “hot” and “cold” elements that are balanced for best health, varying ingredients according to times of day as well as seasons.

“In the morning, you need food to give you a boost of energy, at mid-day to keep a balance, and at night to calm you down, to get a good night’s sleep.”

His extensive menu features the classic Indian dishes, such as meats, seafood and vegetables in sauces such as korma (a cashew-coconut sauce), curry, tiki masala, vindaloo (very spicy) , along with tandoori dishes, chutneys, naan (Indian flatbread), but Jeet said he will also be creating specials on weekends for guests to try something different.

“My father told us a story about a man who had three sons, and when he was dying he gave them a box and told them to take good care of the box. So they did, polishing and dusting it carefully. But they grew poorer and poorer, and a man said to them, ‘This is strange, since your father was not a poor man. Did you ever look in the box?’ They never had but they did and discovered it was full of diamonds and other jewels. My father said the meaning of the story was to always look deeper.” It’s a lesson Jeet applies to cooking.

And it is also a lesson he is passing on to his own young son. As the Bhangoos sat at a table in Aroma talking about food, nearby their son Rehmat, 4 1/2, was busily concocting a new creation in a water glass — salt, pepper, cardamom, fenungreek, a little more pepper. He proudly brought the drink to his parents, who praised him greatly but did not actually taste creatively spiced water.

“He copies his father,” Prabhjot said. “At home, he has his own cooking utensils — real ones, not toys. He wants to be like his father.”

A connection to the community

Among the Napans who are enthusiastic about Napa’s new Aroma is Kailash “KC” Chaudhary, who has lived in Napa for decades after coming from India as a student.

“This is what I have wanted,” he said noting that the food, especially the vegetarian dishes, reminds him of what he ate as a boy in Dehli. “I never ate meat until I was a teen-ager,” he said. “Here, I can find vegetables, like okra and eggplant, that you don’t see often in other restaurants. This is real and good Indian food.”

Although Chaudhary built his successful engineering and surveying company in Napa, he has maintained strong ties to India. Each year, he is the driving force behind a local fundraiser held to support ASHA, an organization helping to transform slums in Delhi, improving the living conditions and health care and helping the children to go to school, including university. ASHA was founded by physician Dr. Kirin Martin who travels from Delhi to Napa each year to update supporters on progress at the event. Indian food is served at the fundraiser, but until this year, Chaudary has had to hire caterers from Dixon to bring in authentic Indian feast.

This year, however, he said, when he first came to Aroma and met the Bhangoos, they promptly offered to provide the food for the August 2015 event for free. “This is a huge help for us,” Chaudary said. “And the food is so great too.”

For the Bhangoos, giving back to the community is part of their restaurant plan.

Jeet said he looked hard to find an affordable place in Napa “because I wanted to create something for the local people, with good food and good prices so you can just decide, ‘Let’s go out tonight.’”

He had found the location at 3012 Jefferson St., and was working on renovations when the South Napa earthquake hit in August 2014. On that Sunday, he closed his Benicia restaurant and brought the food they had prepared to distribute to the residents of a nearby mobile home park.

“It makes me so happy when you see that you can do something,” he said. “I was born in a village; I have a small-town feeling in me. I like to be connected.

“My father always told me, ‘It’s what you give that counts.’”

Aroma Indian Cuisine, at 3012 Jefferson St., Napa, is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. A lunch buffet is available from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, call (707) 927-3347 or go online to www.aromanapa.com.

Also from the Napa Valley Register, March 30, 2015 ...

Aroma brings Indian cuisine to Napa

FINALLY! A great Indian restaurant in Napa!!! ...

At long last, Napa has an Indian restaurant. Aroma restaurant has opened offering an extensive menu of Indian cuisine

The family-owned Aroma is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, at 3012 Jefferson St., Napa.

The menu includes appetizers ($4-$9) such as Pakora (vegetable, chicken, paneer or fish, deep-fried in a garbanzo batter), Samosas (pastry stuffed with roasted cumin, potatoes, peas and nuts) and Chaat, a potato-based dish.

It also offers a variety of the rice-based dish Biryani ($10-$12) as well as Papdums (lentil wafers) and chutneys. Naan ($2-$4: $8 for a basket of assorted naan), the soft Indian flatbread, is prepared plain, or with garlic or basil, and in stuffed varieties as well.

Main dishes range from $10 to $16 and include many vegan and vegetarian selections as well as lamb, goat, seafood, fish and chicken in classic dishes such as curry, korma, vindaloo, saag and masala.

Tandoori dishes ($15-$20) marinated in Indian spices and cooked in the barrel-shaped tandoor oven, are served with basmati rice and naan. One house specialty is Gobhi Manchurian, batter-fried cauliflower served with a sweet chili sauce.

“It should be remembered that large portions of India’s teeming masses are vegetarian and have, therefore, developed an exceptional art of cooking vegetables,” the menu notes. “We bring you these artistic dishes in their original form through the exclusive use of fresh garden vegetables and a unique combination of flavors that is incomparable.”

Owner Harjeet Singh Bahangoo said that the dishes can be prepared mild, medium hot or extra hot. Catering and takeouts are available as well as in-house dining.

Beverages include Masala Chai, Indian iced tea and coffee, and Lassi, a yogurt drink. Mango Lassi, prepared with rosewater, is a house specialty.

For information, call 707-927-3347 or visit AromaNapa.com.

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