Oh. My. Gawwwwd.
I think that’s the most articulate review of Spicy Mina anyone has ever been able to muster, because the place is so delicious and so spicy that it just slams through the language centers, and all the other centers, of your brain.
I’m probably preaching to the converted here, but in case some errant New Yorker whom I don’t know pops by, here’s the deal: Spicy Mina is a restaurant specializing in “Bangladeshee Cuisine” (according to the awning). The eponymous chef toils quietly in the back, almost always out of sight, but for the occasional glimpse of a sandal and a sari.
What she’s doing back there is obvious, though, once the samosa chaat appetizer arrives: She’s creating the most delicious Indian food you will ever be lucky enough to eat.
You might also order, say, an appetizer called halim, because it’s got lamb, and you’ve never heard of it before. It will be delicious and soupy and full of ginger. Then along comes the creamy chicken korma, the one “mild” thing you ordered, and it’s bursting with all kinds of fruits and nuts. And the palak paneer, quick-fried spinach that’s super-oily and thick with dried red chiles and chunks of nicely browned fresh cheese. A whole fish smothered in mustard sauce plunks down in the middle. Chicken biryani, which you ordered because the waiter said, “She’s making a very nice one today,” gets squeezed on the side. And some aloo paratha. And some garlic naan. And a mango lassi. And the beer you brought with you.
Ahhhh. Breathe deep. The endorphins are rushing with every bite of warming spice, each flavor perfectly distinct: there’s cardamom, cinnamon, clove, cumin, a sinus-clearing rush of ginger, and a hiccup-inducing skinny green chile, which gives a different heat than the smoky red chiles. You’re giggling a little, feeling a little collective high with the others at the table. One…more…bite…
That’s the Spicy Mina experience. That, and winding up with scads of leftovers, enough for a whole meal again the next day, not to mention a check that comes to only $30 per person even when you grossly overorder (what’s described above was for, um, three people).
Mina has had a checkered restaurant history since 2003, when I first heard of her place in Sunnyside. Mina, just Mina, was the name, and the place was cold and fluorescent-lit, and once I peeked in the kitchen on my way back to the bathroom, and I saw it strewn with dishes the way your home kitchen gets when you’re cooking Thanksgiving or something–just completely out of control and unoiled in any “professional” sense. I felt a pang of empathy for the apparently chronic in-the-weeds-ness. The first meal I ate here was so mind-expandingly tasty and so tragically cheap that I almost cried when I saw the bill–this woman deserved to be showered with money! How could she practically give all that food love away?
Well, I guess she couldn’t, because the original Mina closed. Then Mina went to work at an Indian restaurant on 6th Street in Manhattan, which is somehow hilarious–that in fact, in that strip of lookalike cheap-ass curry joints, one secretly held a priceless gem. Which is a _very_ different situation from in college, say, when you’d come to NYC with a gang, and someone would claim to know that one of those restaurants was better than the others, but of course it wasn’t.
And then Mina wasn’t working there. And there was a disturbing quiet period.
And finally, we’re where we are today: Spicy Mina, 64-23 Broadway, Woodside, NY. Open 7 days a week. Maybe twenty paces from the 65th Street stop on the R/V/and-sometimes-E-and-G. The decor is warmer, with lots of candles. The waiter (Mina’s husband? He seems very worshipful. But if not, I’ll take him) is a bit more organized. Beer is available for purchase at the bodega next door.
This would all be heavenly, except: Spicy Mina needs more business. If this restaurant closes for lack of custom, the world is truly an evil place.
See, some people are idiots, and whine that the food takes too long to come. That’s because this amazing woman is cooking it from scratch for you! Bring some peanuts to snack on, or whatever it takes…
Some people bitch that Mina isn’t consistent. This is also an utterly pointless complaint, because it’s always freakin’ great, even if it’s not the same as last time. Yes, I secretly mourn a certain rendition of the bindi masala (spicy okra), in which the okra were dry and almost caramelized; I’ve never had it that way again, but it has always been delicious. I just carry that one version in my heart, a little okra-y secret.
Some people complain they order things, and then they aren’t available. Tough shit. Order what she does have, and you’ll like it. Again, can I emphasize enough that this woman is cooking her heart out every night of the week, and not cutting any corners?
Peter and I ate there again tonight. We brought newspapers to read while we waited. We drank beer. I gushed at the waiter, even though I always feel a little silly about this–I can’t pull off an ebullient Tamara-style “I want to marry you!” sort of praise, which makes people laugh, so I just gush and gush sincerely, and the waitstaff backs away, with a frozen smile.
As we were leaving, Mina came out. I gushed at her. She said, modestly and obviously, “I am Mina.”
Yes, and you are my new goddess. Bow the hell down, all y’all. Bow DOWN.