A San Francisco Indian restaurant is moving south, with a new outpost opening in downtown Redwood City next month.
Anamika Khanna, the owner of Kasa Indian Eatery, has taken over 2086 Broadway St., where Russian Family Restaurant recently closed. Owners Tatyana and Vladimir Sommer decided to retire after 21 years of business, they wrote on the Russian Family Restaurant website.
Khanna described Kasa as traditional Indian food, made from century-old family recipes.
"It's a lot more like what we eat at home," she said. "The flavors are vibrant and simple."
A traditional Indian platter served at Kasa Indian Eatery, opening this fall in Redwood City. Photo courtesy Anamika Khanna.
The former lawyer left her native London for San Francisco in 2000. She decided that "life was too short for me to do something that I wasn't crazy about" and eventually opened the first Kasa Indian Eatery in 2008.
"I was all along very deeply passionate about food and cooking and the kitchen. Coming from London but being Indian I always kept connected through food to the culture," Khanna said.
She now operates two restaurants in San Francisco and a catering business. Redwood City will be her first foray outside of San Francisco, but she’s no stranger to the community. She lived there when she first moved to the United States and her husband’s family has lived there since the 1960s.
To start, the Redwood City Kasa will serve the same menu as the other locations. There are samosas; roti or naan wraps stuffed with fillings such as lamb curry or gobi aloo; Indian burritos; and "thali," or combination plates with the diner's choice of two fillings plus roti, daal, rice, veggie salad, chutneys and raita.
Khanna plans to eventually add chaat, savory tea-time snacks, to the Redwood City menu.
She hopes to open by the end of September.
