Haseeb Mohammed whipped up an Indian take on chicken tacos Thursday to feed a crowd on Orange Street celebrating the enhanced rebirth of a popular fast-casual restaurant.
The occasion was the opening of wow!! tikka bistro at 135 Orange in the storefront formerly occupied for close to a decade by Tikkaway on the ground floor of the historic Palladium building.
Gopi Nair, pictured above second from left, ran the former spot until a combination of health problems and pandemic woes led him to close last summer. Landlord Juan Salas-Romer kept the spot open until Nair returned with a new partner (and old colleague from India) named Kannan Kesavalu (at center in photo). Kesavalu runs a fusion Indian spot a block from Fenway Park in Boston, of which the reborn New Haven eatery will be a second outlet.
They were joined by Mayor Justin Elicker Thursday afternoon to cut the ribbon to reopen the renamed wow!! tikka. “I’ve been hearing from everyone that they have been missing Tikkaway,” Kesavalu remarked. “We didn’t want you to miss any more.”
The ceremony was in part an opportunity for neighbors (including Omar Rajeh, pictured above with the tikka-owners, of across-the-street Mediterranea Restaurant) to welcome back a beloved restaurateur, and part to unveil the new menu. It features the previous meat- and vegan-friendly build-your-own Indian bowls with new meat and dairy-based “street food” items ranging from samosa chat (“crushed samosa layered with chickpeas, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, topped with mint, raita, tamarind chutney”) and a spiced chutney-potato fritter sandwich to the chicken tacos, which have tikka masala added.
The wow!! tikka kitchen crew worked hard to prepare trays for the ribbon-cutting crowd featuring …
… tikka aloo …
… mango lassis (ferried by Divya Kadab) .…
… and of course the chicken tacos. Watch Mayor Elicker, of Gopi Nair’s all-time most loyal customers, Mayor Elicker (“I think I can take credit for 2 percent of your previous revenues at Tikkaway”), sample one of the tacos, and proclaim them tasty, in the above video. Elicker had a request of Nair: Please “don’t tikkaway Tikkaway from us again.”