Alongside a leafy section of Baltimore National Pike just west of Patapsco Valley State Park, inside a Carroll Motor Fuels gas station and convenience store, is Jalsa Indian Cuisine, one of the only Gujarati restaurants in the area.
Opened nine months ago by Pratik Patel and his family—who came to Maryland in the ’80s from Gujarat, the state on the northwestern coast of India—Jalsa serves an impressive menu of vegetarian dishes, featuring street food, curries, dosas, chaats, kathi rolls, and Indo-Chinese specialties. There’s also thali—the name for a platter of small dishes, here both Gujarati and Punjabi.
Ninety-percent of Gujaratis are vegetarian, says Patel from the counter, which fronts the large kitchen where his wife, father, and two other cooks work. The menu also includes dishes prepared to the specifications of both Swaminarayan and Jain diets, which prohibit the use of root vegetables.
Cooking without using garlic or onions—or cream—means that the sauces, chutneys, and curries rely on spices and technique, says Patel. And he’s clearly got the recipes perfected, as the dishes are somehow both deeply flavorful and remarkably subtle. The Patels get a lot of their ingredients from Gujarat, including the large containers of buffalo-milk ghee under the central counter.
Vegetable pakora are so lightly fried (as to have no trace of the oil that usually overwhelms the fritters) laced with greenery, and spiced with a perfect amount of heat. Patra—an appetizer made from taro leaves that are rolled up in layers of spiced chickpea-flour batter, pan-fried, then served with coconut chutney—is a popular Gujarati snack that is surprisingly addictive. Another snack on offer is khaman, bright yellow squares of steamed savory cake made from chickpea flour and dotted with mustard seeds.
The aformentioned thali platter comes with house-made roti and pappadam, Gujarati dal, tandoori potatoes, the vegetable dish undhiyu, and a golub jamun, or syrup-soaked doughnut. The kitchen also turns out dosas, even the cone-shaped versions, which come with little cups of cilantro-coconut and peanut chutneys.
Though there is a large dining area and a white tent set up outside in the parking lot, Jalsa does a lot of takeout, unsurprisingly, given its gas-station location. What the Patels also offer is tiffin service—named for the stacked metal containers that delivered meals often come in—a handy way of getting a combination of curries, dals, rice, and bread delivered to your home or workplace. (I’ve used a tiffin for years, first as my daughter’s lunchbox, then to store spices.)
And even if you’ve dined in, don’t overlook the containers of mohanthal, caramel-colored squares of the popular sweet dessert, near Jalsa’s counter. Or, on your way out, don’t miss the shelves loaded with spices and cookies—conveniently stacked above the motor oil.