Vintage Mirchi Indian restaurant opens in Hicksville
Malai chicken tikka is the dish to order at Vintage Mirchi in Hicksville. Credit: Newsday/Andi Berlin
Two words: Malai chicken. Tender chicken thighs bathed in a creamy sauce sizzle and steam in their cast iron pan. So simple yet so rich, the bubbling white curry begs to be scraped from the bottom of the plate so that not a drop is wasted. Vintage Mirchi is a new Indian restaurant at the Kundan Galleria in Hicksville, right around the corner from Apna Bazar supermarket and Mithaas, a Newsday Top 50 restaurant. While Mithaas specializes in Southern Indian vegetarian and requisite flatbreads, this new spot goes hard on the sizzling platters of Northern Indian meats.
Vintage Mirchi in Hicksville. Credit: Newsday/Andi Berlin
The restaurant, which opened in December, is owned by chef Manpreep Singh and his nephew, Kuldeep Singh, who hail from the Northwestern Indian state of Punjab. Manpreep was trained by a chef from Delhi, the densely populated capital territory also in Northern India. He's in charge of the Delhi-style appetizers, like fried samosas, pakoras and kathi rolls, as well as all the sizzling dishes the come out of the clay oven tandoor. For the curries, chef Basant Kumar, who is originally from Nepal, adds his own takes on Chinese Indian classics like hakka noodles, chili chicken and tawa fish fry.
The kitchen doesn't shy away from spice, as evidenced by the word mirchi in the restaurant's name, which means chili pepper in Hindi, according to manager Siddharth Jaswal. The curries certainly aren't too spicy to eat, but you may want to get a lassi drink to calm everything down. The saag paneer ($12.99) is worth the trip by itself, thick and chunky with the blended greens and a potent backbone of housemade masala spices. The kitchen makes its own paneer cheese, which results in softer more supple cubes than the usual industrial versions. A lentil curry, dal makhani ($13.99) is another banger, served in a tall steel bowl and topped with a cube of melty butter. Even the fish tikka masala ($18.99) is spicy enough to make you sweat.
The place is new so that service still seems to be coming up to speed, but the fiery cooking is more than enough to put Vintage Mirchi on your radar. Just remember to order a side of naan bread to mop it all up.
Vintage Mirchi, 217 Bethpage Rd., #24, Hicksville, 516-580-2601. Open 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. daily
Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.
