KIPS BAY — A Curry Hill Indian restaurant is going kosher.
Kailash Parbat, at 99 Lexington Ave. and East 27th Street, opened about two years ago, attracting a lot of Jewish customers, owner Gary Mulchandani said. He had planned from the beginning for the restaurant to go fully kosher in order to serve customers who adhere to the Jewish dietary requirement.
“Apart from Indian people in Curry Hill there are many Jewish people in the area, and we wanted to be able to serve them,” Mulchandani said.
In order to be certified as kosher, Mulchandani turned to Rabbi Yisrael Mayer Steinberg, a specialist in kosher food preparation, who inspected the restaurant’s ingredients, their source, storage and preparation to make sure everything was kosher.
Kailash Parbat is already vegetarian, so the major kosher requirements requiring the separation of meat and dairy and banning fish were not a concern. But there are many smaller requirements before an eatery can qualify as kosher, including the close inspection of bug-prone vegetables like cauliflower and the sourcing of dairy from kosher animals.
In addition to getting official certification from Steinberg, the restaurant got some help from regular customers with a knowledge of kosher food who worked with the restaurant to develop a fully kosher menu, Mulchandani said.
“Our customers guided us and helped a lot,” he said.
In addition to a fully kosher food menu, the restaurant also offers a wine selection sourced from kosher vineyards.
