With little signage out front and a black screen door that is regularly locked, sometimes it’s hard to discern if Masala Cuisine — a tiny Indian restaurant on a somewhat dodgy stretch of International Blvd. in East Oakland — is open. But once inside, you can immediately see and smell evidence of a modest but bustling kitchen. Masala Cuisine is my favorite Indian restaurant, and I’ve come to meet with co-owners and married couple Rooplal and Sushil Masih to get to know them and find out more about their business.
I arrive around 2 p.m. Rooplal lets me inside with a smile and welcoming eyes. “Come in, come in,” he says in his thick Indian tongue, gesturing with his hands to have a seat at one of the two tables in the restaurant, to lunch with him, Sushil, and a gentleman — Rajiv Dhingra — who calls himself “their biggest fan.” Rajiv has traveled from San Jose, as he does frequently to visit his daughter at Mills College, and called ahead for the Masihs to prepare him a whole chicken, enough for a week’s worth of Indian cuisine to keep in the fridge. He loves the leftovers, and Indian food tends to get better with time as the spices set in, he explains.
One of the items we eat is an off-the-menu dish: sarson ka saag (a purée of mustard greens and spinach laden with garlic and ginger, the two main staples in almost all of their dishes). “No oil,” Rooplal says adamantly about his food, and though there is of course a small amount of oil in the dishes, he makes it clear his food is the healthiest Indian food around.
While we dine, another customer arrives for an order he has called in. Just out of curiosity, I ask him where he lives. Tae Hong lives in West Oakland and works in San Francisco. When I ask why he drives all the way across town for takeout, Tae answers, “I love Indian food, and Masala’s the best in the Bay.” Could he be their third biggest fan (behind me, of course)?
Rooplal explains every step of his cooking process with pride. He honed his culinary skills in the Indian Navy. The Indian Navy cooking school was no joke, almost like going to medical school. He spent three years as an assistant cook, seven years as a regular cook, and another three years in training before becoming head chef. “It’s not easy to become a great chef. It takes time,” Rooplal says. He later applied for a chef position at a prominent Indian restaurant in London, competing against 300 others in a cook-off — Rooplal won the position. The couple moved to London for two years, but left because they didn’t like the weather.
Rooplal and Sushil have been married since 1967. They met in India through an arranged marriage before he joined the Indian Navy. He was 22 and she was 17, and she went everywhere with him. “I didn’t see her face until our honeymoon,” he says to me with a smile. Though they practiced Christianity in India, a faith that represents only 1 percent of the population, it was still culturally unacceptable for Sushil to be unveiled. In fact, Sushil’s work as a sous chef at Masala Cuisine, which they opened together four years ago, is her first job.
In the few hours that I spend with Rooplal and Sushil as they prepare my food, I notice how they help each other every step of the way. He pours flour, she holds a bin underneath to prevent spillage on the floor. He makes samosas, she fries them to perfection. They make every dish from scratch, so be prepared to spend some time at Masala Cuisine if you don’t call ahead.
Rooplal and Sushil bring out silver dishes of curries and a sampling of homemade Indian pickles. I order several dishes to take with me: chicken biryani, saag paneer (with the best homemade cheese I’ve ever had), dal fry (a traditional North Indian dish of yellow lentil and fried onion), and a few orders of the samosas Rooplal had just hand-rolled on the counter in front of me.
As we all sit together, sipping a spicy chai and finishing off the leftovers that don’t quite fit into my to-go containers, I realize this day has brought a whole new meaning to the concept of a chef’s table.
Take a trip down the 880 for authentic Indian fare at Masala Cuisine in East Oakland (7912 International Blvd.). Don’t expect anything fancy-pants, although you kind of get treated like family when in there, with exceptional service and prices that are some of the lowest in the bay (most dishes start at $4.99). You can eat at one of their two tables, or call in for takeout (510 878–2643) and then head over to Crown Memorial State Beach in Alameda for some sun.
