Finding a Delicious Balance

Restaurant offers healing Ayurvedic vegetarian cuisine

When Yashoda Naidoo opened Annapurna Ayurvedic Cuisine and Chai House — a popular vegetarian restaurant in Albuquerque — just over three years ago, she thought she would be at the same small location forever — but quickly realized she would have to find a larger place.

“Within six weeks,” she said, “we were all knocking elbows in the kitchen … It was so tiny we couldn’t bake and cook at the same time.”

Eighteen months later, Naidoo opened a second restaurant in Albuquerque, then a third.

Before she opened the Santa Fe branch of Annapurna last winter, though, Naidoo closed the original restaurant, with the third location following suit just last week. Both closings, Naidoo said, were because of “infrastructure issues. The spaces were just too small.” She has since centralized her Albuquerque operation in the restaurant near the University of New Mexico.

Annapurna — featuring the organic, vegetarian, East Indian foods that Naidoo grew up eating and cooking — opened in the Casa Solana shopping center last winter next to La Montanita Co-op Food Market (formerly The MarketPlace) — and appears to be thriving.

The room is large with high ceilings. The tables aren’t too close together, but they aren’t uncomfortably far apart, either. Orders are placed at the counter and delivered to the tables. Glass cases display mouthwatering desserts. Large windows at the front of the restaurant make it light, bright, airy and comfortable. It’s apparent that much care was taken to create a pleasant and aesthetically pleasing place to enjoy a meal.

“We have always had a loyal Santa Fe following, so I’m excited about being here,” she said, adding that before she opened in Santa Fe, people often told her they had driven the 60 miles to Albuquerque because they loved her food.

Annapurna is a Sanskrit word that, translated literally, means “complete food.” Annapurna also is the Hindu goddess of food and of plenty. Naidoo chose the name for her restaurants because they are rooted in Ayurveda, a 5,000-year-old healing system indigenous to India that uses foods and herbs as a healing force.

According to everydayayurveda.org, Ayurveda (eye-yer-vay-duh) “is the art of healthy living that enables you to create harmony in daily life by applying self-knowledge and self-care. The word … literally means ‘knowledge of life.’

“The Ayurvedic approach to life involves listening to and addressing the unique needs of your body, recognizing and balancing your mental and emotional states and deepening your connection with your spirit and your essential self … through the foods you eat and how you eat them, daily practices including exercise, rest and massage and five-sense therapies utilizing color, aroma, taste, touch and sounds.”

Naidoo drives to the Santa Fe restaurant from her home in Albuquerque six days a week. She’s in the restaurant by 6 a.m. and doesn’t leave until 10 p.m.

“There are only two of us (in the business) with the expertise to cook this food,” Naidoo said, “so there’s no way we can become a franchise.”

She said she has a wonderful staff of experienced cooks, but they hadn’t cooked Ayurvedic food before, so she prepares everything herself, with their help prepping the food. She said that it’s a challenge, but that she’s enjoying it because her crew is so willing to learn.

“A new restaurant is like a baby — you have to nurture it. That’s the way I nurtured the Albuquerque restaurants,” she said. “This will be the same. Eventually, all I will do is come in the morning to cook and then leave.”

Naidoo’s nurturing approach shows in the healthy food she serves.

When I had lunch at Annapurna last spring with Amadea Morningstar, author of four Ayurvedic cookbooks, I didn’t order what she ordered, but I did follow her lead.

The Ayurvedic healing system, Morningstar told me, is a holistic approach that focuses on diet, herbs, Yoga and massage with the goal of maintaining balance.

Morningstar said she sees each person as an individual, based on a constitutional type relating to the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether. Therefore she would not recommend the same diet to everybody.

One person might have too much fire, she said, so she would recommend cooling foods, such as fresh fruit. For someone with too much of the water element, she said, she might recommend hot, spicy food; lighter foods could be the “prescription” for a person with too much of the earth element; heavier foods could for those with too much air. “It’s all about balance,” she said.

At Annapurna, Morningstar ordered the masala dosa, which is similar to a crpe. It’s made with ground rice and ground urad dal — a lentil imported from India — and filled with a mix of spicy vegetables. I had the sada dosa — the same crpe minus the filling.

Naidoo said she put both variations on the menu because the filled dosa is just too much food for some people.

Both dishes were served with sambhar — a spicy Indian soup — and coconut chutney. Like Morningstar, I dipped my dosa in the soup, which was excellent. The coconut chutney was a bit spicy for my taste, but Morningstar loved it.

Instead of dessert, I ordered a cooled young coconut, which was cut at the top and served with a straw. It was sweet and refreshing.

Although we skipped desserts, they did look tempting — especially the almond tart, which is free of dairy, egg and gluten.

Naidoo said the desserts are popular. Except for the cookies, which are sweetened with organic raw-cane sugar, the desserts are made with brown rice syrup or maple syrup.

“This is a healing cuisine,” she explained. “People are ecstatic that they can get gluten-free desserts, ecstatic that they can eat off the menu and know there is no wheat, ecstatic that the food is organic and prepared fresh daily. They can pick any item and we can tell them exactly what is in it. There are so many alternatives (at Annapurna) that you can’t find in other restaurants.”

Travis Pittman, a student at St. John’s College and a fervent vegan — he eschews eggs, dairy or meat — said he frequents Annapurna whenever he can afford it, and is happy about the 20- percent student discount.

“I’ve eaten in vegetarian joints from Norfolk, Va., to San Francisco, Calif., and Annapurna is as good as any vegetarian restaurant I’ve been to. It’s good food, and the focus seems to be based on spreading health consciousness,” Pittman said. He said he always orders the kitchari — a bowl of rice, mung beans and vegetable curry — because it fits his budget, and he finds it really good.

“The food is accessible,” Pittman added. “Most people would enjoy it — not only vegetarians.”

Naidoo said that many people who don’t recognize the items listed on the menu order the stir-fry because it’s familiar — whereas people who know Aryuvedic food, or are knowledgeable about India, are more likely to order a chapati roll, which is a flat bread rolled with tofu and vegetables. It’s served with sweet tamarind and date chutney or coconut chutney. Those in the know, she said, also order the masala dosa and the idli sambhar — a steamed cake of rice and urad dal, served with spicy soup and coconut chutney.

There are only two dairy items on Annapurna’s menu: the paneer (freshly made cheese curds) and milk for the chai, a sweetly spicy Indian tea.

A lot of people order the saag paneer — cooked greens with cheese — Naidoo said, mainly because she uses fresh organic spinach. Many also order paneer that she makes from scratch every day with organic milk and no additives.

Naidoo said her chai is authentic — made with fresh ginger, whole cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and fresh organic milk from a dairy in Belen. For those who prefer to avoid dairy altogether, her chai is also available with rice or soy milk.

For 18 months before opening her first restaurant, Naidoo catered out of her home. Among her clients were students at the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque and others in the Duke City’s healing-arts community.

But the food business is relatively new to her. Although she is from a long line of Ayurvedic practitioners — and the food she serves is the food she grew up eating — she has no formal culinary training. By education, she is a certified public accountant.

“I did that for a long time,” she said. “It was what my mother wanted me to be. I wanted to be a doctor. As soon as I was able to, I quit accounting because it made no sense to me,” she said, adding that she doesn’t mind working long hours in the restaurant business because she has the satisfaction of knowing people are eating “real food.”

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If you go:

Annapurna Ayurvedic Cuisine and Chai House is at 905 W. Alameda St., in the Solana Center.

Open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.- 9 p.m. Closed on Sunday.

There is a 20-percent student discount (with appropriate ID) every day, and a 50-percent discount on the food menu — excluding drinks and desserts — from 5 p.m. to closing on Tuesdays.

From 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Fridays, the restaurant hosts live musical performaces by local musicians.

Yashoda Naidoo is considering offering Ayurvedic cooking classes for chefs and for the general public. People interested in the classes should stop by the restaurant to fill out a form.

For more information, call 988-9688.