Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Jaskirt Singh, chef at Mount Everest, prepares tandoori chicken.

No need to climb mountains for authentic Indian cuisine

By Suzanne Cristallo

Mount Everest is tucked between a liquor store and a nail salon--not the peak, of course, but the restaurant.

While its name suggests an imposing edifice, the hard-to-see venue for Indian cuisine across from Staples in Los Gatos uses culinary subtlety to engage diners who have returned over its 10-year existence to keep 50 seats constantly filled on weekends.

"The biggest misconception about Indian food is that it's very spicy. It is only if you want it to be," says owner Harminder Parhar, who learned his cooking skills from his mother in his home state of Punjab, located in northwest India.

Parhar points to his Chicken Tikka Masala, boneless chicken cubes grilled in a clay oven and drenched in a tomato cream sauce, as an all-time favorite with his customers. He tends to recommend it to first-timers, who then return to order it again and again. It's also good combined with basmati saffron rice and tandoori garlic nan--a thin, air-pocketed bread made of leavened dough that has been soaked in yogurt, had fresh garlic pressed into it and been fast-baked.

Both side dishes aid in soaking up the creamy sauce. Traditionally, most groups of diners share several entrees, perhaps a mix of lamb curry, masala prawns and vegetables such as spinach cooked with cheese, ginger and spices.

Parhar, 37, began his working years as a child on a farm, helping plant and harvest Punjab's principal crop of millet while helping cook for his parents and four siblings. He learned English and Italian at 12 in school along with four dialects of the 24 languages spoken in India. In his late teens, lack of work at home caused him to seek work in Frankfurt, Germany, as an Italian-food chef.

At 24, he came to California, finding work first as a farmhand in Yuba City, then at a pizza place in San Leandro, a job he held while investing with a friend in a Eureka motel. The 12 to 14 hours a day he spent in the restaurant business, along with his twice-a-month travels to check on his motel, gave him experience he was able to apply when the opportunity came to buy Mount Everest, where he had worked for about a year under the previous owner. He and wife Suhjit, who had traveled from Punjab to marry him the year before, settled in Los Gatos, where they lived with their three children until purchasing a home recently in Campbell.

Parhar has regular customers who travel from Oakland, Santa Cruz and Palo Alto just to get a taste of his tomato and cream sauce. They order it for parties to go over a variety of dishes or have Parhar cater a whole meal. Lunch regulars enjoy the all-you-can-eat buffet for $5.50, which includes up to 20 dishes. "They tell me no other place has the taste," he says proudly.

A curious customer can get a look at the chef at work through a wide window between the kitchen and dining areas. In a 2-foot-deep circular clay oven sunken into a tile counter, meats grill on 3-foot skewers and dough bubbles into bread along the oven walls.

Immediately upon seating, customers are served a basket of flaky tandoori papadum--paper-thin and steeped in the taste of garbanzo beans and black pepper. A finishing touch might come as gulab jaman, which is a hand-rolled ball of dry milk mixed with half-and-half, deep fried and covered with honey and sugar sauce. Sasri akal means "welcome" in Punjabi, but the food says it better.

Mount Everest Indian Cuisine, 412 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos. Lunch Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Dinner daily 5:30-10 p.m. 354-2427.

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