Here’s some of what we’re working on in the early parts of this year:

(Sincere apologies to our much respected Vegetarians for listing the dish on our Vegetable board — we are simply tight on chalkboard space!)

I’m excited to announce that due to countless requests, we’ve finally committed to a regular schedule for Chicken Kofte and will now offer Monday Meatball Mania every Monday dinner starting this Monday!

I can’t mention Chicken Kofte without also expressing my deep gratitude to Zaida, who works for my mum in the Indian Fashion industry in London.  Zaida first fed me this dish and shared the recipe with me.  As so often is true with food, there are memories and emotions so closely tied together with a dish that it becomes tough to separate the two.  In this case, it is impossible for me to think of Kofte without also always thinking of Zaida.

When Zaida finds out that folk here in San Francisco are eating, demanding and loving her Kofte, I know it will bring her immense pride and joy.  And if you knew what a gem of a woman she is, the Kofte would bring a deeper fulfillment than just their delicious taste for you too.

Thanks Zaida for everything.  Your calm, humble and dignified manner inspires everyone: genuinely visiting my grandma in the nursing home, working with my mum and dealing with all her diva clients with grace, and most of all for always feeding me and making me feel special.

I’d love to see the Health Department’s reaction to this here in the US! I reckon the health inspector would have a heart attack! Although I can’t see any particular rule being broken.

As for the customers, they would either love it or be appalled. The customer in this video does’t even blink an eye You got to love India for this kind of stuff.

I’m dedicating this post to our seriously hard working and skilled roti makers at Kasa. Day in, day out, they are at our roti station labouring away at making freshly rolled rotis at high speed. Our guys are machines, rolling out around 800 rotis or more per shift.

Having watched this video though, hmmmm. Roti guys watch out. It might become a job requirement to entertain us in this manner too!!

We’re in the final sprint preparing for next week’s Off the Grid launch for the Kasa Indian Food Truck.  The truck is completely built out, the wrap is being wrapped as we speak, our Public Hearing is this Wed Jun 29 to secure our FiDi locations (not too late to help!), the initial menu is more or less decided and the operating plan is operating.

One of our goals is speed — we want to keep our (hopefully long) lines moving quickly!

At first, we figured we should keep it simple and launch the truck as cash only.  But that didn’t sit right with us for a few reasons:

1. We pride ourselves on being tech savvy.  You can’t have a Kasa co-founder from Google and be behind on this stuff!
2. We always try to do right by our customers.  You don’t always have cash, ATM fees suck and credit cards are more convenient.
3. Square made it so damn simple to accept credit cards on a truck!  Square is this super cool startup in SOMA designing beautifully simple transaction systems for local merchants.  We signed up on Friday, got a free square fob in the mail on Tuesday and were up and running swiping credit cards within minutes.
4. Even better, we shamelessly begged the Square team and got into the beta test for their new Square Register point of sale app on the iPad.  This hopefully will allow our truck customers to set up tabs where they can order and pay for our classic Indian street food without having to even take their credit card out of their wallet!

So…beta Indian food truck, beta point of sale system running on a 4G iPad 2.  Only in San Francisco!

Appetizers

~ Sev Puri vs Tostadas ~  crunchy flat breads with fresh vegetables, herbs and chutneys/sauces

Standard Disclaimer:

These pop-ups are done in a makeshift kitchen without our normal staff.  It’s *tough* to put out a lot of food at the same time, so your experience might be a bit more leisurely than you’d find at Kasa Castro (where we are a MACHINE!).   So have a glass of wine, chill with the candles and Bollywood music and enjoy each other’s company whilst we bring you out some really authentic Indian Vegan food.

Hope to see you out this Wednesday!

Anamika

Call 415-690-8512 for reservations or email popup@kasaindian.com for reservations.

I am not religious, but I religiously wear a gold necklace (a gift from my grandmother) with a picture of Guru Nanak, the serene founder of the Sikh religion.   I’ve had more people express curiosity about this necklace than any other piece of jewelery I’ve ever worn, and I’m surprised at how few people know about Punjab or the Sikh religion.

Like most religions, Sikhism has its blemishes but there are aspects of it that are simply beautiful.

The premise of ‘Langar‘ – the Sikh community kitchen – is closest to my heart.  The word Langar is Persian for Alms House, but in Punjabi culture, Langar is intended not only for poor people but for everyone to eat together. Implicit in this spirit is a rejection of the caste system and socio-economic class distinctions.

Langar  is served (free of charge) throughout the day at Sikh temples called ‘Gurdwaras’ around the world. Fresh vegetarian meals are served in Thalis just like you see at Kasa, and everyone regardless of religion or social status eats together on the floor.

My comfort in the kitchen and ability to cook for large numbers of people stems directly from years growing up doing ‘seva’ in Gurdwaras.  Seva — which means selfless service for your community — is core to Sikh culture and fuels devotees to donate ingredients, help cook, serve the food and wash dishes during Langar.  Anyone can participate in any part of this process, or they can simply eat and enjoy Langar alongside the community!

I don’t want to present myself as more selfless than I am, and admit that being in the Gurdwara kitchen growing up was a lot more fun than sitting in the prayer hall meditating.  As a 7 year old, I remember walking into the kitchen in Southall (London) and being unsure as to what to do.  A gruff big older woman saw me standing there and shoved me into an area where finished rotis were being buttered (the easiest job in the kitchen!), and gave me a block of butter to get to it.  I was thrilled and buttered away quietly, watching and listening to everyone else.

I was part of a bustling kitchen that would be serving food to hundreds of people within the hour!  The famous Bangla Saab Gurdwara in Delhi (shown here) serves 10,000 meals per day, and the Golden Temple in Amritstar – the holiest of Sikh temples – surely serves even more!  Somehow you’d imagine this to be chaotic but it is not.  The whole Langar process is super smooth and organized, despite being dependent on people randomly showing up to donate ingredients and help out.

It is simply beautiful how it works.

If you’re curious about how authentic Kasa’s food is, or interested in participating in Langar, I suggest a visit to a Bay Area Gurdwara where you’ll always be welcome.  Suresh, me and the kids usually go to the Gurdwaras in El Sobrante or Fremont.

Anamika

What makes our chai special is that it is REAL chai.

The kind you’d find on a train between Delhi and Agra.

Our chai is brewed slowly with loose leaf tea from Assam, whole milk, freshly ground whole spices and roots and then generously sweetened with sugar.  It’s like a cross between a Oaxacan hot chocolate and an English tea.  No offense to Starbucks, but I have no idea what their chai actually is!

Indian people are obsessed with chai, kind of like San Francisco is obsessed with the perfect cup of coffee.

I deliberately avoided learning how to make
chai (or ‘cha’ as we say in Punjabi) or to drink cha for a couple of reasons:

1) If you make a good cup of chai, it’s all over for you.

Literally everyone in your family, throughout the day, will be using this phrase:  ’Ek cup cha banale please’, or ‘Please make me a cup of tea’.  It is  always said with a look of pleading in their eyes, and a healthy dose of guilt tripping in case you were thinking of refusing to feed their caffeine addiction.

As much as I love feeding people, I had to draw boundaries somewhere or I’d be permanently in the kitchen.  So I would purposely make a mediocre cup so I’d never be asked again!

Not to mention, people are demanding when it comes to their chai.  More milky, less milky, stronger, sweeter, less sweeter, hotter…it’s an endless list of demands to get their chai, just as they like it!

My grandma (who was permanently on a diet) would request 1/2 spoon of sugar, and ALWAYS say it wasn’t sweet enough and then add another half a spoon!

2) I really don’t enjoy being a slave to addictions, and so do not partake in soda, caffeine or tobacco, as a strict principle of life.

Suresh, on the other hand, hardly spends ANY time in the kitchen but is the ultimate chai maker and is extremely critical about a good cup.  All credit for Kasa’s chai goes to Suresh and the Kasa crew for perfecting the art of brewing the chai.

I must admit that Kasa’s chai is slowly sucking me in.  I find myself some days thinking how a delicious cup of
Kasa Chai would make my day so much better!  For now I’m limiting myself to Sunday evenings only.

I do apologize to some of our customers who love our chai but wish we’d offer soy, or sugar free, or low fat, or caffeine free or some combo of  the above.  We try to keep things at Kasa simple and authentic and how we know best.  This is a very authentic cup of chai, just like chai vendors in India where there’s only way to order it.

And if you’ve already gotten the Kasa Chai bug, we also sell hot boxes of Chai for your next event!  Just call the catering line at 415-341-7345.

Any other places in San Francisco or around the world where you’ve had an AMAZING cup of chai?

Anamika

The holiday season is officially here with the Union Square Christmas tree going up tonight!

With Thanksgiving  around the corner, I wanted to send a huge THANK YOU to Food Runners, a noble and well-run charity organization.

For the last two and a half years, Food Runner volunteers have diligently picked up leftover food from Kasa and distributed it around the city to those less fortunate and facing hard times. Although they are always saying thank you to us, it is in fact us who should constantly thank them.

The first few nights when Kasa was opened, we would throw away leftover food, not knowing what else to do with it. This really made my stomach turn, as I felt I was committing a grave sin, having always been brought up with the ‘Don’t waste food’ edict.

I spent many hours trying to find an organization that would take the food from us and distribute it to the needy. You would think in a city with a huge homeless population like ours, this would be a piece of cake!

But there are legal and political issues that make this extremely difficult. Not to mention that the organization needs to be well run with a network of volunteers to actually collect the food and deliver it around the city.

So again, I am extremely thankful to Food Runners and wanted to share with you all what a wonderful job they do in not letting any of our food go to waste.

Thank You Food Runners!

I’ve always wanted to be a talk show host, or interview people for magazines and the like.  We are so lucky to have Tom Green work for Kasa, so I thought I’d start with him.

Me –  Let’s get right into it.  Why such a short marriage to Drew Barrymore?

Tom – (goes red and starts laughing)

Me – Ok maybe too personal.  How was working on the set for Charlie’s Angels compared to here?

Tom – (laughing) I think you have the wrong Tom Green.   I get that a lot.  I get mistaken for him all the time because I look like him. Even Drew Barrymore mistook me for him.

Me – So the name?

Tom – It’s just a coincidence.  I googled it, and THE Tom Green’s real name is Michael Thomas Green, while my name is after my grandpa ‘Thomas Green’.  So my parents did not get inspiration for my name after seeing Road Trip.

Me – Tell me about the suspenders that you ALWAYS wear?

Tom – I bought them for a costume party originally and never stopped wearing them since.  I like them because they people know I’m just a little bit different.  Mot much, but just enough.

Me – And the Oliver Twist cap?

Tom – It works really well with the suspenders. (smile)

Me – Where are you originally from?

Tom – Boise, Idaho!!

Me – Wow,  what brought you all the way here to SF?

Tom – I followed a girl…

Me – Aaaah.  What was your first impression of the City?

Tom – I was pretty overwhelmed at how many PEOPLE there were, and how BIG and congested it was, I’m used to things spread out a lot more.  The cost of living is horrendous too.  But part of me loves living paycheck to paycheck.  I have what I need to just live in the present and not too much out there in the future.  But part of me knows that I should start saving and go to school.

Me – How old are you, Tom?

Tom – Just turned 22!

Me – How long have you worked with Kasa?

Tom – A year and a half now. Kasa hired me a week after I first arrived here.

Me – What do you love and hate about being a server?

Tom – I love talking to really cool customers.  Just today, this older lady told me about this awesome cookbook from the guy who started Momofuku, the ramen noodle place in NY. I also like that this city has a lot of food-conscious people who really want to talk about the food.  I like chatting to them and telling them how we cook the food here.

Me – What do you hate?

Tom – (laughing) I don’t know what it is about alcohol that makes people shout, but the super drunken crowd is not cool.   Other than that, not much.  Oh wait, I hate trying to deal with a customer in line while answering the phone at the same time — that’s a doozy.  And I don’t ask for much, but it’s always a bummer when customers don’t tip.  Even a penny in the tip box is appreciated.

Me – What are you most proud of at Kasa?

Tom – (smiling) I make pretty awesome roti and I’m really proud of my chai.  Anything I make here, I have it to a T.

Me – What’s your personal favourite dish?

Tom – The lamb curry with chutney and onions.  It kills Tim because it’s the most expensive dish! (laughing)

Me – What’s different here compared to your last job as a cook in Boise?

Tom – Everything is cooked fresh at Kasa.  In Boise, everything came frozen in a bag — the onion rings, the burger patties, the fries.  All I had to do was throw everything in the fryer. It was a really easy job.

Me – OK, last question.  What do you think of the handful of yelpers out there dissing on white Kasa servers?

Tom – That’s a tough one.  I always wish they would say it to me in person so I could come back with some sassy remark.  I like people who have fun with it though.  The other day a guy asked me, ‘What province of India are you from?”  I said, “Idaho.”  I also like when Indian customers come in and giggle at a white guy serving them Indian food!

Thanks Tom:)

You can find Tom Green at our Marina location, with his suspenders, cap and super sweet personality, making you awesome roti, amazing chai and serving you with a smile.  Don’t forget the tip though and if you are intoxicated, try and keep your voice to a reasonable tone and it’s all good.

Anamika

Kasa Castro and Kasa Marina are blessed to have excellent Yelp ratings — “people love us on yelp” — and many new customers find their way to our doors via Yelp.  For this, I am grateful and LOVE Yelp.

“The naan didn’t taste like naan.”  –> That’s because we don’t serve naan. We serve roti.

“Why are they serving Mexican black beans?”  –> We don’t serve black beans. We serve black lentils (daal).  There are dozens of different types of lentils.

“Why are there white people serving us Indian food?” —> We live in the United States of America!

And my favourite most hated comment: “It’s Americanized Indian food.”  –> It’s homestyle Indian food, different to what people may have tried before.

1 – How cute were they?

2 – How funny were they?

3 – How cheap (with their tip)?

4 – How clean (did they buss their table)?

5 – How polite?

When we meet other small business owners, there is a definite and instant camaraderie, an unspoken understanding that we belong to the same club.  No matter our product or service, our shared painful, exhausting, rewarding and sometimes humiliating experiences bond us together (even if we mercilessly compete with each other).

Acquaintances often ask us to share our experience of running a restaurant as they consider embarking on their own dream venture, so this post is for those brave souls.  I will say that Tim, Suresh and I are still seriously in learning mode even after 2 years, but so far this is a collection of what I’ve learned.

If you’re confident about your food and can raise enough money to get started, then you’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg. Thereafter, no matter how much preparation and due diligence you’ve done, chaos will ensue.  This is some of what we have been dealing with:

• Smelling of Chicken Tikka ALL the time
• Not seeing your children and family for days at a time (no exaggeration)
• Being self critical to an extreme and disciplining yourself with an iron fist
• Scrubbing things clean for hours
• Lifting stuff so heavy, you permanently have shoulder or wrist aches
• Controlling your emotions, not showing how upset or angry you are
• Stopping yourself from stalking and throttling an ignorant yelper (although mostly people LOVE US ON YELP, and we LOVE them…  
• Paying attention to mind numbingly boring details
• Thinking, eating, sleeping and dreaming your restaurant
• Listening to everyone on your staff’s issues and dealing with them
• Going wherever necessary with your menu to shamelessly promote your restaurant
• Making mistakes and moving on optimistically
• Learning Spanish at 10pm at night after a long day at work
• Watching your friends have a social life on the weekends without you since it’s your busiest work time
• Trusting your instincts and confidently hiring (and firing) people
• Forgetting about privacy – your phone is on 24/7
• Having unyielding faith in your food and concept
• Giving up everything you own to the bank, including your first born child
• Did I mention…smelling of Chicken Tikka ALL the time!

On the flip side, there is nothing more I would rather be doing with my life as I love Kasa deeply — despite the occasions when I feel I can’t take the stress any more, like the time I checked myself into a hotel for the weekend, told Suresh and Tim I wasn’t coming in and switched my phone off.  I pretended to be a tourist with my English accent, walked the city, met a bunch of friendly Americans who gave me recommendations on where to eat, shopped and went back to Kasa recharged.

Most importantly, prepare to pace yourself and take a vacation before a breakdown.

If you’re still up for plunging ahead despite all this, then you’re as mad as we are and we look forward to bonding with you as a comrade in arms one day.

Anamika

In London’s defense, I will say that I spend most of my time in Hounslow/Southall, the Indian enclaves of London where I grew up — if you’ve seen the film Bend It Like Beckham, it was filmed round the corner from my house. There is some really good Indian/Pakistani food in Hounslow/Southall, but the rest is just fast food pizza, fried chicken and doner kebab shops. I usually don’t eat out much as I’m busy enjoying my Pinky Aunty’s Indian home cooking. (Most of Kasa’s recipes originated from Pinky Auntie.)

As a result, I’m not really in the know as to which restaurants to try in Central London for amazing food.

Having said that, English food can get a bad rap abroad, and I spend much of my time trying to defend it’s honour. I’ve spent the last two weeks in London visiting my cousin Amars who had a major operation and I took this opportunity to get through my list of ‘MUST EAT’ English food before I head back to San Francisco:

1) English Breakfast

There really isn’t anything as satisfying as this, especially after a hangover. Much as I like American breakfasts, nothing quite hits the spot like pork sausages (with absolutely no hint of apple or anything sweet in it), baked beans (again a lot less sweet), proper bacon (that is bacon with meat on it and not crispy fat), eggs, tomatoes and fried mushrooms. Admittedly the whole thing can be a little greasy and seriously filling, but it is utterly delicious and you don’t have to think about food for many many hours to come!

2) Chicken and Mushroom Pie

This pie is comfort food at it’s best. Shortcrust pastry soaked in the thick gravy of the chicken and mushroom filling… yum! Or even yummier is Steak and Kidney pie… wow! Pot pies in the US just don’t compare.

3) Savoury pastries

• Sausage rolls – a delicious, basic English sausage covered in a very light flaky pastry… when it’s cold and raining outside and you need a snack, this totally lifts your spirits.
• Cornish pasties – a thicker pastry filled with minced beef and vegetables.  I crave this from accross the continent constantly.

4) Treacle Pudding with Hot Custard

I might say that sometimes I miss this dessert more than my family in London. It’s a light sponge pudding that has been steamed with a thin layer of sweet treacle and covered with steaming hot custard. The endorphins released when you eat this are unparalleled. I really really wish that I could find this in SF. Has anyone seen it around?  I probably have gained quite a few pounds on this dessert alone.

5) English Roast

Roast Lamb, mint sauce, yorkshire pudding, basic boiled vegetables and roast potatoes (NO MASH) with really rich gravy (very different to American gravy) is divine. Eating this on a Sunday in the pub brings back great memories.

6) A visit to Nandos

No trip to London is complete for me without a trip to this popular South African chain of Chicken and Chips. They are super successful here and on their way to the US soon. Their peri peri marinated grilled chicken with peri peri sauce and wild herb sauce with chips (thick french fries) is superb. The sides are really good too. They have different levels of heat from lemon and herb all the way to xtra hot! I keep mine at the sensible medium heat.

I come back home to San Francisco tomorrow and will have to crave these foods until my next visit. It was funny to hear, though, that my cousin Amar was craving Kasa’s Chicken Tikka Masala Kati Roll from his recovery bed at Kings Hospital!

Get better quickly, Aams, so you can get to San Francisco for your kati roll fix!

Anamika

In that same vein, you don’t always get to pick the people you work with despite having to spend hours with them.  This fact creates a kind of ‘Work Family’ dynamic where you learn some pretty interesting facts about your co-workers and start to feel comfortable with their unique quirky characteristics.

This staff spotlight is on Kalyan, one of our managers.  Although he would have loved to have written this himself, he informed me that he would need a couple of hours to put pen to paper, and that he simply does not have that kind of time in his day.  Between balancing a busy and demanding work day, a caring wife, a beautiful daughter (he’s a great dad) and a little bit of wine and cards, he has zero time to write!  So I’ll write about him instead.

Whilst you may have already experienced Kalyan’s friendly nature serving you lunch or dinner (or your drunken late night cravings at 2am in the Marina!), and you may have already expected that he is a rock star behind the scenes (hard working, talented and ethical), what you wouldn’t have known is that Kalyan literally is a ROCK STAR!

Allow me to share the latest interesting fact I discovered about Kalyan: introducing (for the first time in North America)………..’K2Z, the Nepali Sean Paul’.  Most definitely check out his video below!

We really do only hire Rock Stars at Kasa!  

Anamika

• Suresh’s joke about the ’Punjabi Santa’ (like Santa, he has a beard, is tall and plump, and say Hoy Hoy Hoy)
• Going to Winter Wonderland in Tilden Park in Berkeley with the kids
• Dancing to Country, Salsa and Hip Hop at the Kasa Staff Holiday Party

But I couldn’t relax, as in the midst of all this, K2 (aka Kasa Marina) launched and Tim and Mer had their third baby (aka V3).  This should have been a time of only serious hard work for us, and whilst all of us at Kasa put that work in, it had to be so stop and start because of the holidays.  We literally had to force ourselves not to think or do any work on Xmas day and spend it with our families, and try to understand that the government and rest of the country were going slower because of the holidays.

So I’m glad that life is back to normality and we can just steam ahead with work now, as we have a lot more ahead of us.  The pressure is on high, not only because we have a bigger space and higher rent at K2.  We opened around December 19, and these first few weeks have been pretty steady but not that many people in the Marina know that we exist yet and we need customers flooding in.

Whilst it’s exhilarating and satisfying to have a successful restaurant or to get some wonderful press,  margins in our business are slim so we have to be super successful to make it all add up, and that pressure extends all the way through to our staff. Our staff need their hours maxed out (or else we lose them) to make rent, support families here and back home, put themselves through school or, like our Line Cook Extraordinaire Gomez who is about to have his first baby, just survive in SF. The emotional pressure of being successful is intense as our families, staff, vendors and on and on rely on us.  More customers means more hours for our staff, which means more tips (which is vital to their livelihood) and ultimately more raises.

So instead of waiting around for the Punjabi Santa to deliver a bushel of money, we’ve come up with our own Kasa Plan of Action:

1. Continue to keep the food as excellent as humanly possible
2. Continue to train our staff to provide warm, wonderful service, even if on occasion you have to deal with a not-so-pleasant customer
3. Community outreach and education in the Marina — introduce ourselves and turn people on to delicious, homestyle Indian food
4. Connect with all of our customers as much as possible…like through this blog

I’m confident that with a little more time and work, we will all reap the rewards of our hard work, all whilst consistently giving our endless love to Kasa Castro.  In the meanwhile, we thank you all for your continued support and hope that you’ll pass the word to your friends.

Love, Anamika

I had put this list together when I was in high school and it still holds true for me today. The list in pieces goes something like this:

1.  To become a wife and a mother

This means the world to me.  If no other thing on the list ever got achieved, I decided I would be content with this.  It drove my family of strong women and feminist-bent friends a little crazy as I would preach that my ambition was to be a ‘Housewife’.

2. To write a book

This one was by far the most difficult for me.  I tried a couple of times, playing with Indian historical fiction, a biography, boarding school stories, but the discipline of this art is daunting.

My good friend Annie (the artist who started Studio Rasa) really helped me in achieving this when we decided to work together on a children’s story based on street animals of India.  I wrote and she illustrated beautifully.  We decided that we would finish the book no matter what!

She helped me accept that I would write this book even if it never got published and to put aside all fears of rejection, and better still, to do it at a mellow, creative pace rather than at full speed.  We did indeed finish the book and self-published it.  You can download a free copy of The Mischievous Monkey here — I’d love to hear your feedback!

Producing the book made me realize what a talented artist Annie is.  Her illustrations are stunning and her work is beautiful.  The use of colour is my favourite part.  Most importantly, it helped give me the confidence that I could start and finish a project and enabled me to move on to number 3 on my list…

3. To open a restaurant

Although I’d imagined doing a high-end sit down Indian restaurant, Kasa has proven to be way more fun and in line with my speedy nature.  Annie designed our cool logo, the beautiful artists map on the website and the subtle wall of sanskrit above the banquette at Kasa Castro. She also helped me to communicate my vision of simple Indian materials for our clean decor. Our customers, of course, are mainly to be thanked sincerely for supporting Kasa and allowing us to continue to be able to cook for you all everyday.

4.  World Tournament Poker champion

Well I haven’t done this one yet, and have accepted that I probably never will.  A very apt poker saying here goes:

“You aren’t as good as you think or as bad as you think.”

5.  I can’t really talk about this one, as it needs an element of surprise.

6.  This one may be offensive to some if it is not accompanied with a deeper explanation.  I don’t really have the words or the idea down yet.

Take care,

Anamika

Of all the things I could write about, I feel like writing about the super cool women I’ve worked with this last year and a half.

Generally speaking (I know I’m going to be negatively judged for this), I prefer working with men (there will be a whole separate blog post on them too) because in my experience GENERALLY I find them more straight forward, they don’t hold grudges for as long, they are super co-operative and have an even keeled temperament at work.

However, this last year, I have had the pleasure of working with some very cool women:

At Kasa…

• Lydia (Server at Kasa) – super fast, a lot of fun, organized, clean and totally on it with her work! A real no-nonsense girl at work. Whenever I feel the pressure, she steps right in and just knows what needs to be done.

• Polly (Server at Kasa) – originally introduced as the “craziest” on Roti Josh’s blog post, Polly works at the speed of light, has real pride in her work, very straight forward, and a real sweetheart.   She’s also very smart — I’m afraid we will probably lose her when she is done with school and becomes a famous biochemist!

• Tuesday (Server at Kasa) – new to the Kasa team, but really really good. She is totally on it, smart, friendly, organized, reliable and fun. Again, she just knows what needs to be done and does it with a calm confidence.

On the creative side…

• Gi Paoletti (our designer at Kasa 2, also designed Tipsy Pig, Bloodhound and many other cool spots) – smart, always so well put together, extremely accomplished in her field and really co-operative. I love the way that she helps us problem solve our design issues and puts her whole heart into her work.

• Tammy (a metal worker building this cool metal screen we are creating for Kasa 2) – I have just recently met Tammy, and she already is a pleasure to work with. She’s fast, reliable, a practical problem solver and a true local artist.  You only have to drive by her metal yard on 1340 Bryant Street to see how talented she is.

At home…

• Janey (my wonderful Nanny) – I call her the punk Mary Poppins with her bright red hair and nose ring, but she is also organized, reliable, a sweetheart, firm and fun. Without her doing a wonderful job at home and making my life easier, I wouldn’t really be able to focus on the work that needs to be done at Kasa.
• Merideth (Tim’s wife) – one of the unsung members of the Kasa team, Merideth keeps the Volkema house running smoothly and helps Tim  keep going through all the ups and downs here at the restaurant.  Wish her luck with Volkema #3, likely to arrive right around the same time as Kasa #2!

I would love to include myself in this list, however, I will leave it to Tim and Suresh to comment on that..  :)

P.S. – My friends have already been warned — anyone caught trying to steal my nanny is in serious trouble, and the same goes for my amazing staff.

Anamika