Longtime D.C. restaurateur Ashok Bajaj considered several cuisines for his first fast-casual restaurant. He ultimately went with Indian street fare because “people are ready,” with ample knowledge of Indian food and curiosity to try more, he says.
People were so ready on Wednesday, in fact, that Bajaj made the call to open Bindaas Bowls & Rolls one day ahead of his planned Thursday opening. He couldn’t bear the sight of his staff turning away the stream of diners ignoring the makeshift “opening soon” sign to ask if the Penn Quarter spot was open.
Bajaj’s Knightsbridge Restaurant Group is best known for upscale establishments like Bombay Club, Modena and Annabelle. His modern Indian jewel Rasika — one location of which is nominated for this year’s Formal Fine Dining RAMMY Award — is steps from Bindaas Bowls & Rolls. Just “don’t compare it with Rasika and Bombay Club,” Bajaj says, also referencing his classic Indian dining room near the White House. “The concept is different,” though “the quality of the food ingredients will be similar to my other restaurants,” he says.
The quick-service spot will be more familiar to patrons of the original Bindaas, Bajaj’s street food-focused sit-down in Cleveland Park and Foggy Bottom. Iterations of its veggie and chicken sandwiches and its kathi rolls — flatbreads stuffed with flavorful chicken tikka, lamb, or paneer cheese and peppers — made it onto the menu.
The snack selection includes Bindaas’s masala popcorn and gunpowder fries. Curry puffs — a pastry with chicken or chili-cheese filling—recall a roadside kiosk. Most menu items cost $12 and under.
The Bindaas Bowls & Rolls location once held Merzi, another fast-casual Indian spot. But the reimagined space feels brighter and more playful than that incarnation. A graffiti-style aqua scooter — another Bindaas import — zooms along the wall. White subway tiles greet diners at the counter, and blue and yellow pop on walls and a few of the 25 seats.
White glove service may be absent, but Bajaj and his team know how to elevate both food and spaces by paying attention to details. Loungey sounding Indian music thumps in the background. Stylish rivets adorn chairs with armrests. Food in the assembly line nestles inside colorful Le Creuset cookware. Even the water dispenser gets a sliced cucumber upgrade.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a fast-casual restaurant without bowls. Bindaas Bowls & Rolls customers choose grains, such as saffron basmati rice or curried quinoa, as a base. Then it’s on to proteins such as salmon or spiced lamb meatballs, or to a helping of seasonal vegetables.
A drizzle of sauce such as creamy tikka masala or nutty korma pulls it all together. The restaurant provided a bowl to this reporter — I chose a mix of chicken with tikka masala sauce and paneer-sweet potato-spinach kofta — a vegetarian dumpling — with korma sauce over saffron basmati rice, and it did not disappoint.
Before customizing a bowl, diners can ask staff about mixing flavors or about which items of the day are vegan. Or they can let James Beard award-winning chef Vikram Sunderam do the choosing for them by ordering pre-set bowls such the salmon moilee, with chili salmon over lemon rice noodles with a South Indian coconut-ginger curry sauce. The chef-crafted selections will rotate seasonally and according to demand. Each bowl comes with a refreshing tomato, cucumber and onion salad.
The restaurant also offers an option to avoid the assembly line with a heated grab-and-go station. “You walk in. You have 10 minutes to eat. You can grab the curries, you can grab the sandwiches, you can grab the bowls. And there’s an express checkout,” Bajaj says. In the refrigerated grab-and-go area, desserts share space with freshly made mango lassis and sodas imported from India. Beer, wine, cocktails, chai and coffee are also available for purchase.
Bindaas Bowls & Rolls is a testing ground as far as Bajaj is concerned. Opening more than one location is “definitely a hope,” and a fast-casual version of his Israeli restaurant Sababa could also be in the cards if consumer demand and the right space materialize. “We’ll see where we go from here.”
Bindaas Bowls & Rolls is located at 415 7th St. NW. Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. seven days a week.
