Old Town Alexandria has a new neighbor on upper King Street in Indochen, an Indian-Chinese restaurant that builds on a favorite in the city’s West End neighborhood.
Indochen comes from Chef Ram Thapa, Kumar KC, Hari Lama and Ashok Tamang — a group of friends that became business partners when they bought acclaimed Alexandria restaurant London Curry House in 2018. During the pandemic, they converted the restaurant in the Cameron Station development to Indochen, and now they’ve opened a second in the new Hyatt Centric Old Town hotel on King Street.
The Indian-Chinese culinary tradition derived from the migration of Chinese merchants traveling back and forth between the two countries and eventually settling in India. The combination is also often found in Nepal, which is sandwiched between those two nations. Thapa is from Nepal, and the menu he created for IndoChen builds on his experiences cooking Indian-influenced dishes with his grandmother in her kitchen back home. He remembers working diligently as her “sous chef,” prepping fresh vegetables, fruits and herbs to include in their family meals.
Diners at Indochen will identify the Chinese influence in Thapa’s sauces and the Indian influence in the spices. Cooked in a wok on high heat, the dishes blending ingredients and cooking techniques for a unique taste.
The dinner menu showcases appetizers such as classic Indian samosas — pastries stuffed with spiced potatoes and peas accompanied with a mint & tamarind sauce — as well as sesame tofu, lamb dumplings, and gobi Manchurian, a fried cauliflower dish. The apps are easily shareable and range in price from $6-8, leading some diners this author overheard during her visit to mix and match appetizers to create a full meal at an economical price.
Curries are a staple in East and South Asian cuisines and Indochen offers several, such as chickpea curry ($15) and chicken curry ($17). The lamb rogan josh ($22) is tenderly braised with a caramelized onion yogurt dotted with warm spices. Each entrée comes with a side of basmati rice, and for an additional fee, a choice between butter ($3) or garlic ($4) naan. (The restaurant gifted this writer some of the food and drinks featured in this article.)
Indochen is serving as a hotel restaurant in Old Town, which provides a new challenge for its owners, given that they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast focuses on American staples, such as the Centric Breakfast ($16) with two eggs, toast, bacon or sausage and potatoes. For lunch the menu includes twists on some of Indochen’s dinner items, such as a curry bowl ($15) or a butter chicken paratha wrap ($14), as well as other fare such as a crab cake sandwich, burger and a BLT.
People entering the hotel’s doors are immediately confronted with to the bar, which has minimalist décor featuring neutral tones and a display of wine bottles — and yet serves as a buzzy center of activity within the restaurant.
Those wines give clues as to what’s on the wine list. There is also a cocktail list from food and beverage director Dina Pandey that includes drinks like a classic old fashioned and a spicy Centric margarita ($12) made with spicy tequila, pomegranate juice, lime and cane sugar. Drinks come with cuts of ice custom-made within the restaurant; they’re perfectly clear and prevent fast melting.
Indochen opened two weeks ago and has been slowly getting to know its new neighborhood, including both local and visiting clientele, according Caro Blackman, a hospitality consultant that works with the Hyatt Centric and is helping run the restaurant’s front-of-house.
“The goal is to keep Indochen as the neighborhood gem that the locals love” while also providing a good experience for hotel guests, Blackman says.
