All hail the Camden Curry King!

This endeavor started months ago with an innocent invitation to join a Facebook group. Kim had invited me into the Camden Curry (top secret) Club group. Normally when I join a group, I have some kind of attachment to it. For example, I am in the Rock Coast Rollers group because I participate and volunteer in roller derby. I am in a kayaking group because I love kayaking and we share where we paddle. And I joined this curry group not so much because I love curry, but because it’s a secret group! I feel stealthy, like a chicken tikka masala ninja! I like being sneaky, so I sneaked/snuck?/snack? into this group.  With Kim. And about 2,000 other people.

We’ve been in this group for months, following founding member and curry daddy Arif Shaikh’s posts about his love of curry and his passion for bringing his delicious, spicy dishes to midcoast Maine. He opened his restaurant in late May 2017, sharing space with an existing restaurant at 421 Main St., Rockland. Kim and I kept seeing posts about the place opening, reading reviews from satisfied customers and laughing at the self-proclaimed Spice Gigolo Arif’s musings, and we finally got to go last night.

Taaaa-daaaaaa!

So the signage isn’t high-end, but it gets the point across. Damn Fine Curry (dfc) has a website that very clearly provides the restaurant’s address. Using your phone’s GPS will get you there. Walking Main Street and looking for 421 will get you there. Following your nose to the source of the savory masala essence that spills out on into the air will get you there.

Once you’re there, please use your phone to order. You can order for take out or eat in and his website is right here. This guy has his hands full with cooking, talking to customers, waiting tables and doing whatever a curry king does. As the website states, there is no cash taken for payment. There is no cash register! Arif is trying to keep the business simple and to keep his time spent making the food and delivering the food to hungry customers. I see a little irony in the process, actually. He’s gone high-tech (use your smartphone or his laptop to place the order) so that he can better serve you face-to-face.

How do you say “how do you like it” in French?

Arif is so…smiley! So personable and pleasant to talk to. If he wasn’t the one in the kitchen preparing the dish, I would want him at the table with us. But the food is so good, I want him to keep making it. And I’ll get to the food, eventually. While we were deciding what we wanted to eat, the Masala Man was walking around, checking in on the tables. He stopped at a table of tourists from France, two young women and a small child. He asked how their food was and the adults answered affirmatively. Wanting all the feedback he could get, he asked the ladies how to say “how do you like it” in French so he could poll the youngster too. This interaction took a little longer but he put the time in. He is one classy curry chap!

The simple menu

There are quite a few restaurants whose menus are too large for their own good. They can’t get a handle on but a few dishes, so often times whatever you order is wrong or different than it was the last time and that is frustrating. dfc has a simple menu with just several savory options on it but they do those several things very well. Well, I assume and will do my best to research this. I know they did five things very well last night.

The five things

We knew we wanted to try the most redeeming mighty masala fries because our friends have raved about them and the masala dipping sauce. Kim ordered the most righteous chicken tikka masala. I was in the mood for the most tree hugging chickpea burger but they had sold out of both that and the most badass lamb burger (my second choice.) Admittedly, I was bummed I couldn’t order it but I’m excited because the burgers must be good! I will go back to try one, believe me. I ended up with the most beastly chickpea curry instead.

We have a bit of a sweet tooth, so we also ordered the only dessert item, the most awesome cardamom clove custard. And all of the beverage offerings sounded great, but we decided to split the most amazing cashew coconut lassi.

All of these things, we ordered on Kim’s iPhone while sitting in our booth. This process is not what we’re used to, since Arif and his assistant were running around the restaurant and our instincts tell us to place an order with a person, but we selected what we wanted, entered our debit card information and it was done. Ordering on our phone was an easy process. So easy, in fact, that we went back and did it again when our food came and we realized we wanted rice but had not ordered any. Sweet Spicy Arif heard us talking about rice and brought us two orders before we had even hit the “submit” button on Kim’s phone.

Curry time!

Our curries were amazing. The chicken was righteous and the chickpeas were beastly. The spices danced around our taste buds provocatively at first. There was heat! Our taste buds tried to dance with them but they were no match for these sultry spices. Then there was a little sweet. It was like the chickpeas and carrots were hugging in my mouth. And those fries! I detected a little cinnamon when I ate them plain. I didn’t eat them plain often because the masala was masterful. The masala is a must.

The most glorious polao rice helped calm the heat a little but I have to say, I would not normally put raisins in my rice. Their sweet, mushy texture was interesting in the hot sauciness of my mouth, but I was not a fan. However, Kim loved them.

When we started to get full, which was only about halfway through our bowls, we switched over to the custard. My favorite part was the chia seeds! I love chia and this custard reminded me of tapioca pudding. I also love tapioca pudding, but Kim hates it. She only had a few bite of this. She liked the flavor but the texture was a turn-off for her. We also noted the texture of the cashew coconut lassi. I think the bottom of the glass was covered in bits of coconut, which were fun to chew on after taking a sip. The drawback to these came if you didn’t raise the straw to pull a chaser sip from the less textured top of the liquid. The bits of coconut/cashew kind of stuck in our throats.

Overall, we were delighted with the place, Arif, and our meal. We will definitely go back, earlier in the day next time, when there are still burgers to be had. We bow to your stupendous spice, oh captivating curry king!

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