Dishing Out Time-Honored Flavors Fast

Six years in the past, lifelong associates Sahil Rahman ’12 and Rahul Vinod ’11 requested prospects to “tikka probability” on a brand new type of restaurant: one which blended conventional Indian flavors with a contemporary, fast-casual consuming expertise.

That probability panned out, and this spring, Rahman and Vinod are opening their fifth Rasa location, in Rockville, Md. It’s additionally the pair’s first location of their house state, after getting their begin in Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

For Rahman and Vinod, Montgomery County isn’t simply the place they grew up—it’s additionally the place their very own fathers, Surfy Rahman and Okay.N. Vinod, collectively opened the 31-year-old Bombay Bistro, a family-friendly Rockville establishment, and later, D.C.’s fashionable, upscale Indique. The unfamiliar menu usually puzzled associates who the youthful Rahman and Vinod delivered to Bombay Bistro, however they liked the meals that got here to the desk.

When the youthful Rahman and Vinod would carry their associates to their dad and mom’ restaurant, they seen that the unfamiliar menu usually puzzled them, however that they liked the meals that got here to the desk. “What we realized was that it wasn’t possibly a difficulty of the meals itself, however simply how individuals had been being launched to the meals and the tradition,” stated Vinod.

After finding out enterprise on the College of Maryland and dealing briefly within the company world, the youthful Rahman and Vinod determined to attempt a brand new, recent method to Indian eating places. Impressed by their highschool and faculty meals at Chipotle, the 2 spent a number of years planning Rasa (“essence” in Sanskrit), together with finessing the menu (with cleverly named dishes like Aloo Want Is Love and Tikka Likelihood on Me), securing funding, scouting a location, designing the inside and studying the fundamentals—like learn how to prepare dinner.

“At first, it was loopy,” stated Vinod, with siblings, dad and mom and important others pitching in to get that first location, in Washington’s Navy Yard neighborhood, up and working.

Critics liked it. Tom Sietsema of The Washington Publish praised the restaurant’s “deliciously nuanced ‘Residence Cooking,’ skinny rice noodles and gingery shrimp that share their bowl with wrinkly inexperienced beans, mango salsa and mango coconut yogurt,” he wrote in 2018. That yr, he named Rasa considered one of his favourite eating places in his annual eating information.

Early within the pandemic, Rahman and Vinod used their restaurant—and the then-on-hold second location, in Mt. Vernon Triangle—to do some good. They partnered with star D.C. chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen to distribute some 50,000 free meals to medical professionals and different first responders.

The pandemic didn’t cease the enterprise from rising. In 2021 and 2022, Rasa opened in Crystal Metropolis and Fairfax’s Mosaic District, and the enterprise now counts roughly 90 staff.

“Whereas we’ve obtained massive ambitions, we additionally hope to carry it again house to School Park at some point, too,” stated Rahman.