Soup Friday: Nalan Indian Cuisine - Tomato Rasam
After spending my Black Soup Friday spending a lot of money on Amazon Christmas gifts for my family, I felt the need to support a local business and my local stomach. With a recent hankering for Indian food and a heightened interest to try more international soups, it took all of a few seconds to determine where I would order my soup from this evening. Over the past couple of years, I’ve enjoyed going with friends to one of my favorite local Indian restaurants: Nalan Indian Cuisine. I scouted Nalan’s online menu to see what soup options were available. To Nalan’s credit, they’re not like other restaurants that may just list a soup of the day and one other regular option at most. Nalan goes above and beyond with its soup menu that offers you six different soups to choose from daily. In an effort to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone, I decided to try a soup without chicken or a cream base. In case you missed the title of this blog, I selected tomato rasam and added it as the lone item to my cart.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the State Street Plaza!
Ten minutes later, I drove to the State Street Plaza in Lemoyne where Nalan is housed. Seated directly on State Street and neighboring the locally-renowned West Shore Farmers Market, the State Street Plaza may have the most eclectic collection of stores and restaurants I have ever seen. As you enter, a tobacco and cigar store welcomes you on your left. You’re next greeted by Susquehanna Smoke, your one-stop shop for vapes and vape accessories. Susquehanna Smoke directly borders an impeccably-named yarn shop: String Theory. A few doors down, the United Cerebral Palsy of Central Pennsylvania location sits next to a sports marketing and memorabilia store that recently replaced the empty suite of what once was the team store for the Harrisburg Stampede. The Stampede were a former professional indoor football team that sadly folded at the end of 2024. (Many locals are likely unaware this team ever existed.) Across the parking lot, fittingly on the eastern side of the plaza, Dong Yang Mart is saddled between two international eateries: Korealicious and Nagoya Japanese Restaurant. At the far end, a staffing company is located next to New QQ Spa, a business that offers massage and other services. The interior view of the massage parlor was obstructed by a blacked-out door, heavy drapes running from the ceiling to the floor, and posters featuring stock images of beautiful people receiving massages. It’s open until 9:30 PM each night, but beware, according to a Google review by local man Jeff Cox, “They do not speak English or accept Facebook coupons.” After a well-spent minute of admiring the State Street Plaza’s heterogeneous tenants, I walked into Nalan to retrieve my soup.
Taking and fulfilling orders, the Nalan staff glided fervently around the narrow interior of the crowded restaurant. Bewildered by my small order of just soup, the employee serving takeout customers asked me multiple times to verify that all I wanted was soup. This question has actually become a fairly regular occurrence for me on Soup Fridays. After the third time I confirmed the order was correct, I was handed a warm brown paper bag and headed home.
Based on this picture, I’m not sure how I missed the liquid on the side of the plate that ultiamtely caused a stain.
I opened the bowl’s lid and the smell of an Indian take on buffalo sauce emitted from its top. When picking the spice level, I opted for the mild version. Typically, I would have selected a notch slightly higher than that, but I modified the soup’s heat for a couple of reasons: as a self-aware white boy, I have a deep reverence for the spice tolerance of the Pan-Asian people who have a dramatically different spiciness scale than most caucasians and I don’t want to have to blame it on the mat during my Pilates class tomorrow morning. The soup tasted as bold as its aroma. At first, my tastebuds failed to translate the atypical broth’s tangy language. Not long after, we suffered the first casualty of this Soup Friday season. After glancing at my phone for a brief moment, I noticed a giant yellow stain expanding in size on my tablecloth. I attempted emergency spray-and-wash compressions (one Soup-thousand, two Soup-thousand, three Soup-thousand…), but my efforts were futile. After making peace with the stain situation, the tomato rasam grew on me and I even appreciated the balance generated by the bitter leaves scattered throughout it. Still, it felt like another element could have been added to enhance the product overall and ultimately, better satiate the consumer. I was later told that tomato rasam is typically served with rice on the side, so that might be the exact solution to my primary complaint.
If you’re interested in their food but not living in the Lemoyne, PA area, well, good news, there are also Nalan locations that randomly can be found in Downingtown, PA and Charlotte, NC. However, heed my Indian friends’ advice, “Go to Nalan for the appetizers and entrees, not the soup.”