Love Indian food? Visit Travelers Thali House this week

Earlier this month (October 13-21) was the Hindu festival of Navratri, which is dedicated to nine nights of worshipping the female divinity (hell yeah). During this sacred time, Hindus eat special foods, like sweet and sour pumpkin, cheese-stuffed potato dumplings in tomato-cashew gravy, and other dishes made without onion and garlic.

At Travelers Thali House, a gem of a restaurant in the purple house just north of the Beacon Hill Light Rail Station, the special thali menu is being offered through the end of the month. They have a major reason to celebrate over there.

Chef-owner Allen Kornmesser has returned to the kitchen after more than a year away battling stage IV colon cancer. Following surgery in the summer of 2014, Kornmesser, a Northwest native and U Dub PhD who reads Sanskrit, underwent aggressive chemotherapy that shrunk his cancer enough to remove it successfully in a second surgery. We’re thrilled to report he’s cancer free and back in the kitchen cooking up yummy samosas and chaats. (More feel-good points: During his absence, Kornmesser’s god son, Merlin Tosh, 19, took Kornmesser’s place in the kitchen).

Kornmesser’s special Navratri menu is available through Oct. 31 and features, in addition to the dishes listed above, green banana fritters, lotus puff raita, Bengali sweet coconut balls, and a Navaratan salad we’re all over that includes among its nine ingredients: cucumber, pineapple, grapes and fresh grated paneer.

For a detailed menu and hours, visit the restaurant’s website.