chai shai.
CHAI • SHAI \ CHI-SHI\
1. Chai (tea) & all the paraphenelia attached to a tea service. In Pakistan and India, this includes street food, such as samosas & pakoras.
2. Also used to describe a social gathering place, a time for interesting conversation & even better food!
The first time I bit into one of Chai Shai’s fresh veggie samosas I felt like I was home, though I’m not from Pakistan, nor have I ever even been there. But the hot, crispy potato and peas samosa, served up with some homemade mint-cilantro chutney and washed down with a steaming cup of masala chai, instantly transported me back simultaneously to all the many rapturous gastronomic travel moments experienced on a railway platform, or a nameless street, somewhere in the middle of Northern India – a non-specific dreamy place of comfort that always dwells in my heart and stomach. Whoa man! I’m not in Kansas anymore. But, actually I was. Well, in Kansas City, Missouri anyway, of all places, sitting at a corner chai shop in a tree-lined, residential neighborhood eating Pakistani street food. Brilliant.
When I met the Tufail brothers, Abdul and Kashif, they were chilling out at the end of a long, busy day about a month after their shop had opened. Chai lover that I am, I sat, still in a state of blissful shock, having discovered that there was now a chai shop only three blocks away from the place I stay when I’m working in KC. Talk about creating your own reality. As we chatted, Abdul reminisced about waking in Lahore, lighting up a cigarette, and strolling down to the local chai shop and just sitting around and visiting with friends for hours sharing conversation and drinking chai. I could not help but recall parallel memories of sitting on the steps at the edge of the Ganga in Banaras with Indian friends, sipping chai (without the cigarette), people watching and talking about this and that. Yes, this is it. These guys have brought that place here, transplanting the seed of chai culture to the middle of America, and the experience that naturally goes with it.
Kashif and his mother, Aasma
Now every time I’m in KC, I visit Chai Shai for a bit of home cookin’ and Eastern hospitality. Since that first visit, Kashif, the café solid rock and front man, has always stopped what he is doing to greet me and take time out of his bustling day for a bit of conversation. He sincerely welcomes me as a friend and even, perhaps unknowingly, makes me feel like family. Just like the book Three Cups of Tea illustrates, after you have sat and had chai with someone a few times, and converse from a place of heart, you are family.
Chai Shai was conceived when the Tufails found a commercial kitchen space with the intention of making wholesale samosas for local Indian and Pakistani shops around KC – an expansion of their well-established, home-based cottage industry. After securing their space, which in its previous incarnation was a restaurant, neighbors started peeking in to see the new business and encouraged them to sell their samosas on site to eat. So they thought they would expand to sell some Pakistani street food – pakoras, chaat, samosas, and some chai to go with it – the basics. After sustained prodding from their growing customer base, they have now blossomed into a full-on restaurant and mini grocery, with a broadened menu offering lunch and dinners. There is a metal-shelved wall of imported dry goods: basmati, dhal, ghee, spices, tea, parle-g’s, condiments, you name it — all the staples the local Pakistani and Indian students from the nearby UMKC campus, as well as us Indo-food enthusiasts, would need.
Aasma Tufail
The last time I visited KC, the café had been established for a year and a half, and I was finally blessed with the opportunity to sit and have lunch with Aasma, the Tufail matriarch and mother of all who feast on her authentic Pakistani cuisine. She spoke of living in Pakistan as a school teacher, bringing her children to America for a better life, making samosas at home with her children when they were just toddlers, and the joy of having her two sons and daughter all living and working close together as a family. What more could a mother want? And her service to the local community extends beyond providing exotic comfort food. Aasma and her family offer a rare place on the planet where people from all walks can gather and share some chai and savory snacks or a meal together and simply talk. Like it says at the top of their chalk menu board: “Salaam means Peace!”
