Imported spices give Capri’s takeout offerings an exotic air
Published: March 12th, 2008 11:15 PM
Last Modified: April 1st, 2009 09:14 AM
ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News
Lettuce, onions, bell peppers and tomatoes team with mint sauce for a chicken fajita sandwich at Capri Pizza in Spenard. Fresh ingredients, especially the crust of the take-out spot's pizzas, have generated loyal customers for Capri since it opened about a year ago.
Walking through the doorway of Capri Pizza is, for a sensual moment, like following the footsteps of Marco Polo. The spices of the old Silk Road dance in the air: cardamom, cumin, garlic, turmeric, aniseed, saffron.
Shazia Chaudhry puts all of those flavors to work in the kitchen of Capri, which she and her husband, Raheel, opened about a year ago. The spices, imported from their native Pakistan via Seattle, become culinary compounds in mixes such as achar gosht(for meats) and malai kofta (for chicken meatball curry).
The exotic teases to the taste buds that result include shish-kebab pizza ($14.99 medium; $16.99 large) and chicken shami kebab, a savory chicken sandwich on pita bread ($6.99) festooned with fresh lettuce, tomato and cucumber — and topped with a piquant house-made mint sauce. It looks a bit like a chicken fajita sandwich, but the spice combination has a different tale to tell.
Such taste treats — all takeout and delivery; there is no sit-down dining room — are one reason Capri has quickly captured the hearts of a regular band of customers.
Another is the quality of the meats used, with kosher/halal offerings “blessed for God,” said Raheel, for customers who are Jewish or Muslim.
But listen to regulars who come in and out and you hear about an even bigger draw that keeps them coming: that crust!
“It’s so soft,” says a woman who always gets the shish-kebab pizza. She pokes the dough gently, and we watch it spring back.
On another visit, an airline pilot makes a similar comment. Shazia Chaudhry wraps his pizza in kitchen paper and foil, and the pilot steps out, whistling.
“He and his friends come in a lot on their way to a flight,” she said. “But we don’t put theirs in a pizza box, so no one will know they are taking special food onboard.”
Special food was always the couple’s goal. Raheel has been in the food business for years, having learned the trade at Italian restaurants in Sweden before coming to Alaska. (“It’s very much like Sweden here,” he jokes.)
His wife took a different professional path, earning four degrees in Pakistan (literature, education, psychology and politics) and going to work as a teacher and then a principal. But food was always a passion and a hobby. Even as an educator, she was planning meals and catering.
“You should come to my city, Lahore,” she said of the second-largest city in Pakistan, once the gem of the Mogul empire. “Our people love to eat, and Lahore is the place to go for wonderful food. You ask in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh — they know Lahore is the place!”
She recalls with a sigh how three streets in the main part of the city are closed every evening to become a street bazaar packed with people sampling morsels from shops and vendors and eating picnic-style.
“And bread — fresh bread — is very important,” she said. “At home, we make it two or three times a day, fresh bread for every meal.”
At Capri, a huge commercial dough machine converts two 25-pound bags of flour into 60 or 70 pizza crusts, but she also makes fresh dough by hand daily, and regulars have learned to ask for her lightly sesame’d flat bread.
Twice a week, she makes fresh yogurt with organic whole milk. One way that’s put to use is in the mango lassi, a fresh, frothy beverage that’s both healthy and tasty.
“You should see kids’ faces when they try it for the first time,” she said, beaming. “Yes, we serve pizza,” Raheel added, “but we wanted our food to be different, to keep people coming back.”
The shish-kebab pizza is one example; there is also a “double-decker” ($16.99-$18.99), a monster packed with seasoned ground beef, refried beans, black olives, red onions, tomatoes and mozzarella. Embracing the local market, Shazia has also developed a salmon pizza($14.99-$16.99) with red onions, tomatoes, green peppers, cheese and a light fish sauce instead of tomato paste.
And that dough — so light and soft, even when it’s reheated as leftovers. “How do you do it?” I ask.
A gleam sparks in Raheel’s eyes that quickly lights his whole face.
There is milk in it, he acknowledged. “And special oils. And more things.” But he’s not telling any more than that: “If I did, everyone would make pizza like we make it.” And that would never do.
Play dining reviewer Mike Peters can be reached at mpeters@adn.com.
Capri Pizza
Location: 4505 Spenard Road
Hours: 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Saturday, noon to 2 a.m. Sunday
Phone: 243-3333
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