Are you a Kati or a Frankie? Find Out at KATI ROLL CO Coming Soon

(Gerry Furth-Sides) Are you a Frankie or a Kati? Do you know the difference? You will soon when Kati Roll Company (#katirollco) comes to to town, bringing authentic, fun Indian Street food to LA. And second generation, Avinash Kapoor, who is bringing it to Los Angeles, already owns two of the most popular Indian restaurants in Los Angeles.

Both concepts started because street vendors didn’t have enough time to wash their plates between customers.  So they started serving their marinated and grilled kebabs wrapped in paratha or roti (Indian flatbread), serving the two items together without dishware.

And both go beautiful with refreshing fruit Lassis, a house-made blend of fruit and organic yogurt. The most famous is Mango Lassi shown below. Other flavors include blueberry and strawberry.

I start with the Kati, because it is my preference!  The Kati (or Kathi ) roll originated in Kolkata (Calcutta).  It has come in Bengal to be simply known as “roll”. The word Kati in native Bengali roughly translates to “stick”, referring to how they were originally made on skewers.

It has stuffing variations chosen from assorted veggies, cheese, meat, paneer, soy.  The traditional Kati fillings include coriander and chutney, with egg, and chicken proteins. A warm, lingering layer of spiciness comes from the addition of a sparkling array of spices.  Plain roti or a parantha that has some lamination is used as a Kati roll wrap.

The Frankie was created in Mumbai (Bombay) in the north and is unique to this area.  A Frankie is an Indian wrap best described as a “Mumbai Burrito” with no rice or beans. The standard Mumbai version wrap is roti.   Stuffed with a veggies, cottage cheese cutlet, it is seasoned with a combination of tangy sauces, then  rolled into an omelette-like layer on the inside.    Frankies are also distinguished by  the practice of egg washing the casing of the wrap.   

In American versions of the Frankie, naan baked in a tandoor oven is used, and an extra cost is made for the darker wheat, thicker roti, possibly because roti seems more exotic. This is a lot like the choice of a hamburger sandwich bun simply being on a soft white bread or whole wheat. 

Naan, an ancient Indian staple is perfect for a folded over quesadilla-like sandwich.  It’s a soft dough cooked at extremely high temperatures in substantial metal or clay cylindrical oven. Yogourt is added to the dough to soften it, and ghee to give it a gloss before the chef gently slaps it onto the side of the oven, where it sticks until it is baked. Naans are slightly puffy with a crackling thin, crisp crust spotted with bits of smoky char that breaks open to reveal airy, stretchy, slightly chewy bread underneath. Your mouth waters just to read about it!

Kati rolls are packed in paper whereas Frankies are rolled in foil.  So the Kati paper can be torn around the side as you eat it.  The Frankie can be slid up through the foil circle instead. This makes both of them convenient!

To get a better idea about how loved these two street food favorites are, consider this debate as the Indian counterpart to the American obsession with NY style versus Chicago pizza style.  The NY style has the thinnest of crusts and baked in a wood-burning oven at its best for a crunchy, flatbread canvas for usually light ingredients – like the Kati.   The deep-dish Chicago adds a doughy crust, more like the Frankie!

And, like the intense New York style vs  Chicago-style pizza style debate in America, the Indian one depends on which style Regional food you like best.    You can also compare the affection outside Indian for these two handheld street foods as the counterpart to the French obsession with cous cous.   And with the Brits who fell so much in love with Indian cuisine in India during the Raj that they blended their own flavors into the dishes and brought them back to England, where they are ranked ahead of Anglo food in annual surveys!

Indian restaurants run by Indian families in recent decades, in Canada and the United States, have propelled the Frankie and Kati into a “favorite” ranking in take-out restaurants. Now it is available to you to make own choice to see which you are: a Frankie or a Kati!

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