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Avtar Kaur could have opened her business anywhere in the city. There are, after all, only four other Indian food carts in town. But she picked the corner of Southwest 12th Avenue and Yamhill Street—right next to the familiar saffron-colored India Chaat House. Odd, sure, but here’s what’s really weird—she ran the Chaat House for nine years with her ex-husband, Daljit Singh, until he was awarded it in a divorce settlement and sold it. Her decision to move in next door launched a dramatic Yamhill curry war worthy of a Bollywood masala movie. Kaur’s new kitchen, the Bombay Chaat House, is a former pizza stand. The 45-year-old woman looks a bit incongruous at the Italian red-white-and-green service window in her traditional Indian saalwaar kameez (the ubiquitous trousers and tunic that originated in Punjab) and turquoise headscarf. And behind her, in the cramped kitchen-on-wheels, her son Amrit Singh, 21, bearded and turbaned, helps cook up the same menu of Punjabi specialties as the Indian Chaat House next door. Customers at both carts often ask why there are two Indian carts next to each other. “I’m speechless,” says Mike Cheema, the new, Pakistani proprietor of the India Chaat House. “It’s the strangest thing in Portland.” (via “The Chaat House Wars” | Willamette Week | July 8th, 2009)

Avtar Kaur could have opened her business anywhere in the city. There are, after all, only four other Indian food carts in town. But she picked the corner of Southwest 12th Avenue and Yamhill Street—right next to the familiar saffron-colored India Chaat House. Odd, sure, but here’s what’s really weird—she ran the Chaat House for nine years with her ex-husband, Daljit Singh, until he was awarded it in a divorce settlement and sold it.

Her decision to move in next door launched a dramatic Yamhill curry war worthy of a Bollywood masala movie.

Kaur’s new kitchen, the Bombay Chaat House, is a former pizza stand. The 45-year-old woman looks a bit incongruous at the Italian red-white-and-green service window in her traditional Indian saalwaar kameez (the ubiquitous trousers and tunic that originated in Punjab) and turquoise headscarf. And behind her, in the cramped kitchen-on-wheels, her son Amrit Singh, 21, bearded and turbaned, helps cook up the same menu of Punjabi specialties as the Indian Chaat House next door.

Customers at both carts often ask why there are two Indian carts next to each other. “I’m speechless,” says Mike Cheema, the new, Pakistani proprietor of the India Chaat House. “It’s the strangest thing in Portland.”

(via “The Chaat House Wars” | Willamette Week | July 8th, 2009)