Curry Diva Tickles Senses at Edina Grill

KS95 morning show co-host Ryan follows the Curry Diva wherever she's serving up her spicy dishes.

"Her food is addicting," he said. "You just crave it."

That's what brought him and his partner to the on a recent Monday night, where Heather Jansz (a.k.a. the Curry Diva) served up bowls of chicken, lamb and veggie curry to her devoted foodies.

For several weeks, she was busy dishing up the food of her homeland—Sri Lanka—and other Asian dishes at the popular 50th & France restaurant.

Although curry may seem unusual for the Edina Grill, the owners have been friends and supporters of the Curry Diva for years.

"I've known David and Stephanie since they opened the Highland Grill and I was opening up the Curry Leaf Deli on Grand Avenue in St. Paul," Jansz explained. "So we got to be friends and David needed his curry fix."

Cut to many years later, when the Blue Plate Restaurant Company had booming business at its many locations. First, David Burley asked the Curry Diva to host a regular night at Highland Grill. Then, in 2011, he asked her to go "On the Road," visiting their other places throughout the summer.

At one of her last sessions at the Edina Grill, Jansz created beautifully balanced plates with basmati rice in the center and meat curries, dahl (made from lentils) and coconut-laced broccolini placed around it.

Two small containers—one of coconut curry habanero sambol and the other of ginger plum chutney—sat atop the works. The veggie plate featured a potato curry, dahl, rice and broccolini, plus an additional tomato and cucumber salad with a mustard dressing. Everything came with crispy papadums.

Other days she'll change it up, perhaps making roti, Indonesian, Nepalese and other foods, but always offering one meat, one chicken or fish and one veggie option.

Jansz—of Burgher descent—grew up in Colombo watching her mother cook. When she moved here after a stint in Australia, she co-owned The Sri Lanka Curry House and then the Curry Leaf Deli, and co-wrote a cookbook called Fire and Spice: The Cooking of Sri Lanka.

These days, she more consciously follows Ayurveda practices with her cooking, although she says the food always had it in it. She is simply more aware of what she calls its "taste sense qualities."

"Basically what I do is activate the senses through food," she said. "So we've got the sweet, sour, salt, bitter, pungent and the astringent and on a daily basis the average American only activates the first three."

"If you activate all six of those in at least one meal a day, then your body won't lack or crave for anything in particular and it won't be out of balance."

With her closer attention to these principles, she's gotten the chance to cook for many yoga followers and recently, Deepak Chopra.

"I told him he's been on my vision board forever," Jansz gushed.

When she's not hosting her Curry Diva nights, she's catering private events, giving cooking classes and donating her services to various fund-raisers. Jansz has a website detailing all her endeavors, including a set of YouTube cooking videos online.

Jansz loves her once-a-week restaurant visits, greeting most folks personally, always ready to explain that curry is a style of cooking, not one set recipe. It's that kind of talk that earned her the Curry Diva nickname.

The Grill avoided taking reservations, despite the fact that the curry crowds increased over her six-week Edina engagement.

"The first night was around 30-32 and the second week we did about 60 covers," calculated Katie Ledin, a manager at Edina Grill.

Jansz estimated she was serving as many as 80 curry dinners each Monday.

One of those diners, named Carissa, came from Uptown to sate her need for a Curry Diva dish.

As she put it, "Oh my gosh. Once you try her food, you can't go back. It's true what she says—once a week and you're good for your fix. I miss it if I don't have it."

While the window has passed for getting the food in Edina, Jansz will soon be dishing up her hand-mixed garam masala, curry mixes, sambol and chutneys at Maple Grove's 3 Squares restaurant.