Curry Up Now Indian Restaurant and Catering
Akash and Rana Kapoor ran one truck at Howard and Primrose in Burlingame from 2009. This B Street room was the first one with walls, and the tikka masala burrito came with them.
Why go
The trucks came first and the menu barely changed when the room opened.1 You order at the counter off a wall menu, take a small chalkboard with your name on it to a table, and the food finds you.1 What the room added was thalis, two or three items with saffron basmati, parantha and a salad, plus a kids menu Rana Kapoor built by asking her own children.1 Fifteen years on the company runs rooms in five states, and this is where it started.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the chicken tikka masala burrito, one of the truck dishes KQED lists as a
fan favorite
alongside the kathi rolls and the deconstructed samosas.1 - Avoid: treating the thali as the quick option. It is the sit-down plate; the burritos and rolls are what the counter is built to turn over.1
What locals & experts say
- Rana Kapoor, on the kids menu:
I didn't know what to put on the kids menu so I asked my kids what I should do. They said, 'Mom, just serve them what you serve us!'
1 - Curry Up Now, on its meat:
All meat at Curry Up Now is halal certified. That's not a marketing checkbox. It's how we've sourced meat since day one.
The company names no certifier on the page.2
Good to know
- Which door. This is the original at 129 S B Street. The company now runs locations in California, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Alabama.2
- On the cooking, I have nothing to quote. KQED covered the opening weekend and said plainly it would not judge food on a first day, and I turned up no later review, so I have no critic's line to hand you here.
Verdict
could-visit — The claim on your attention is that this is the first room, opened in 2011 off four trucks, and KQED was in it that weekend to write down how it worked. That is a well-documented start and it is nearly all the evidence there is. No reviewer has judged the cooking here at any point, including KQED, which said outright it would not review opening-day food, so the rung reflects a documented origin with an empty review column. The halal sourcing is the company's own statement and no certifier is named on it.