Zaika Catering: Reading the Menu for Jain Guests, and How to Order for a Seattle Office

Zaika cooks North Indian food on Pike Street in downtown Seattle, and its own catering page puts an offer in writing. It says every menu can be tailored to dietary preferences, and it names Jain beside vegan and gluten-free. If your office has Jain colleagues, that line is worth reading before the first order.

Many Jains leave out root vegetables, and onion, garlic and potato are the three a planner can read on a menu. So we read the Zaika menu on Zerocater for those three words. Twenty-nine of the eighty-two meat-free lines name onion, garlic or potato, and fifty-three name none. Those fifty-three, and the fifteen entrees among them, are where a Jain request starts.

A downtown Seattle kitchen that tailors the menu

Zaika sits on Pike Street at the edge of downtown, and it delivers across Downtown, Capitol Hill, Belltown, Broadway and the neighborhoods around them. The name means taste in Hindi. The kitchen describes its food as traditional Indian recipes cooked with Washington produce and plated with a modern hand, and it runs dine-in, takeout and catering from the same kitchen.

Two lines on the catering page matter most to an office planner. The first says the catering menu is the same as the regular takeout menu, so a team that already knows a Zaika lunch knows the catering list. The second says all menus can be tailored to dietary preferences and names vegan, gluten-free and Jain as examples. The page also offers pickup, delivery and full-service catering, from setup to cleanup.

The menu on Zerocater runs to a hundred and thirty-one lines. Seventy-three of them are entrees: paneer and vegetable curries, dals, biryani, chicken, goat and lamb curries, a long run of prawn and fish dishes, and a handful of Indian-spiced burgers. The rest are street snacks, rice and breads, a few sauces, desserts and lassi.

What many Jain guests leave out

Jain teaching recommends against eating root vegetables, because pulling up the root destroys the whole plant. The Pew Research Center asked about root vegetables in its survey of religion in India. Roughly nine in ten Jains in India said they are vegetarian, and about two-thirds of Jains in India said they abstain from root vegetables such as garlic and onion. Pew notes that even among Hindus in India, roughly one in five said the same.

Two things follow for a planner. A Jain guest’s order starts from the meat-free side of the menu. And within that side, onion, garlic and potato are the words to look for, because they are the root vegetables an Indian menu names most often. Practice varies from person to person, so the guest is always the one to ask. Nothing in this guide decides it for them.

Twenty-nine of eighty-two meat-free lines name onion, garlic or potato

We set aside every line that names meat, prawns or fish, which leaves eighty-two meat-free lines. Then we read each name and description for onion, garlic and potato, with aloo, fries and wedges counted as potato. Lines are counted as the menu lists them, so a dish sold in two sizes counts twice. The table shows the result by section.

So twenty-nine of the eighty-two name one of the three, and fifty-three name none. Potato is the most common, on seventeen lines. Onion is on fourteen, and garlic on three: the Garlic Naan, the Dry Manchurian and the Fire Roasted Eggplant Bharta.

The three words do not sit evenly. Potato sits on the snack side, where it is usually the filling itself: the aloo tikki, the chaat, two of the samosa lines, the masala wedges and the potato-patty burgers. Onion spreads wider. Seven of its fourteen lines are curries, where the description names it as part of the sauce, as on the Kadhai Paneer, the Paneer Butter Masala and both sizes of the Bhindi, and four are burgers. That split helps you. A snack built on potato is a different dish without it, while a curry is a question of how the kitchen builds the sauce.

The fifteen meat-free entrees where a Jain request starts

Of the seventy-three entrees, twenty-eight are meat-free, and fifteen meat-free entrees name no onion, garlic or potato. They are the natural place to start a Jain request, because none of them names one of the three words you need to raise. Ten of the fifteen are paneer or dal dishes.

Round those out from the rice and bread section, where eleven of the fifteen lines name none of the three: the plain, pilau and basmati rice, and the tandoori naan, butter naan, rosemary naan, chapati, tandoori roti, lachha paratha, paneer naan and the flatbread the menu lists for guests who skip wheat. All four desserts and the three drinks name none either.

A description that names none is a place to start

A menu description lists what the kitchen chose to mention, not every ingredient. The samosas make the point. The Vegetable Samosas line says fried pastry triangles filled with spiced vegetables and names no potato. The Mix Cocktail Samosa line beside it names spiced potatoes, and so does the Samosas With Chickpeas line. The Pav Bhaji names a spiced mixed vegetable curry and stops there. And a curry described only by its sauce does not say what went into the base of that sauce.

So treat the fifty-three lines that name none as a place to start, and let the kitchen confirm. The count does the planner’s first job, which is knowing which dishes to raise, and the kitchen does the second, which is saying what it can prepare. That is the conversation Zaika’s catering page invites.

How to order Zaika catering for a Seattle office

Start with the guest. Ask each Jain colleague what they leave out, because practice varies, and keep the answer to yourself and the kitchen. Then build the order in three steps. Order the room’s lunch the usual way. Pick the Jain share from the fifteen meat-free entrees above, with rice and plain breads. Then send the kitchen the guest count and the dish names, and ask it to prepare those dishes for Jain guests.

Say twenty-five people are coming to a Thursday team lunch and two of them keep Jain. Order chicken tikka masala, a goat curry, the Palak Paneer and the Daal Makhani for the room, with rice and naan. Add the Paneer Makhni and the Muttar Paneer, name both with the Daal Makhani as the Jain dishes, and ask for plain rice and roti alongside. The rest of the room can eat those dishes too.

Direct, Zaika’s catering page carries a quote request and a phone number, and its catering policy sets out how delivery and group orders work. Read that policy before a large order.

Through Zerocater, the Zaika page carries the current menu and a live quote, and the order sits alongside every other kitchen your office already uses, on one invoice. How it works covers the mechanics, and our Seattle office catering cost guide covers budgets across the city.

Plan Zaika catering with CaterAi

Our guide to ordering for mixed dietary needs covers how to collect requests from a whole team, the vegetarian office catering guide covers how big the meat-free share should be, and the office guide to Indian catering covers formats and menu structure. Confirm the current detail with the kitchen before you order for anyone with a dietary requirement. Nothing here is dietary or religious advice.

Zaika and Zerocater

A kitchen that says in writing it will tailor a menu for Jain guests makes a mixed office lunch easier to plan. The count above gives the planner a short list to bring, and the kitchen does the rest. That makes Zaika a useful kitchen to keep in a downtown Seattle rotation, and a strong pick for any team with Jain, vegetarian and meat-eating colleagues at the same table.

CaterAi builds the rotation, keeps track of what the office has already eaten, and brings a kitchen like this one in when the week needs an Indian lunch. For ongoing office catering, Zerocater manages the rotation across every kitchen the team likes. Seattle catering covers the city, and Indian catering in Seattle narrows it to Indian kitchens. For more reading, Mirch Masala and Mr. Gyros are two more Seattle partner kitchens on the blog, and Curryous is another Indian partner kitchen, in San Francisco.

Menus change. This guide describes how the Zaika menu reads rather than what is on it this week. For the current menu and a live quote, use the Zaika page on Zerocater, and confirm the current detail with the kitchen before you order for anyone with a dietary requirement.

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of food does Zaika cater?

North Indian curries, paneer dishes, dals, biryani, tandoor breads and street snacks such as chaat, samosas and aloo tikki, from a restaurant on Pike Street in downtown Seattle. The menu on Zerocater also carries Indian-spiced burgers and a run of prawn and fish curries.

Can Zaika cater for Jain guests?

Zaika’s own catering page says its menus can be tailored to dietary preferences, and it names Jain beside vegan and gluten-free. Tell the kitchen how many Jain guests are coming and name the dishes you want, and it confirms what it can prepare. Confirm the current detail with the kitchen before you order. Nothing here is dietary or religious advice.

How many Zaika dishes name onion, garlic or potato?

On the Zerocater menu, twenty-nine of the eighty-two meat-free lines name onion, garlic or potato in the description, and fifty-three name none. Potato is the most common of the three, on seventeen lines, most of them snacks.

Does a dish that names no onion contain none?

Not necessarily. A description names what the kitchen chose to list. The Vegetable Samosas line names no potato, while the Mix Cocktail Samosa line beside it names potatoes. Use the names as a place to start, and let the kitchen confirm.

What about ginger?

Some guests who leave out root vegetables also leave out fresh ginger, and some do not. Four meat-free lines on the Zerocater menu name it: the Daal Tadka and the Fire Roasted Eggplant Bharta among the entrees, and the Dry Manchurian and the Dahi Kebab among the snacks. The Daal Tadka is on the start list above, so ask the guest, then pass the answer to the kitchen.

How do you order Zaika for a mixed office lunch?

Order the room’s lunch the usual way, then build the Jain guests’ share from the meat-free entrees that name no onion, garlic or potato, with rice and plain breads. Give the kitchen the guest count and the dish names, and ask it to prepare those dishes for Jain guests.

How do you order Zaika catering?

Two routes. Direct, through the quote request on Zaika’s own catering page or by phone. Or through Zerocater, where the Zaika page carries the current menu and a live quote, and the order sits alongside every other kitchen your office uses.

Plan Zaika catering with CaterAi

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