Roanoke’s Taaza Restaurant Featured on New PBS Food & Travel Series

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Spice Road celebrates South Asian cuisine, culture and the inspirational people working to keep tradition alive.

The creation of a new four-part PBS food and travel series focused on South Asian cuisine had Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sami Khan and Indian American actor/writer Rupak Ginn making a pit stop at Roanoke’s very own Taaza Indian Cuisine.

Spice Road follows Ginn as he ventures across the United States to meet hardworking restaurateurs who are serving up dishes that pay homage to the traditions and customs of their South Asian roots. Ginn also explores the connection he has to his own family’s history along the way. 

In the second episode of Spice Road, Ginn visits Taaza Indian Cuisine on Memorial Avenue. Not only did he help owners Sara and Peter Radjou whip up some Gobi Manchurian, a delicious cauliflower Indo-Chinese appetizer, but he also enjoyed a sampling of the restaurant’s take on traditional Indian street foods and talked to the pair about the hardships they faced as they worked to make their dream of operating a successful Indian restaurant a reality. “Learning about the sacrifices [the husband and wife duo] made to achieve their vision and how they hung in there together,” Ginn says, “was really impactful.”

Sara Radjou says that above all else, she's hopeful that her and Peter's story will show others that while the journey to accomplishing your goals may be long and taxing, that doesn’t mean you should stop striving to achieve them. “If you work hard, have determination and a dream, you can succeed.”

Ginn adds that when people are finished watching the first season of Spice Road, he hopes they “come away feeling that if we embrace each other, particularly those who seem different, beautiful things can happen that we may never have expected – beyond our wildest imagination.” 

Spice Road premiers June 22 with the second episode featuring Taaza Indian Cuisine releasing on July 6 on both PBS Digital's streaming platforms and the PBS Food YouTube channel.

 Roanoke Love Q&A with Rupak Ginn

What do you love most about the Roanoke area? 

What I love about Roanoke is that the people are so warm and full of empathy. I grew up in a big city in New York and people are really nice there too, but people, I’d say, are a little more in a rush. And so what I like is that the pace of Roanoke is the right pace for life in many ways and for that warmth and empathy to come out, which all human beings have – it’s not like New Yorkers don’t have it, they certainly do – but I feel like the environment of Roanoke enables that to come out of people. 

And then the other thing I love, of course, is the Blue Ridge Mountains. I always say it’s truly God’s Country, and I knew we had to get a shot of it [for the Roanoke episode of Spice Road].

What is your favorite memory from your time spent filming in Roanoke?

[Aside from speaking with Sara and Peter Radjou, it] was getting to sit down with my wife, Nancy Redd, and my mother-in-law, Amanda Redd, and getting some of my mother-in-law’s story down on film like that, that was truly special. I mean, I don’t think that’s happened before with my mother-in-law, certainly, so I’ll always treasure that memory.