The sweet juices burst in your mouth with a tantalizing mix of flavors and textures the refreshing cardamom, peppery betel leaf, biting cloves, tangy fennel and sweet rose paste. The experience is as seductive as a stolen kiss, as relaxing as an after-dinner cigar. You search for the nearest garbage can and spit. If you were the king of Siam, you would have a gold-plated spittoon nearby for this very purpose. You can find good paan in New York, too.
Most Indian restaurants offer it premade in sterile packages.
For authentic paan, made in front of your eyes, you have to go to Jackson Heights, Queens. There, on 35th Avenue between 72nd and 73rd Streets, a paan vendor stands with his little cart. If you have a dollar and a few minutes, you can get a sada or meetha paan on the spot. Sada paans replace the sweet coconut flakes, rose paste and sugar- coated fennel with extra betel nuts and tobacco. I always ask for my meetha paan without any tobacco paste at all.