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Blog In 2009, a food truck showed up at the corner of Howard and Primrose in Burlingame, California with an idea that most people thought was a stretch. Take Indian cooking, specifically the bold spice blends, halal proteins, and layered flavors that had been served almost exclusively through sit-down restaurants and buffets in the United States, and put it inside a flour tortilla. Seal it in foil. Serve it at counter speed.
The idea was Akash Kapoor's. He and his wife Rana built Curry Up Now from that single food truck into a brand covered by Forbes, Bon Appétit, Eater, Food and Wine, and Netflix's Ugly Delicious. Sixteen years later, the Indian burrito in Flower Mound TX is available at 2717 Cross Timbers Rd, in the Flower Mound Town Center near Lakeside DFW. Same dish, same halal supply chain, same recipe that started the whole thing.
The Mission burrito format from San Francisco's 24th Street corridor is one of the better food delivery systems ever developed. A large flour tortilla, wrapped tight, foil-sealed, holds heat for 45 minutes, no cutlery needed, scales from one person to a hundred without changing how it's made. The format was already proven. Indian cuisine just hadn't been put inside it yet.
The reason it works so well with Indian cooking is the sauce density. Tikka masala, made from a tomato-cream base with garam masala, coriander, and Kashmiri red chili, has the right viscosity to hold in a burrito without making the tortilla soggy if the rice base is properly built. Turmeric rice creates a dry enough barrier between the sauce and the tortilla wall. HI-Slaw, Curry Up Now's housemade slaw with coconut milk, mango, apple, and cabbage, adds textural contrast in the way a burrito needs something crunchy to counter the soft filling.
Akash Kapoor knew all of this. The Tikka Masala Burrito was not an accident of fusion. It was a deliberately engineered dish, and it has not changed since 2009 because it didn't need to.
This is the dish that built the brand. Halal chicken, lamb, or paneer in tikka masala sauce, turmeric rice, HI-Slaw, flour tortilla. Tikka masala has a contested but interesting history: food historians most commonly attribute the dish to Ali Ahmed Aslam at Shish Mahal restaurant in Glasgow in the 1970s, when a customer complained his tandoori chicken was too dry and the kitchen improvised a tomato-cream sauce. The dish spread across Indian restaurants in the UK and US for decades before Akash put it in a burrito.
The full deep-dive on this dish is in the Tikka Masala Burrito guide for Flower Mound. Worth reading before your first visit.
Butter chicken, known in Punjabi cooking as murgh makhani, was invented at Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi in the 1950s. Two families, the Gujrals and the Jaggi's, have both claimed credit and actually went to court over it. What's not disputed is the dish itself: chicken simmered in a tomato-butter sauce with cream, fenugreek, and warm spices. Rich, mildly spiced, and widely considered the most popular Indian dish in the United States.
Inside the Makhni Butter Burrito at Curry Up Now, it is excellent. If you're bringing someone who is nervous about spice level, start here. It's the right entry point. Not boring, just approachable.
This one needs some context because a lot of vegan menu items at restaurants are just the meat version with the meat removed. That's not what the Hella Vegan Burrito is. It uses chana garbanzo masala as the protein base, a slow-cooked spiced chickpea preparation that has been eaten across South Asia for centuries, and it was designed as a standalone dish. Not modified from the meat version.
At the Oakland, California Curry Up Now location, the Hella Vegan Burrito is the single most-ordered item. Oakland is one of the most plant-forward cities in the country and the dish earned its ranking there honestly. For Flower Mound's growing vegan and plant-forward community, this is worth knowing: you are not getting a compromise dish. You are getting the best-selling item from one of Curry Up Now's most demanding markets.
Every burrito converts to a bowl by swapping the flour tortilla for turmeric rice or cauliflower rice. The Bowl is on the standard menu as its own item, not a special request. Tikka Masala Bowl, Makhni Butter Bowl, Hella Vegan Bowl. For anyone managing gluten sensitivity or celiac, the Bowl format removes the wheat component without touching the fillings or the preparation. You order it by name. It's ready the same way any other item is ready.
There are a lot of burritos in north Texas. Flower Mound has Mexican and Tex-Mex options within minutes of the Curry Up Now location. The Indian burrito is not competing in that category, though. It's a different cuisine inside the same format, and the comparison doesn't really hold up once you've eaten both.
The spice profile of tikka masala, Kashmiri chilies, garam masala, and a tomato-cream base with yogurt-marinated protein, tastes nothing like a Tex-Mex filling. The HI-Slaw, made with coconut milk and mango, is closer to a Southeast Asian slaw than anything you'd find at a taqueria. The turmeric rice has its own distinct flavor, mild but earthy. Everything about the dish signals Indian cooking from the first bite.
Akash Kapoor was not trying to replace Mexican food with Indian food. He was taking the best portable food format he knew and putting the cuisine he grew up with inside it. The result is something that occupies its own category. Curry Up Now calls it Indo-Californian cuisine: Indian flavors, California speed, California casualness, and the kind of menu that assumes the person ordering is in a hurry and wants something worth eating.
The burrito is the anchor of the menu, but it's not the only thing worth ordering. The Indian street food in Flower Mound at Curry Up Now spans several regional Indian food traditions that most north DFW diners have not encountered before.
Kachori Chaat is from Rajasthan's sweet-shop tradition: crispy pastry stuffed with spiced lentils, topped with tamarind chutney, mint chutney, yogurt, and sev. It's the best first chaat dish if you haven't had chaat before.
Pav Bhaji is Mumbai street food that dates to the 1850s. Spiced vegetable mash cooked on a flat iron, served with buttered bread rolls. Mill workers in Victoria Terminus used to eat it for lunch because it was fast, filling, and available from street vendors at all hours. Now it's available at 2717 Cross Timbers Rd.
Naughty Naan is Akash Kapoor's second invention: naan flatbread used as an Indian-style pizza base. Caramelized onions, jalapeño, mozzarella, cotija, with tandoori chicken or pav bhaji on top. The dish that usually converts skeptics who came in for the burrito and left ordering this the next time.
For the full picture of the best Indian restaurant in Flower Mound and what makes Curry Up Now specifically different from the sit-down and buffet options in the area, that guide covers the comparison honestly.
The Flower Mound location opened in June 2025 in the Flower Mound Town Center retail corridor near Lakeside DFW and Grapevine Lake. Free parking in the shared retail lot. Open daily from 11am to 9pm. If you want to call ahead for a large group order, the number is (214) 222-5596.
For catering, the Indian catering guide for Flower Mound explains how the program works for office lunches, private celebrations, and corporate events. The food truck format is available for outdoor events across north DFW.
All 12 Curry Up Now locations across California, Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina are on the store locator.
An Indian burrito uses a large flour tortilla to wrap Indian-spiced fillings including halal proteins in tikka masala or butter sauce, turmeric rice, and housemade slaw. The format was invented by Akash Kapoor at the first Curry Up Now food truck in Burlingame, California in April 2009. It combines Mission burrito format with Indian cooking tradition and is the founding dish of the Indo-Californian cuisine category.
Curry Up Now at 2717 Cross Timbers Rd, Suite 400, Flower Mound, TX 75028. Open daily 11am to 9pm. Call (214) 222-5596 for large orders.
Yes. Every chicken and lamb protein at Curry Up Now is halal-certified from the supply chain in place since the brand's founding in 2009. No separate request needed.
Tikka Masala Burrito with halal chicken, lamb, or paneer. Makhni Butter Burrito with butter chicken or paneer. Hella Vegan Burrito with chana garbanzo masala. All convert to gluten-free Bowl format by swapping the tortilla for turmeric rice or cauliflower rice.
Tikka masala uses a tomato-cream sauce with Kashmiri chilies for a bolder, spicier profile. Makhni butter uses a cream and butter tomato sauce with fenugreek for a milder, richer taste. Both use halal protein and the same turmeric rice and HI-Slaw base.
Yes. The Hella Vegan Burrito is a standard menu item built around chana garbanzo masala. It's not a modified meat burrito. It's a standalone dish and the best-selling item at Curry Up Now's Oakland location.
Indo-Californian cuisine is the fast-casual food category invented by Akash Kapoor in 2009. It combines authentic Indian flavors with California food formats like burritos, bowls, and flatbread pizza. Forbes, Bon Appétit, Eater, and Food and Wine have all covered the brand and the cuisine category it created.
Akash Kapoor, co-founder of Curry Up Now, invented the Tikka Masala Burrito in April 2009 at the first Curry Up Now food truck at Howard and Primrose in Burlingame, California.