Arya Bhavan
Cheerful pink napkins decorate the tables and colorful Rajasthani crafts brighten the walls at Arya Bhavan, which means “our home.” But the main room is dominated by a 20-foot buffet, which on the weekends is laden with all-vegetarian curries, sweets, appetizers, rice, salad, and cooling raita. Along with traditional favorites like chana masala and mutter paneer are original creations by chef Jay Sheth. One of his best is the addictive undhia, a complex curry of eggplant, sweet potatoes, and plantains. Appetizers include the always popular samosas and spicy veggie cutlets. The satisfying uthappam, pancakes topped with tomatoes, onions, and cilantro, are made to order at one end of the buffet and disappear quickly. Ordering from the lengthy menu allows one to try Indian specialties ranging from a delightful south Indian avial (vegetables cooked with coconut, yogurt, and chiles) to Kashmiri curry and rice. There are also 15 types of bread, including vegan varieties, and on Monday nights there’s a raw food buffet. —Cara Jepsen
The exceedingly friendly Ali Khawaja appears to have sunk a lot of naan into his restaurant on the sleepy eastern end of Devon Avenue’s Indo-Pak strip. The room is crammed with elaborately carved and painted tables and high-backed chairs, and the walls are bedecked with Pakistani handicrafts Khawaja traveled the homeland to procure. Khawaja grills zabiha halal meats, and he’s not afraid to see what sort of guts you’re made of. Intestinal armor comes in a bowl of raita and (in an odd nod to an altogether different cuisine) a velvety egg-drop soup, meant to be spiked with abundant bottles of soy and Louisiana hot sauces. The standards—lamb, goat, beef, chicken, and seafood—are aggressively seasoned and marinated, grilled or stewed, then served beside a pile of rice to stanch the flames; critters found less frequently on Devon include yogurt-marinated quail and veal steaks. There are only a few concessions to plant eaters—dal, okra, mixed vegetables, and a buttery and luscious pureed rapini. Khawaja named the place Chopal, which means “gathering place,” and it’s hard to discount his enthusiasm for the venture’s party potential when he sits you down on the large woven bench in the front window. There’s a $4.99 lunch special. —Mike Sula
Named for a benefactor of the poor, Ghareeb Nawaz has a reputation as an oasis for cheap and freshly made home-style Indo-Pakistani food. One of the few spots on Devon open for breakfast, it offers inexpensive paratha (griddled wheat flatbread) filled with egg or aloo (seasoned potato) and halwa puri, the traditional Pakistani breakfast, three crisp, puffy fried breads served with lightly sweetened sooji halwa (a semolina pudding) and aloo chole (curried potato and chickpeas); for $3, it beats the hell out of McStyrofoam. Biryanis here are among the best in town, and the thali is an amazing deal: $4 gets you a veggie combo with a choice of bread (chapati, paratha, or naan), a generous portion of rice, an achar (pickle) of some kind, and servings of four or five dishes such as chana masala, dal, aloo palak, and bhindi masala; meat thali are just a buck more. Veggie kebabs are deliciously dense disks of potato, chickpeas, egg, and spices, though the beef shish kebab suffers from too much filler. Samosas, meat- or potato-filled triangles of pure snacking pleasure, are, at 50 cents each, an addiction I’m prepared to indulge. You order at the counter here, and the restaurant’s two brightly lit rooms are spartan, but there’s cricket on the TV in season and a prayer room for the devout. —Gary Wiviott
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For years Hema’s Kitchen, Hema Potla’s homey Indian restaurant, drew flocks of fans to a tiny, cramped storefront where food was often hustled out of the kitchen by the beaming proprietor herself. But after rave reviews on Check, Please! transformed the crowd to a mob, she expanded, first with an adjacent dining room and then with a second location in Lincoln Park. Now the original spot is shuttered and she’s gone upscale, around the corner, in full Devon Avenue style. Gone are the open kitchen and the corner playpen that once housed a small child or two. Instead tables in a spacious, gleaming dining room are loaded with wineglasses and white tablecloths, plastic flowers and laminated numbers. (That last may account for service that’s stunningly better than the old Hema’s glacial norm.) I’d be lying if I said the new space has the raw charm of the old, but the food is as solid and satisfying as ever. Flaky lamb samosas were lightly seasoned and piping hot, though lacking the peas alluded to on the menu. Veggie dishes like aloo baigan matar—eggplant, potatoes, and peas in a tomato-coconut sauce heavily stocked with aromatic curry leaves—imparted a powerful burn, and chicken vindaloo, while heavy on the ghee, evinced an equally bold hand with the red chiles and curry leaves. The happy addition of a tandoor oven means the kitchen now turns out tender tandoori chicken and chewy naan as well. Bear in mind that it’s still BYOB (no corkage fee) and the closest liquor store has a selection best described as bottom-shelf. —Martha Bayne
Hyderabad House is a home away from home for cabbies who want to shoot pool, watch Bollywood musicals, and grab some good grub before beating it back to the beaded seat. Even if you don’t drive for hire you’ll enjoy the subcontinental food prepared for hard-to-con customers. Here are some savory creatures, all halal: lush mutton in a thick sauce is frequently seen on the changing menu board, as is chicken lagan in a fluorescent magenta-colored sauce. Dhai ki kadi, a delicious veggie dish, is wheat gluten in a blindingly yellow curry. Along with generous helpings of fresh griddled naan you get a lot of rice here, and that’s a good thing—sops are essential with the tongue-tickling sauces. Sometimes there’s a man offering paan—a potent mix of fennel, betel leaf, and herbs—which makes a pleasing, stomach-settling wrap to a meal. HH shares a parking lot with an auto repair shop, so you have to weave your way around the never-been-pimped beaters to get to the front door; once inside, though, you’ll find good-hearted folks and worthy south Indian chow. —David Hammond
