Devon and Beyond
Bhabi’s Kitchen6352 N. Oakley | 773-764-7007
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, who owns another restaurant in Los Angeles, 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. —Mike Sula
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At Curry Hut, in addition to Indian dishes, Nepalese appetizers and entrees are available, many featuring chicken or goat. Showing the influence of China, Nepal’s northern neighbor, momo is a platter of dim sum-like minced chicken dumplings with achaar, a tart pickle sauce of lime and turmeric. Chicken wings—marinated, steamed, and grilled—are extraordinarily scrumptious, moist yet crunchy. Chhoela is boneless goat, boiled to extract residual funk and baked in a clay pot, yielding a most refined version of this animal. Vegetarian and meat “special dinners” are meant for sharing, the former featuring preparations like lightly spiced spinach and lentils, the latter more chicken and goat and aloo tama bodi, a subtly spiced combo of black-eyed peas and bamboo shoots. Unsurprisingly, curries predominate, as do meats baked in the tandoor, and although the menu skews toward northern India, there’s abundant seafood. —David Hammond
$Indian/Pakistani | Breakfast, lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Every night till 2 | Reservations not accepted | Cash only
Hyderabad House2225 W. Devon | 773-381-1230
Tuxedoed waiters hustle around this large room appointed with art and a wall lined with wine; still, India House is more sow’s ear than silk purse. After a work party at the ho-hum lunch buffet I wasn’t expecting much from this satellite of a restaurant and banquet hall in Schaumburg, but I did have hopes of receiving the Bombay Sapphire martini I ordered. What I got instead was a slug of room-temperature gin served in a tumbler bedecked with a wan slice of lime—and I paid $9.95 for it. The food was unredeeming: naan lacked the grilled-to-order freshness you’d get in a cabbie joint; aloo chat was so bland not even liberal doses of mint-cilantro chutney and sour pickle could revive it. Special meals come with a choice of soup or salad; best to go with the former unless you care for bottled French dressing. Somewhat overwhelmed by the enormous menu—there are more than 170 offerings, and one imagines at least half of them languishing in an enormous kitchen steam table—I rather boringly ordered a tikka combination of salmon and chicken. The sizzling platter was delivered with a flourish, but both meat and fish were dry, and the mutter paneer that came as part of the deal was made with mushy gray peas. I’ll stick to Devon. —Kate Schmidt
