Haveli Kabab & Grill House

5901 Hillcroft

I remembered seeing something about a new Pakistani restaurant on Hillcroft and when I saw the Grand Opening banner for Haveli I went in to check it out.   As I approached, I was wistfully remembering Sabri Nihari in the opposite corner of this u-shaped, double decker mall in Little India.  Sabri was my first Pakistani restaurant and I still remember the Beef Nihari and the huge wedges of naan glazed with ghee which blew me away on my first visit.

Haveli is in a space larger than Sabri that used to be a nite club and is a bit more upscale.

The official name (per the website and as printed on the take-out menu) is a little misleading:  Haveli is a buffet 7 days a week.  The food looked better than I remember the buffet at Sabri and I dug in.  Everything on the hot station was labeled and I got around to trying a little of most of the dishes.   In the 11 o’clock position on the plate are small pieces of Tawa Chicken and Grill Fish.  I took some Palak Paneer with toasted paneer, one of the best dishes that day and one of the best versions I’ve had, and some plain white rice, discovering on another visit the Chicken Biryani was a much better option.  I also got an onion pakora, the spiciest thing I had that day.  The Tandoori Chicken thigh was on the dry side; Frontier Chicken, looking like a Pakistani version of chicken fajitas with onions and bell peppers, was a much better option.  (I did not take any pictures of my second visit).

I put some of the Beef Haleem in one of the cups provided for the Chicken Corn Soup, which I skipped.  The Haleem was excellent.

Then I moved on to the salad/chilled station of the buffet, crowded in the corner of the room.  With some mango pickle I picked up what I thought would be an idli, though I guess that would have been out of place on a Pakistani buffet.  It turned out to be a sweet, chilled, and oozing simple syrup.  Among the salads I took a simple diced cucumber, carrot and onion salad and what turned out to be, I suppose, a version of Raita with pieces of eggplant, onion, and either chilli pod (de-seeded and devoid of heat) or a pod from one of the pulses in chilled yogurt. I could have eaten a whole plate of just this.  There was also a chilled chickpea salad with tomatoes, onions and cilantro that was very good and another sweet which was forgettable plus other salads and chutneys on this station.  Unfortunately nothing on the chilled station was labeled, absolutely nothing at all, and I didn’t get the names of any of these  

I have also tried Tawa Gosht which turned out to be excellent, better than the small sample of the Beef Nihari I tried.  It didn’t look very appetizing so I had passed on it until the end and I wish I had had room for more. 

I skipped a korma and a jalfrezi dish plus Butter Chicken, as I recall.  I went for seconds on the Palak Paneer, Haleem, Frontier Chicken, Onion Pakora and Raita but only taking very small portions of (almost) everything.

The naan was brought to the table by a server and though it looked great it was at room temperature and a big disappointment. 

There is a self-serve beverage station with Coke products and several tea options.

If you’re lucky you may score one of the covered spaces in the tunnel right in front of the door.  Having a shaded parking spot in the middle of the day in a Houston summer is almost reason enough to go by itself.

I don’t go for buffets much anymore but they are a convenient way to try out new cuisines or restaurants or just to pig out, which I don't like to do.  I still visit Fadi’s and Vishala and I think Haveli will also be an ongoing  option.  I’ll certainly give it a few more tries to see if my first impressions hold up.

Haveli

All Bengal Sweets & India Coffee House

5901 Hillcroft Ave, suite C2-A

One of the most visited pages on this blog for a long time has been my original post on All Bengal Sweets and Restaurant on Bellaire.  Hits have come from all over including the Sub-continent where I'm sure some chuckles have resulted from reading my stumbling attempts to appreciate the cuisine.  Recently I've noticed an uptick in traffic on that page nudging it from 4th on the all time list of most accessed pages to 3rd.  I finally discovered the reason:  the owner has opened this new place in the Hillcroft Plaza in the Mahatma Ghandi district and people are landing on my blog looking for information about the offerings here.  So of course I had to try it out myself.

I knew they had snacks to accompany coffee and chai and their Bengali sweets but didn't realize they also had a small menu of daily specials.  The beef haleem sounded more appealing than a samosa so I opted for that on my first visit.  A small portion, a little over a cup probably and only $3.99, it was topped with lots of crispy fried onions, cilantro, and a generous sprinkling of spices.  There were some unexpectedly large chunks of fatty beef and a couple of large pieces of bone.

I first encountered India Filter Coffee at the shuttered Heritage India restaurant in Stafford after an impressive meal of their specialties from the Spice Coast state of Kerala and I loved it at first sip.  It can be produced at home in a device somewhat similar to that used to produce Vietnamese Iced Coffee but uses scalded milk and sugar to taste instead of sweetened condensed milk and is served hot.  Characteristically it should have a lot of froth on top, produced by pouring the coffee mixture back and forth between two cups.  Three kinds of coffee are offered here, Kumbakonam Degree Coffee associated with the town of the same name in Tamil Nadu and brewed with chicory, Madras Coffee and Mysore Coffee.  The latter is said to be the strongest brew.

There is also Chai and Masala Chai and a brew called Eye Eye Tea which is a blend of coffee - oops, masala chai and espresso.  I have only tried the first.  Everything I had was served in disposable containers with disposable utensils including the coffee and I didn't bother to get a picture of the coffee.

After finishing the haleem I started sipping on my coffee and dug into some Bangladeshi sweets.  I tried the rosgulla and chom chom.  The pale cream colored sweets photographed very poorly against the white of the disposable bowls but I also grabbed a ladoo and my favorite from visits to the original shop, a kala jamun, to go.  As noted in my previous post, Bangladeshi sweets are known for being very moist.  I think the chom chom has nudged the kala jamun and become my favorite. Now I only have about a half dozen other varieties to try.

Dining accommodations at the original shop were somewhat rudimentary but this shop has more style. I think it had a previous incarnation as another short-lived India coffee house and perhaps the decor is a remnant of that.  There are graphics on the wall including sayings about coffee from literature and a brief history of coffee cultivation in India.  I got distracted by the artwork and missed seeing my coffee being prepared.  Two large screen TVs are kept at low volume, making conversation very possible.

We tend to stereotype India as a tea drinking culture but coffee is popular in South India.  You can also find Indian Filter Coffee on the menus at Sri Balaji Bhavan and Udipi Cafe in the same neighborhood and at other places around town.

Ishita Unblogged, which I linked to earlier for it's excellent article explaining Bangladeshi cuisine, also has an excellent post on Bengali sweets.

East Africa and Middle East Restaurant

 6121 Hillcroft, Suite B

AUGUST, 2014 - MANDI HALAL IS CLOSED.  MAY HAVE RELOCATED AND RE-OPENED AS HOUSE OF MANDI, 8403 ALMEDA @ HOLLY HALL IS A NEW RESTAURANT FEATURING YEMENI CUISINE, REVIEWED ELSEWHERE ON THIS BLOG.

JUNE 7, 2013:  THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW KNOWN AS MANDI HALAL RESTAURANT.  WHETHER THIS MEANS A CHANGE IN THE MENU OR NOT I DO NOT KNOW.

CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF:  MANDI HALAL 

ON ZABIHAH.COM THE RESTAURANT CLAIMS IT'S MAIN FOCUS IS SOMALI, YEMENI AND SAUDI FOOD.  JUDGING BY THE PICTURES ON FACEBOOK, THE PLACE HAS UNDERGONE QUITE A RENOVATION. 

All of the buzz about Houston’s dining out scene in recent months both nationally and locally has been about the emerging chef-driven restaurant scene inside the Loop.  But Houston’s stature as a fantastic place to experience ethnic cuisines as offered by small Mom and Pop restaurants hasn’t gone away, it continues to grow and mature.  Last year I was thrilled to find several restaurants offering regional variations of Indian cuisine; so far this year, it’s been the Middle East and Africa.  In just the last couple of months I’ve come across Syrian, Egyptian, Yemeni, Turkish-Italian (I think that’s what the guy said) and Somali places that are new to me, anyway.

I guess I’m like most Americans in that I know very little about Somalia and most of what I know has come from the headlines over the last 15 years or so and hasn’t been positive.  So I was surprised when I started to read up on Somalia to learn that because of its colonial history and location on a major trade route, Somali cuisine over the centuries has been influenced by several of the world’s most notable cuisines including Italian, Turkish, Ethiopian, Indian and Chinese.  Both rice and pasta dishes are served, sometimes on the same plate which are known as Federation dishes. The cuisine is an un-like the foods of West Africa as Tex Mex and Scandinavian and even bears little resemblance to neighboring Ethiopia.

East Africa restaurant has recently undergone a change of ownership and its menu is in flux.  There are no printed menus and many of the dishes listed on the menu board are no longer offered.  Sharwarma, a couple of Eritrean stews - zegnis - and moofu, a Somali version of cornbread are some of the dishes I wanted to try but couldn’t.  Much of the menu uses English only; there are relatively few Somali terms used and the two young men who run the place both speak good English and are very easy to communicate with and ask questions.

On my first visit I was told goat is a specialty so I went with a goat dish, Goat and Rice.  This was also available with spaghetti but I was told more people order it with rice and it appears to be a common dish at Somali restaurants elsewhere.  The goat is so good, I wound up having something with goat for all my visits except one.  If I hadn’t been told it was goat I would have guessed it was lamb.  When I first looked at the plate I thought I was going to be experiencing some mango/banana rice, which sounded very interesting, but alas it was just slices of potato on top; I thought the potatoes were superfluous but otherwise the rice was excellent.  They do as good a job with the rice here as they do goat.  This came with a small, simply dressed salad and a beverage of choice - I went with the Somali tea., shaah.

Bananas are a regular accompaniment to Somali meals, presented on the side, unpeeled.  I was saving them for the end of the meal, even taking them home, but then I read a Somali blog and learned the banana is usually eaten along with the meal, alternating bites or sometimes even mixed in with the rice or pasta, the sweetness of the fruit serving as a counterpoint to the savoriness of a dish or a hot sauce which here is a house-made concoction with jalapeno, garlic, lemon and cilantro I believe.  The Somali blogger said rice or pasta without a banana just didn’t taste right and the proprietor of East Africa said probably 95% of Somalis eat the banana with the meal but he personally prefers to eat it at the end.  Some of the customers I’ve observed have taken the banana with them when they left and others have gone off and left it on the table.  I suspect this may have something to do with the quality of bananas available here vs. those in Somalia.  More about Somali bananas below.

On another visit I stopped by after running some errands and was anxious to get home with threatening weather making its presence known so I grabbed Angelo and Chicken to go.  Angelo is one of the staple breads of Somalia, usually compared to the Ethiopian injera.  It is also spelled with an ‘r’ instead of an ‘l’ and with a ‘c’ in front as in canjero or even canjeero.  Though it resembles injera there are significant differences - angelo is made from wheat flour not teff, it is smaller in diameter, about 9 inches vs. 13 or so, and it is thinner.  The elastic properties of wheat make this possible and angelo is less likely to disintegrate in contact with a wet dish like a stew and doesn’t tear as easily.  It is also fermented a lot less than injera, typically only a few hours or a day and so is noticeably less sour.  The angelo here has a little sugar in it and contrasts even more with injera.  It is used sometimes as a plate like injera and also as a utensil, it may be eaten alongside a meal or just by itself as an accompaniment to tea, especially for breakfast.  It actually is more comparable to a crepe than injera, I think, and it really made this dish.  There are four pieces in the picture.  A couple of pieces of this would make a very good snack with a cup of sweet and spicy Somali tea.

The other bread served at East Africa is malawah (also spelled malawax).  From the spelling and composition this is obviously related in some way to the Yemeni malawach which I encountered at Saba’s Kosher Café on Fondren.  Brought to Israel by Yemeni Jews malawach  has become very popular but whereas malawach is a layered bread made from multiple layers of phyllo like sheets and fried (and picks up a lot of grease in the process in my experience) and thus is comparable to Indian paratha, Somali malawah is served in single sheets (there are four on the plate).  The batter contains some egg and more sugar than angelo.  This is listed on the menu board with beef and maybe chicken but I asked if I could have it with some more goat.  I used the malawah as a utensil, pinching up the food and bringing it to my mouth. The combination of the savoriness and saltiness of the meat, the still slightly crisp vegetables contrasting with the slight egginess, caramelized sweetness and crispness of the malawah made for some of the tastiest mouthfuls I’ve had so far this year. 

I did not know that bananas were grown in Somalia but I've learned Somali bananas are known for their sweetness and are highly prized in Italy and Saudi Arabia.  Banana production has been decimated in recent years because of the civil unrest, piracy and the lingering effects of an El Nino, but efforts are underway to rejuvenate banana production. Still it’s unlikely we’ll ever be seeing Somali bananas here in Houston.  My one experience with eating the banana along with the meal was not very satisfactory; the banana was a little past prime both in terms of texture and flavors.  But I plan to try again, maybe with a different variety of banana such as a red banana or a burro from Mexico.

The restaurant is back from the street in a u-shaped shopping strip that also includes the Honduran restaurant Coquitos, a 24 hour Central American/Salvadoran restaurant Mondongo, a Desi game room, Sheikh Chilli's and the Pakistani grocery store Gulshan e Iqbal and formerly housed a location of the Pakistani sweets shop Dilpasand Mithai.  The menu board includes some breakfast dishes but I don't know for sure that the restaurant is open for breakfast under the new ownership.

Vegetarian for a Week, Part 3

See the first part of this report here and the second part here.

On day seven I finally made it to Shiv Sagar for the Dabeli. I’d had this just once before here and thought it was the best I’d had with a wonderfully fluffy, toasted bun but he bun was different this time, seemingly nothing but a store bought hamburger bun, so this was a little bit of a let down. It was still good, though. If you like peanuts, there's a ton of 'em underneath all that sev making for a crunchy good sandwich with plenty of the chutneys to doctor it up.

Walking out I noticed Neeta’s in the same center. I’m sure I’ve noticed it before but it’s never registered and there’s not much about it on line. I guess in a shopping center with Himalaya, Shiv Sagar, London Sizzler, India Grocers and Chandrika Massala, something has to be overlooked?, but I saw the sign in the window about the lunch special Gujarati thali and decided to continue my little experiment for one more day.

This was definitely one of the best meals of the week, putting me in mind of the Gujarati thali at Sweet n Namkin I had been reminiscing about. The tray was not loaded down with as many elements as the thalis at Shiv Sagar and Shri Balaji and made for a perfect light lunch. The katoris are, I think, the smallest they make, about 1/2 cup or so. They also have a ‘combination plate’ lunch special which I think includes a sampling of their meat dishes; those plates were coming out a lot faster than my vegetarian thali but I was very pleased with what I got. The Navratam Korma, which I think is what the katori at 9 o’clock contained, was slightly sweet, something I’ve never encountered before, as were the shredded potatoes at 2, but I saved the light, cake-like steamed dhokla speckled with black mustard seeds for my ‘dessert.’ It looked like cake anyway, even though it wasn’t the slightest bit sweet and who says dessert has to be sweet?

Neeta's

So what have I learned from this experiment? Not much really. There were a couple of misses during the week, a couple of pleasant surprises, but it proved to be not much of a stretch for me, as I expected. I got meat cravings only once, on day 6. On the way to the courthouse, I passed the exit on the freeway I would normally take to go over to Frenchy’s on Scott and I couldn’t help but think some fried chicken would sure taste good for supper. The thought passed quickly but just to be sure I took another route home.

I could have gone on, I think, but decided 8 days was enough; I have no intention of actually becoming a vegetarian - I will continue to enjoy both vegetarian and carnivorous meals as the urge strikes me. I did wind up going back to Pine Forest Garden on what would have been day 10.

One self-realization was how much I missed exploring and trying new things. I played it very safe for a whole week; other than Cedars, which I’d been to only once before, Neeta’s was the only place I went where I didn’t know in advance what I was going to have or had a good friend to guide me. I missed the anticipation of something or someplace completely new and unknown, even though part of the time they wind up disappointing.

I made the same mistake in the meals I made at home during the week. I laid in an enormous amount of produce for gazpacho, vegetarian greens, squash soup and more, plus apples, oranges, bananas, plums, nectarines, peaches, kiwis and grapes for snacks. But I relied totally on tried-and-true, standby recipes I’ve been making for years instead of trying something new.

If I were to do it all again, I’d include exploration of new recipes as well as new restaurants.

Krishna Chaat House

5959c Hillcroft, 2 doors down from Udipi Cafe (co-owned)


I tried Krishna Chaat House in my quest for vadas and was happy to find several on the menu. I went for one that sounded interesting, Sambar Vada, and was rather surprised by what I got. This was my beloved Mehdu Vada ('lentil donut') served in sambar, with a cup of rasam and two chutneys on the side. Actually, I've learned there are numerous variations of the donut shaped vadas, not all containing lentil, but I believe this one did. The sambar was thick with vegetables cooked to a very soft state - a big chunk of potato, some sort of squash, onion, etc. The vada, plumped up somewhat by the liquid, was like a dumpling and I couldn't help thinking I was eating something like a vegetarian version of chicken and dumplings. This is a snack? More like a light meal for me and it was real comfort food. Well, soporific, actually, I went right home and had a great nap. There is also a rasam vada on the menu.

Across the top of the vada was an ingredient that baffled me. Tough as a matchstick it seemed to have no purpose other than decoration and wound up on the edge of my plate. I encountered the same thing in a cup of rasam at Shiv Sagar across the street, a couple of doors down from Himalaya, the next day. I have since learned this was Moringa. No, that's not a dance number by Xavier Cugat, it's a vegetable also popularly known as drumstick, sort of an okra lookalike. The tough exterior encloses a softer interior that is consumed like you would eat an artichoke leaf, by scraping it with your teeth. The taste is said to resemble artichoke, too, although I couldn't vouch for that since both times it wound up on the edge of the plate. Next time, I'll know better.

On a second visit I went for the Khasta Kachori, already reported on here. I also tried one of the two beverages on the menu that I've never had before, Masala Lemon Sharbahat. This comes in the masala, salt and sweet varieties and is apparently Krishna's spelling of what Wiki shows as Sharbat, a fruit drink made from the leaves and flowers of a fruit tree instead of the fruit itself. You can see a tiny portion of the glass in the picture on the other post.

I had picked up a copy of a take-out menu to study and went back again to try one of their combo plates. These are no longer listed on the menu board or the menu card at the counter but I inquired about them and they sent one out, the # 1. This is offered as a Dal, 2 Sabjis, Raita, Rice, 2 Rotis, Papad, and Chaas or Tea, for $6.95. I also got a sweet (at the top of the platter) and pickle (at 2 o'clock).

The Mixed Vegetable Curry at the bottom of the platter included peas, green beans, carrot and baby limas, among other items, and was very rich. Like most dishes here and at Udipi, it was mildly seasoned. The Eggplant Masala included two whole eggplant that were very minimally cooked, requiring a knife and fork to eat. They had a texture more like a raw apple or under-ripe pear, quite unusual for eggplant. This was the spiciest dish I've encountered here.

The sweet was Payasam, the South Indian term for what in the North and Pakistan is called Kheer. This is usually translated as rice pudding but is typically not much like what is called rice pudding in the US and can be made with something other than rice. In this case, it was made with vermicelli (seviyan) and was drinkable. I'm really getting to like this Indian practice of including a sweet as part of the meal, to be consumed along with the meal if you like, instead of waiting until after the meal.

But I don't get Indian pickles; they are very, very sour. I sampled the ingredients but still don't comprehend how these are supposed to complement the rest of the meal and mostly it went uneaten.

The other beverage I wanted to sample was Chaas. This is usually described as Indian buttermilk. I've been privileged to have a couple of correspondents helping me to learn about Indian foods; one of them, Jenni, from the UK, points out it is not much like the cultured buttermilk we're familiar with in the US. This was readily apparent visually and on first sip. It was about the consistency of low fat milk. It is supposed to be the liquid left over when yogurt is turned into butter. Jenni informs me butter is made from yogurt in Indian, not sweet cream, and also says that many places cut corners in making chaas and just thin out yogurt with water, as lassi is made. After also sampling this also at Bhojan, I am inclined to think Krishna does a more authentic version.

I have been enjoying yogurt drinks for many years and like buttermilk, too, and this is a real keeper. I've had yogurt drinks with mint or other herbs but never coriander leaf before so I've learned a new trick, though I'll have to make do with thinned down yogurt at home for the base. As you can see, you not only get some of your daily requirement of dairy fulfilled with this drink but also some of your daily requirement of veggies - it was thick with chopped coriander leaf.

The metal tumblers are a real plus, too, noted for keeping beverages cool and making them taste cool, they sure beat drinking out of a styrofoam or wax-coated paper cup.

I believe Krishna is closed on Tuesdays. A copy of the Udipi Cafe menu is on the counter so perhaps it's possible to order anything off the Udipi menu here? At 5:00 pm, as Udipi is switching over to menu service, Krishna offers a small vegetarian evening buffet.

Gulshan-e-Iqbal

6121 Hillcroft # T

I first saw this Pakistani grocery store when I checked out Dilpasand Mithai next door and have been meaning to get back over there but I've been avoiding Hillcroft because of all the construction. Traffic in the area is about back to normal but ironically I was stuck in a traffic jam along there recently so I decided it was time to check it out.

It's much smaller than Savoy, the Pakistani grocery on Wilcrest, about the size of a convenience store. The emphasis seems to be on ready-to-eat and convenience foods rather than staples. There is much less of the bulk rice and flour and lots of chaat. The freezer and cooler displays are much smaller and the Halal meat case is smaller, though well stocked.

I was fascinated by the vast array of products and picked up some of the same items I've seen at Savoy for slightly less, although I couldn't guarantee that advantage would hold across the whole product line.


I found the zeera cookies (cumin) that I liked so much, this brand unsalted, moister and flakier, fresher tasting, and even more addictive, tea rusks and mixes. I picked up a Bhel Puri mix that I thought was produced here in Houston but upon closer examination of the label realized it was just imported by a Houston company. The package included the puffed rice and crackers (papdi or papri?) plus peanuts, a packet of masala and a packet of sev, the small crisp noodles, plus instructions on how to add vegetables to produce the final dish.

The breads in the fresh bread rack felt warm to the touch but by the time I got home with a loaf it no longer was. I picked up some baladi from Sahara Bakery on Richmond. It turns out this is an Egyptian peasant flat bread, a little fluffier than pita, and it was quite good, better than the masala naan I picked up from the refrigerated cases at Savoy, and toasts up very nicely in a toaster.

In an alcove in the corner is a small sweets bar offering two kinds of falooda, kulfi, lassi and gola ganda, the Pakistani version of a snow cone, and a few other things.

I had seen Sahara Bakery (9542 Richmond) before and always meant to check it out. After trying the baladi, I looked it up on line. A new website is under construction; the shopping center has undergone renovation and apparently the business has been downsized and the picture on the website is not what the strip center looks like now. I went interested in trying the restaurant but it is no longer in operation. I browsed the aisles only briefly and picked up some pickled vegetables that included wild cucumbers and noted the loaves of bread were definitely still warm from the ovens so I'll be going back to pick up some bread (there are only 3 or 4 varieties I think) when I use up what I've got.

Udipi Cafe

5959 Hillcroft # A
3559 Hwy 6 South, Sugar Land
and a location on FM 1960 West

THE SUGAR LAND LOCATION OF UDIPI HAS MOVED, ALTHOUGH ONLY A FEW DOORS DOWN, AND IS NOW SEPARATELY OWNED I UNDERSTAND.

I had heard about Udipi for years but never remembered it when I was in the mood for Indian food or up in the Hillcroft area. Recently I stumbled upon the one in Sugar Land and decided to try it and since then I’ve been back, four times in all, to that location and the one on Hillcroft. Both restaurants are nice inside; the Hillcroft one is much nicer than one might expect from the exterior.

I’ve had the weekday lunch buffet for $7.99, a very good bargain and much better than the one down the street on Hillcroft. The only thing I wasn’t impressed with much was the iddly, the steamed, flying saucer-shaped bun made from fermented rice and black lentil, but the iddly fry, wedges of iddly fried like french fries, is much better. Several items are made from the fermented rice, black lentil mix, including the uthappam and lentil donut and the dosas.

I love the lentil donuts and the various pakora, especially the ones with chili pepper strips (bajii pakora), although I wish they were fried a little crispier. On my first visit I really enjoyed the vegetable biryani, baigan bartha and mushroom masala (a very meaty tasting dish) as well as the iddly fry and lentil donut. I appreciated that almost everything has been clearly labeled both in Indian and with English translations on the buffet.


On another visit I had more of the baigan bartha (eggplant, at 8 o'clock in the picture), a vegetable korma (at 6 o'clock), onions in chili paste (the hottest thing I’ve had), several of the pakora including more of the chili pepper strips, potato pakora, lentil donut (mehdu vada), poori, and a cup of the Rasam (soup). I could become addicted to the lentil donuts. I have not been able to recall what the item is at the top of the plate in the picture; perhaps a dal?

They bring out a freshly prepared dosa of your choice from an extensive selection as a complement to the buffet. If you’re not familiar with their dosas you might want to study the menu online before going to get an idea of your choices. The dosas are quite large.


I went once on a weekend and ordered off the regular menu, hoping to get a little more crisply fried pakora. The mixed vegetable pakora appetizer was way too much for an appetizer and could have been a meal in itself. I also had the Uthappam deluxe, a huge Indian pancake served with a cup of soup and chutneys. The green chutney is the coconut chutney; I can't remember what the other one was. Between the pancake and the pakora I had way too much food - the pancake alone would have been enough, also. At the top of the picture is less than half of the mixed pakora appetizer plate.

For dessert I've tried the Sheera and it was very good, although I could manage only a small portion. I found the salt lassi and a yogurt dessert too bland for my taste as I like a very sour yogurt.

The staff at both locations I've visited has been very courteous and helpful.


After more than a year I recently revisited Udipi on Hillcroft. As always, almost everything on the on the buffet is clearly labeled. Starting at 1 o'clock, underneath the naan I got a Vegetable Biryani which was the most disappointing dish on the thali, rather dry and bland compared to other vegetable biryanis I've had, then Raita and Pickle, my beloved Mehdu Vada and Idli. At nine o'clock is Poriyal, a sauteed cabbage and urad dal dish that I really liked while in the center of the tray the curry was simply labeled South Indian Vegetable Korma, very good although very mild, and at the top Kadai Paneer which was also very good. I should remember to just skip naan off of buffets like this, especially since they bring out the fresh dosa here. I was served a Masala Dosa (wasn't asked which one I wanted like before) and it was much better than I remembered.

There will be hits and misses on any buffet on any given day but Udipi is still as good as I remembered.

Updated September, 2010

Udipi Cafe

Dilpasand Mithai and Snacks

6121 Hillcroft, Suite T1

Note: There is a second location of this business in the Mission Centre, 14621 Beechnut, just west of Hwy 6, next to the Desi Food Warehouse.

UPDATE July 2013:  I have been advised the Hillcroft location of Dilpasand is closed for renovation.   The Hillcroft location has re-opened after renovations.
 
UPDATE: A visit to the second location which has only been open a few months. I was in the area hoping to try a new place that wasn't open so decided to hit this place. I flipped a coin to decide between this and the Chandkara Grill inside the Desi World Food Center next door.

The gyro machine was out of order so I couldn't try a gyro. Since my initial somewhat bewildering and disappointing first bun kebab I've learned they're very popular street food snacks and I thought maybe I had just gotten a mediocre one so decided to try one here. It proved to be a good choice. It came out in just a few minutes, piping hot (which the other one wasn't) and a lot more flavorful. It looked an awful lot like a drug store hamburger which is just fine with me, with still chilled onion, lettuce and tomato plus the chutney, and a lot less if any ketchup. It was very good, an excellent snack and at probably less than half the calories of a similarly sized burger. I believe the patty is primarily lentils.

While I was waiting the clerk offered me several sample tastes of the barfi - 7 different flavors, in fact. I couldn't believe it. I wound up buying some, walnut, almond, coconut and one other that looks like it's got raisins.

They have several flavors of ice cream and will be adding kulfi this autumn.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: I’d never noticed this place before - it’s in one of those u-shaped strips, back from the street and not facing Hillcroft - but the other day a banner on the front of the building proclaiming ‘Halal Gyros’ caught my eye as I drove by. Halal gyros in an Indian sweet shop? I thought this deserved further investigation.

On entering the store a smile crossed my face at the sight of the glass cases with tray after tray of colorful barfees and other sweets. In the back of the room is a snack bar with a couple of tables along the wall, but it was not open for business on my first visit.

A menu board over the glass cases lists the sweets but the man behind the counter was very congenial and cheerfully answered all my questions. I selected 5 pieces of barfee (their spelling), made a note of as many other offerings as I could, and happily went on my way.


The barfee here is very moist, more fudge-like than cheese cake-like, and very good. From the lower left, clockwise, I got the plain, injeer (fig), coconut, pistachio and carrot. The flavorings are subtle; by the time I got home I forgot what one of them was and had to almost finish the pistachio before I figured it out. These were not as densely textured nor as intensely flavored as the burfi I’ve had at Bhojan but I liked them; my favorites were the fig and carrot.

Barfees are $7.99 a pound. That box was just over half a pound so expect about 9 pieces to a pound. You can mix and match. Ghulab Jamons are $6.99 a pound; there are samoosas for $.75 each, parathas, a small breakfast menu, 6 flavors of ice cream ($1.99 for 2 scoops), 3 lassis ($1.99), fruit drinks and shakes, and many other items.

I couldn’t find out much about the place online but the business card says ‘at your service for 50 years.’ In Houston??? One reviewer on Yelp raves about the barfee, another on another site also likes the barfee but says the gyros are sh.. Being from a long line of DIYers, I had to try something from the snack bar for myself so I went back another day.

The snack bar is apparently called Halal Gyro Hut and it has a very small menu. I should know better than to order from a fast food picture menu and expect to get anything like what is pictured but the Bun Kabob Combo, a hamburgerish like offering, looked good; the friendly older man at the counter asked if I wanted it spicy and smiled when I said ‘Oh yes!’

The sandwich was called a kabob but was nothing like what I think of as a kabob; it was a vegetarian patty on a sesame seed bun, topped with shredded lettuce and onion, a generous sprinkle of garlic powder and black pepper and some other spice (which was probably the source of the slight spiciness) and a red sauce that I hoped was the source of some real heat but tasted like ketchup to me. In fact ketchup was the most prominent taste I got. I was disappointed in the texture of the patty. The fries were beautifully golden, sprinkled generously with garlic and black pepper but needing salt, wonderfully crispy on the outside but mush on the inside. I got more ketchup with them.

Now I’d probably rather have another one of these than be forced to go to, say, Sonic, but I’ll stick to the sweets here in the future. The snack menu also includes wings and nuggets, a grilled fish plate, a gyro and a gyro burger and a few other items.

Puzzled by that ‘50 years’ claim I was looking around online and came upon Dilpasand Sweets in Karachi which the website says has been in business since 1949. It says there are locations in several countries but doesn’t specify any so I’m not sure if this Houston store is related or simply borrowed the name. The menu online is considerably larger than in the store and it’s helpful - click on the thumbnails for larger pictures and names of the various treats.

Next door to Dilpasand on Hillcroft is the Gulshan-e-Iqbal Halal grocery which I’d also never noticed before, named for the Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighborhood of Karachi. I’ll have to go back and check it out.

I’ve always been intimidated by the plethora of sweets displayed at Bombay Sweets on Hillcroft on the other side of 59 and since I found the buffet there mediocre I’ve only been twice. This place is less overwhelming, with fewer choices for the novice like me to have to sort out. I appreciate that and I also have to be grateful there isn’t one just down the block from me - I don’t think it would be good for either my pocketbook or my waistline to have a shop like this to be very convenient to drop into.

Edit: I have since learned more about the bun kabob, a popular snack food, and have seen it on a couple of other menus around town but haven't tried it again.

Bhojan - Vegetarian Indian Cuisine

6855 Southwest Freeway @ Southwestern Inn

THIS RESTAURANT AND THE HOTEL IT WAS LOCATED IN WERE DESTROYED IN THE END OF MAY, 2013, BY A FIVE-ALARM FIRE THAT ALSO TRAGICALLY TOOK THE LIVES OF 4 HOUSTON FIRE FIGHTERS.  

THE RESTAURANT HAS RE-OPENED AT 5901 HILLCROFT IN THE HEART OF THE MAHATMA GANDHI DISTRICT, IN THE SPACE FORMERLY OCCUPIED BY THE PAKISTANI RESTAURANT SABRI NIHARI. 


I must have driven by this place hundreds, maybe thousands, of times when I worked at Greenway Plaza, but the thought of an Indian buffet at a motel didn’t sound very promising to me. Recently however I saw a good review somewhere and when I checked it out on b4, there were many favorable reviews plus even more under the restaurant’s previous name, Thali. So I was off to give it a try and am very glad I did.

The cuisine is primarily that of the western Indian state of Gujarat and this is apparently our only restaurant presenting this cuisine. Madhur Jaffrey has called Gujarati cuisine the haute cuisine of vegetarianism. There is a weekday lunch buffet from 11 to 3 on weekdays for $9.95; all other times (6-9:30pm weekdays, 11a-9:30 Saturday and Sunday) the buffet is $12.95.

The presentation is thali-style. Upon entering, you take a large stainless steel platter and load it up with stainless cups called katori; as you go through the buffet, you put each item in it’s own bowl. Actually, that’s the way I did it the first time but observed that some Indian customers put some of the foods directly on the platter or on pieces of naan.

This is my first experience of Gujarati cuisine and I have been very impressed. I am not an expert on either Indian or Pakistani cuisine but I have a little more familiarity with the latter; this is definitely the best Indian restaurant I have sampled in Houston. As at Himalaya, the outstanding Pakistani restaurant just a block or so away, cilantro figures prominently in some of the dishes. Another ingredient that is used a lot is sugar cane, processed and presented in several ways and sometimes referred to as gur, sometimes as jaggery. Lentils are also a very common ingredient.

The hostess has been very gracious and helpful; I have a lot to learn about Indian cuisine and table etiquette and I do wish they had the names of the dishes posted. I do know that I have had bajara roti, made with millet, puri, parathas, pooran poli, garlic chutney, and batata wada, plus mango burfi, chai and mango lassi. There is nan and papadum on the buffet but in loading up your platter you will want to allow for the puris and rotis and chapatis and pooran poli that are brought to the table fresh out of the kitchen. They’ll keep bringing them out until you wave them off. The shaak/vegetable curries have included corn and paneer, peas and paneer, potatoes (Batata nu Shaak?), eggplant (Ringan nu Shaak?), black-eyed peas and cabbage that I can remember. The garlic chutney is excellent and quite addictive. My favorite of the rotis is the Pooran Poli, a ‘tortilla’ with a sweet filling which they make with yellow lentils and gur. I’ve read online that this filling can be different vegetables and the first time I tried it I thought it was sweet potato.

Burfi has been called Indian cheesecake; it is actually condensed milk cooked down with additional sugar (jaggery), topped with a thin layer of edible silver called varak.

The thali pictured may not look like much food but I left thoroughly stuffed from that meal; this is due in part to the rotis, of course. The picture does not show the garlic chutney or mango lassi which had not been brought out yet. The lassi was presented in a soda fountain glass and was very filling, practically a meal in itself. The sauces in the cup at the top of the plate, beyond the potato balls which I think are called batata wada, included one made of cilantro and a sweet one; there is a balance of sweet, salty and spicy in the flavors presented.



After more than a year I recently revisited this place. I had heard there had been a change of ownership and the food had slipped a bit. I'm not sure of the former report but the decor has changed a bit, I don't believe I recognized anyone from the staff and the buffet may have been a bit less sumptious, I'm not sure. The hours and prices had also changed; this is reflected in the information above.

I took a lot less from the buffet this time. From 1 o'clock I took some pappadums and a puri, a pickled dish consisting of carrots and peppers and garlic, rice, and a yogurt soup called kadhi, thickened with chickpea flour. At 9 o'clock is the same thing I had on a previous visit while in the center is Navratnan Kurma. Navratnan means nine gems and there are supposed to be nine vegetables and nuts in this; had I known that I would have been counting but I did get potato, French beans, peas and paneer that I remember. At the top of the platter is Oondiyu which involved some interesting dumplings and a dal I didn't recognize. I found out later online that the dumplings were made of fenugreek leaves.

This picture was taken before the hot, fresh rotis arrived. There is one change, for sure, in that regard. Whereas previously there were maybe a half dozen rotis, there seemed to be only three being served now, chapati plus my two favorites, bajara roti (millet based) and poolan pori, the one with the sugarcane paste filling. These were only half-portions, not full sized.

I didn't care for the thick yogurt very much and allowing that the papps and puri on the buffet weren't hot and fresh like the ones brought around to the table, everything was very good. If the food has slipped any it hasn't been by much.

Besides the hours having changed to now include Tuesdays and the price having gone up by $1, they now offer Tiffin to go, i.e., to go meals, for $6.99, as detailed on the website. Sounds like a good deal.

Updated September, 2010

Bhojan