The Shalimar Revolution

Pakistani food, which at home growing up we simply called “food”, is very different from Indian food. While there are similarities between (predominantly North) Indian and Pakistani cuisine, their differences are great. In fact, whenever I go to an Indian restaurant, I often feel as if I am going out for foreign food. I won’t go into the differences between the two cuisines here, except to say that Pakistani food rocks!

When I was growing up in Texas, there weren’t any true Pakistani restaurants around, whereas Indian restaurants were fairly common. In the early 1990s, an authentic Pakistani restaurant, Savoy, opened in Houston. For many people I know, including my friends and I, driving 3-4 hours from Austin or Dallas to Houston for dinner at Savoy and then heading back home seemed entirely reasonable. This was when gas prices in Texas were under $1/gallon.

In the mid 1990s, I lived in Colorado, where most locals couldn’t tell the difference between Pakistani, Indian, Arab, Filipino, Latino.... Needless to say, there weren’t any Pakistani restaurants in Colorado back then. In fact, there still isn’t a Pakistani restaurant in metropolitan Denver to this day.

Fast forward to 1997 in San Francisco, I find a small dive Pakistani restaurant called Shalimar in the crack infested Tenderloin district. Seekh kabobs, chicken tikka, nihari, korma….eat like a king for about ten bucks…open until midnight…free chai...oh man…I am in heaven. Lines were always long, as people came from all over the Bay Area and as far out as Sacramento to eat there.

The Shalimar revolution had begun. One by one, new Pakistani restaurants started opening up as close to Shalimar as possible: Pakwan half block away, Chutney directly across the street, Naan-n-Curry and Lahore Karahi one block away, Punjab Kabab house a few blocks away, and many more across the city.

Some of these restaurants are pretty good, possibly even as good as (or better?) than Shalimar. But whenever I really need a Pakistani food fix, I almost always head to Shalimar, the original that started it all. You just have to be careful to not trip over the crackheads sleeping in front of the entrance.