My beef with Bhabi's Kitchen [long, pictures]

Mother always said that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

I'm not mother, but let me first state for the record that Bhabi's Kitchen makes a decent chili chicken and a good bagarey baigan (Bhabi's Very Special Fresh Indian Eggplant). Also, Mr. Syed is very kind and has a warm rapport with his customers. And the restaurant is cute and a good place to bring children.

That said, my dining experience there last night (January 21) left me madder than I've been in months. I got off the 84 Peterson bus, trudged through the slushy sidewalks of Oakley, and quickly found the restaurant--so far, so good. (LTHers with cars, count your blessings!) Then I opened the door of Bhabi's Kitchen to find something that's good for Mr. Syed but not good for the chowhound: loads of white people. My Chowdar (TM) told me that this was an ill omen. Would the food be spicy? Would I be pressured to buy sparkling water?

The Ms. and I quickly seated, I flipped through the menu and found warning sign #2, high prices: daal gosht, $14; butter chicken, $12; saag paneer, $10. Two, three times higher than the taxi-driver places! I thought about leaving, but recalled the glowing reviews from the forum. LTH had given me such great recommendations in the past--TAC Quick Thai, B & M Bakery, Sticky Rice, Honey1--it was because of LTH that I lived in an apartment strategically situated near Argyle and the Hopleaf. (Coincidentially, the apartment also has an elevator, making it easier to manage my LTH-inspired weight gain... the Ms. would like to have a word with the LTHer that turned me on to In N Out Burger's 4x4 Animal Style, but that's another post.) Would LTH do me wrong?

My Chowdar(TM) buzzing, teetering between staying and leaving, a little girl in a highchair abutting our table had a crucial outburst. "Mommy! Too spicy!" Her mother backed the spoon "airplane" with its vegetable passengers away from the tot's mouth. Hmmm, I thought, if Mrs. Syed won't turn down the spice for a toddler, then she probably won't turn down the spice for this manchild.

So... with the belief that everything that I read on the internet is infallible, we ordered the chili chicken, the eggplant, rice, and the naan with onion, garlic, and green pepper.



As soon as the waitress left the table, the little tike squealed again, "Too Spicy! Too Spicy!" I felt confident with my decision to stay. But then her mother tried to comfort her daughter. "Honey, it's not spicy, you're eating sweet paratha. It's just bread and powdered sugar." Crap, I thought. I just locked in to eating a $40 meal based on the outbursts of a toddler.

The food came and the chili chicken and the eggplant were good, if nothing to write home about. But the naan!



It was delicious! And for only $3!!!

The Ms. liked it so much that she requested that we have some more today. So we got some stuffed-crust, pepperoni naan delivered.




My recommendation:

If you go to Bhabi's Kitchen, you will pay twice/thrice as much for the same food that is available elsewhere on Devon. In some cases, it makes sense to pay more (cigarette taxes make smokers seem both cooler AND richer than nonsmokers). But what are you getting at Bhabi's for your extra dough?


-the pleasure/pain of eating with white people. Some people (cough, my father, cough) appreciate this.

-the ability to drink with your meal. Is Mr. Syed essentially upping his prices as a sin tax?

-the emotional/karmic benefits of supporting a mom n' pop restaurant.

-If you are the waking dead stumbling north out of the Rosehill Cemetary, Bhabi's Kitchen is the first Indopak restaurant you come to. Not a benefit to be discounted, as zombies walk pretty slow. (Though zombies have to consider inflation more than the living do. Coming back to life and finding only 20 pence in your pocket, you might want to skip the mutton qorma and sup on the free gosht that you find in the cemetery. )

My sentiments exactly, though much more entertainingly expressed. Mr. Syed has a nice little racket going; wonder how long till the masses catch on.

russ wrote:Would LTH do me wrong?

Russ,

I'm having a hard time figuring out if you enjoyed your meal or not. As a fan of Bhabi's for certain dishes, I would point out that I was a much bigger fan before the expansion and the price increase. But I would like to point out that I am one of the very few fans of Bhabi's on LTHForum. I think its reception has been more lukewarm than positive here, especially among the Indo-Pak culinary experts on the site.

russ wrote:If you go to Bhabi's Kitchen, you will pay twice/thrice as much for the same food that is available elsewhere on Devon

Please do fill us in on some of your favorites.

Best,
Michael

hilarious review. i had been wanting to get there, but now will pass.
thanks for the laughs!

ok, u r being sarcastic about the Naan right?

So what's the conventional wisdom amongst the board on the best Devon area Indian? I've done quite a few searches and nothing jumps off the page like an LTH or a Tank Noodle would.

Ralph Wiggum wrote:So what's the conventional wisdom amongst the board on the best Devon area Indian? I've done quite a few searches and nothing jumps off the page like an LTH or a Tank Noodle would.

Thats because there isnt any, probably. Indian food is sort of variable,
and there isnt any one place which seems to do a lot of it well - some
do vegetarian stuff decently, others seem to do just snacks well,
some just non-veg food etc.

Elsewhere in a different thread I just wrote the following about
Chopal Kabab House :

---------------
When people visit and want to go for Indian food, its among the top
choices for me on Devon I think - probably Usmaniya would be the top
choice, but then it sort of depends on the person and the kind of food one
is looking for. (If its just Kababs, Id say Khan BBQ. If its just non-veg
food including gravy dishes and biryani, which is the most usual,
the #1 choice IMHO is Usmaniya. If its a vegetarian accompanying,
then neither of the above two are options anymore... and then
Chopal might well be the top choice, as long as the vegetarian
is in the mood for something like Sarson ka saag Chopal does
good vegetarian dishes I believe, but has only about 3 of them,
so the choice is sort of limited).
--------------

That sort of encapsulates my person view, at least. I eat mostly
non-vegetarian Indian, so thats what Iam looking for most of the
time - and for that, IMHO the best spot overall is probably Usmaniya.
But then Usmaniya is not an Indian place at all, its Pakistani. Chopal
is probably up there among the top other choices (a bit more
Indian-non-veg as opposed to purely Pakistani I suppose). Sabri
Nehari is probably down one level for me - maybe its as good or
better than Chopal to others, but to me its the same type of restaurant
as Usmaniya, with the same type of menu, and Usmaniya is better
for everything but the signature nehari dish and is thus my #1
option for that type of food.

For pure kababs etc - as mentioned above, Khan's. And then maybe
JK Kabab House (which is a personal preference), or Ravi Kabab
House, or Kababish of London.

For "purely vegetarian", the top two options on Devon are probably
Mysore Woodlands and Udipi, still. For snacks there's Tahoora,
or Sukhadia. For sweets there's Ambala.

But really, there isnt any one place with does everything well on
Devon, not even close. The places that have good service invariably
have bland food. The non-bland-food spots seem to have quite
narrow specializations as well.

c8w

Mother always said that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

I'm not mother, but let me first state for the record that Bhabi's Kitchen makes a decent chili chicken and a good bagarey baigan (Bhabi's Very Special Fresh Indian Eggplant). Also, Mr. Syed is very kind and has a warm rapport with his customers. And the restaurant is cute and a good place to bring children.

I dont know about the Bagarey Baingan - not a big fan of that sort of
stuff so have never tried it. The Chili Chicken isnt a patch on Chopal's
down the street, that I can say with certainty (at least IMHO.

Agree with the rest of the above - good host, pleasant place etc.

your blessings!) Then I opened the door of Bhabi's Kitchen to find something that's good for Mr. Syed but not good for the chowhound: loads of white people. My Chowdar (TM) told me that this was an ill omen. Would the food be spicy? Would I be pressured to buy sparkling water?

This was one of my first complaints about Bhabi's on this site IIRC, a couple of
years ago - that IMHO it was too bland. But not bland as in non-spiced - there
were spices, often complex spices etc. Just that, to me, the food was
nowhere near hot enough. I was told then that one can ask for extra
heat, and Iam sure one can - but the default option, IMHO, is too mild
for me (of course, I happen to like a *lot* of heat in my food, so, as
Arnold and Willis used to sing, what might be "right" for me, might not
be right for some).

The Ms. and I quickly seated, I flipped through the menu and found warning sign #2, high prices: daal gosht, $14; butter chicken, $12; saag paneer, $10. Two, three times higher than the taxi-driver places! I thought about leaving, but recalled the glowing reviews

Yes, well, I had the odd complaint 2 years ago when the food (to me) was
not spicy enough.. and was about 6 bucks an entree. Now it has nearly
doubled I think

The food came and the chili chicken and the eggplant were good, if nothing to write home about. But the naan!
It was delicious! And for only $3!!!

The Ms. liked it so much that she requested that we have some more today. So we got some stuffed-crust, pepperoni naan delivered.

I must say, this was one of the funniest things in one of the funnier reviews
Ive ever read on LTH

My recommendation:

If you go to Bhabi's Kitchen, you will pay twice/thrice as much for the same food that is available elsewhere on Devon. In some cases, it makes sense to pay more (cigarette taxes make smokers seem both cooler AND richer than nonsmokers). But what are you getting at Bhabi's for your extra dough?


-the pleasure/pain of eating with white people. Some people (cough, my father, cough) appreciate this.

-the ability to drink with your meal. Is Mr. Syed essentially upping his prices as a sin tax?

-the emotional/karmic benefits of supporting a mom n' pop restaurant.

-If you are the waking dead stumbling north out of the Rosehill Cemetary, Bhabi's Kitchen is the first Indopak restaurant you come to. Not a benefit to be discounted, as zombies walk pretty slow. (Though zombies have to consider inflation more than the living do. Coming back to life and finding only 20 pence in your pocket, you might want to skip the mutton qorma and sup on the free gosht that you find in the cemetery. )

I dont disagree with most of the above - rarely ever go to Bhabi's myself.
(Was chatting with a Pakistani guy this summer, who told me he goes
sometimes - whenever he is taking his "American office colleagues" out
for a touch of subcontinental food. I asked him where he went when
he ate himself, and he said "Khans, of course"

However, as you mention above, it isnt *all* horrible. The owner is a
very friendly person, and the atmosphere overall is quite pleasant.
They do allow drinks. (A month or two ago was the last time I went
to Bhabi's - and the first time in several months. That was because
it was about 10pm, 2 veggie friends were in town and hungry and
we were at Devon, *and* they wanted drinks with their meals. The
"cabbie joints" are useless in this situation - no veggie items at
all. Usmaniya is useless too - wont allow drinks. Chopal is probably
the best option - but I didnt want ot restrict my friends to only 1
entree item I knew to be good, the sarson ka saag, and I wasnt
certain Chopal would allow drinks either. Bhabi's fit all the criteria,
the food was ordinary and slightly over-priced - it was before their
latest price hike - but we were there mostly for the company, and
the restaurant was pleasant enough, as was the host. The only
other restaurant that fit all the criteria in that situation was Hema's).

Bhabi's isnt the best place IMHO for cheap food. Nor for authentically
spicy food. But there are some niches it can fit into. When their
prices were what they were a couple of years ago, they were
still not among my favourite restaurants... but I probably went there
oftener then than I would now. With their current prices I see little
reason to go there. But it will IMHO continue to be a very popular
place regardless, as much for the amiability and easy introduction
it offers to Indian food for many as for anything else.

c8w

c8w wrote:However, as you mention above, it isnt *all* horrible. The owner is a
very friendly person, and the atmosphere overall is quite pleasant.
They do allow drinks. (A month or two ago was the last time I went
to Bhabi's - and the first time in several months. That was because
it was about 10pm, 2 veggie friends were in town and hungry and
we were at Devon, *and* they wanted drinks with their meals. The
"cabbie joints" are useless in this situation - no veggie items at
all. Usmaniya is useless too - wont allow drinks. Chopal is probably
the best option - but I didnt want ot restrict my friends to only 1
entree item I knew to be good, the sarson ka saag, and I wasnt
certain Chopal would allow drinks either. Bhabi's fit all the criteria,
the food was ordinary and slightly over-priced - it was before their
latest price hike - but we were there mostly for the company, and
the restaurant was pleasant enough, as was the host. The only
other restaurant that fit all the criteria in that situation was Hema's).

Truth is, this is a big draw, especially for people willing to pay the high-for-Devon prices. That's the main reason we sometimes end up there when we hit Devon. It's a shame there aren't more places offering a wide variety of both meat and veg dishes. I don't care about the drink thing, but wide veggie selection really boosts the WAF (wife acceptance factor).

c8w:

Your instinct was correct, Chopal does not allow alcohol.

Regards,

Thanks, russ, for such a funny, clever review. I laughed so loud I woke my sleeping family.

c8w wrote:[This was one of my first complaints about Bhabi's on this site IIRC, a couple of
years ago - that IMHO it was too bland. But not bland as in non-spiced - there
were spices, often complex spices etc. Just that, to me, the food was
nowhere near hot enough. I was told then that one can ask for extra
heat, and Iam sure one can - but the default option, IMHO, is too mild
for me (of course, I happen to like a *lot* of heat in my food, so, as
Arnold and Willis used to sing, what might be "right" for me, might not
be right for some).

The Ms. and I quickly seated, I flipped through the menu and found warning sign #2, high prices: daal gosht, $14; butter chicken, $12; saag paneer, $10. Two, three times higher than the taxi-driver places! I thought about leaving, but recalled the glowing reviews

Yes, well, I had the odd complaint 2 years ago when the food (to me) was
not spicy enough.. and was about 6 bucks an entree. Now it has nearly
doubled I think

The food came and the chili chicken and the eggplant were good, if nothing to write home about. But the naan!
It was delicious! And for only $3!!!

The Ms. liked it so much that she requested that we have some more today. So we got some stuffed-crust, pepperoni naan delivered.

I must say, this was one of the funniest things in one of the funnier reviews
Ive ever read on LTH

My recommendation:

If you go to Bhabi's Kitchen, you will pay twice/thrice as much for the same food that is available elsewhere on Devon. In some cases, it makes sense to pay more (cigarette taxes make smokers seem both cooler AND richer than nonsmokers). But what are you getting at Bhabi's for your extra dough?


-the pleasure/pain of eating with white people. Some people (cough, my father, cough) appreciate this.

-the ability to drink with your meal. Is Mr. Syed essentially upping his prices as a sin tax?

-the emotional/karmic benefits of supporting a mom n' pop restaurant.

-If you are the waking dead stumbling north out of the Rosehill Cemetary, Bhabi's Kitchen is the first Indopak restaurant you come to. Not a benefit to be discounted, as zombies walk pretty slow. (Though zombies have to consider inflation more than the living do. Coming back to life and finding only 20 pence in your pocket, you might want to skip the mutton qorma and sup on the free gosht that you find in the cemetery. )

I dont disagree with most of the above - rarely ever go to Bhabi's myself.
(Was chatting with a Pakistani guy this summer, who told me he goes
sometimes - whenever he is taking his "American office colleagues" out
for a touch of subcontinental food. I asked him where he went when
he ate himself, and he said "Khans, of course"

However, as you mention above, it isnt *all* horrible. The owner is a
very friendly person, and the atmosphere overall is quite pleasant.
They do allow drinks. (A month or two ago was the last time I went
to Bhabi's - and the first time in several months. That was because
it was about 10pm, 2 veggie friends were in town and hungry and
we were at Devon, *and* they wanted drinks with their meals. The
"cabbie joints" are useless in this situation - no veggie items at
all. Usmaniya is useless too - wont allow drinks. Chopal is probably
the best option - but I didnt want ot restrict my friends to only 1
entree item I knew to be good, the sarson ka saag, and I wasnt
certain Chopal would allow drinks either. Bhabi's fit all the criteria,
the food was ordinary and slightly over-priced - it was before their
latest price hike - but we were there mostly for the company, and
the restaurant was pleasant enough, as was the host. The only
other restaurant that fit all the criteria in that situation was Hema's).

Bhabi's isnt the best place IMHO for cheap food. Nor for authentically
spicy food. But there are some niches it can fit into. When their
prices were what they were a couple of years ago, they were
still not among my favourite restaurants... but I probably went there
oftener then than I would now. With their current prices I see little
reason to go there. But it will IMHO continue to be a very popular
place regardless, as much for the amiability and easy introduction
it offers to Indian food for many as for anything else.

c8w

I pretty much agree with all of the above I don't find bhabi's bad just nothing special and a little expensive. I do give them props for making a number of breads that aren't all that available around town, I just wish they made them better - especially the makki ki roti - so I could order it to go to eat with sarson ka saag from chopal.

it is interesting that folks seem to like bhabi's and also previously hema's for 3 basic reasons:

1. a very warm ethnic proprietor
2. a comfortable but not polished interior
3. a unintimidating setting (this may also include the presence of anglos)

it might just be my opinion, but it seems that its the sort of place that chowhounds must in someways beware, a place that is better at culinary tourism than actual food.

What about Hema's? Despite branching into whiter waters in Lincoln Park, the Devon/Oakley restaurant is still spot-on when it comes to food, and service has gotten immeasureably better (although it was so bad, "improved" takes on a different meaning) now that it's not so slam-packed.

Never tried Bhabi's, but with all of the other options on the street, why bother?

fwiw,

I have never been all that impressed with Hema's either. I think it's popularity lies in its conformance to what I suggested earlier in this thread.

My experience with the food there has been that of indian home cooked food, though not from a particularly good home cook, and sometimes worse. I can easily produce that at home so why pay for the privilege of eating it on devon?

an instance of what I mean by careless cooking would be a dish of eggplant and potato where the eggplant is mushy and the potato is undercooked, suggesting they were put in at the same time, even though they have hugely different cooking times

My experience with the food there has been that of indian home cooked food, though not from a particularly good home cook

Who also happens to be Mexican part of the time...

The first time I ate at Hema's I was wowed by the freshness and flavor. Then I realized I was wowed by food being cooked to order instead of having sat in a buffet pan for an hour before I ate it-- I'd only ever eaten at the buffet places. (This was probably 5-6 years ago-- Hema's was fairly new.) Since then I've discovered other places that cook stuff to order, too, and liked nearly all of them better than either Hema's or Bhabi's, though I agree that they both have an approachable feel that makes them welcoming to gringos in a way that Khan BBQ, say, with its gruff service, blaring TV and thick clouds of smoke, isn't.

actually, I thought they were columbians. But it was kind of a fun sight, when going through the kitchen to use the restroom watching Hema barking orders to them in spanish

ColOmbians, not ColUmbians! The latter is a more generic term, unless you're referring to Washington DC'ers...

(Sorry, just had to point that out!)

jedibrand wrote:ColOmbians, not ColUmbians! The latter is a more generic term, unless you're referring to Washington DC'ers...

(Sorry, just had to point that out!)

Hey, c'mon ... I had to live near 116th & Broadway in Manhattan for a few years - so I'll claim to be a Columbian ...

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one University's denizens!

Just want to echo the 'overpriced' comments. I went and got chickpea bread, which was quite tasty, but I only got one piece for $5! The ingredients must have cost a tenth as much.

The samosa tasted like any samosa I've had at an Indian restaurant, although the sauces were nice.

The Malai Kofta was tasty, but the eggplant dish tasted like a jar of tahini dumped over bitter, unsalted eggplant.

The value just did not match up to the price.

I found the owner very talkative, but he seemed rather full of it.