Usmania Zabiha Chinese [Indo-Pak Chinese]

LTH,

Had lunch at the relatively new Usmania Indo-Pak Chinese restaurant on Devon.


Friendly staff, bright, clean interior, well spaced tables, nice selection of hot sauce and peppers on the table, place gives off a good initial vibe.


I was solo so only tried two dishes, Usmania Spring Chicken appetizer, which turned out to be a decent version of Salt and Pepper style. While well made, greaseless with a nice crunch, good use of hot pepper and onion, the dish was marred for me by over use of salt, way over the top salty, though I have a lower tolerance for salt than many.

Usmania Chinese Spring Chicken


There are a number of preparation choices, Manchurian (Dry or Gravy) Szechuan, Ginger, Hot Black Garlic, Sweet Garlic, Black Garlic for a number of entrees, I opted for Chili Chicken (dry as opposed to curry) though either there was a slight miscommunication or we have different ideas of what constitutes dry.

The chicken itself was tender and flavorful, with a smattering of whole dry peppers, but the Schaumburg-Chinese brown gravy surrounding the chicken made it difficult to enjoy. Interesting, Chili Chicken is one of the dishes I tried at the now shuttered Jewel of India*, which was served in approximately the same fashion.

Usmania Chinese Chili Chicken


In reading past Indo-Pak Chinese threads solid recommendations from Zim, Gobi Manchurian, c8w, Haka-Noodles or Pakora appetizers are on my next try list, though these are not Usmania Chinese specific. Interestingly, the seemingly ubiquitous Indian-Chinese starter chicken corn soup was not offered. It's available on the menu, but not an included starter.

Loving Chinese food in all forms, and attempting to develop my knowledge of Indian/Pakistani things culinary, I intend to further explore Usmania Chinese's menu.

Enjoy,
Gary

* Where Khan BBQ is now located

Usmania Zabiha Chinese Restaurant
Indo-Pak Chinese Cuisine
2253 W Devon Ave.
Chicago, IL 60659
773-338-4488

G Wiv wrote:
The chicken itself was tender and flavorful, with a smattering of whole dry peppers, but the Schaumburg-Chinese brown gravy surrounding the chicken made it difficult to enjoy. Interesting, Chili Chicken is one of the dishes I tried at the now shuttered Jewel of India*, which was served in approximately the same fashion.


Enjoy,
Gary

Gary-
In all honesty, excluding Chinatown, I'd kill for something up to the quality of Schaumburg-Chinese in Chicago. Or at least in my delivery area.
Jamie

The credibility of my palate is often tossed out the window with folks who I've recommended Indian-Chinese food to. They're intrigued by this "Hakka" cuisine, and come up with wild imaginations of what could be created by the collision of Indian & Chinese cooking. And then they end up eating approximations of General Tso's, chop suey, chow mein, sweet & sour chicken, etc. Except there's a noticeable difference in spicing - garam masala here, cumin there, but in the end, they generally come away underwhelmed. I guess they were expecting the kind of stuff that Singaporan & Malaysian food has to offer, rather than spiced-up Pan-Asian-American-Takeout. It really is simply American-Chinese comfort foods with some Indian spicing, not that there's anything wrong with that. And clearly folks here see nothing wrong with that, as I've read in those prior threads and in this one too (Jamie).

There are numerous Indian-Chinese restaurants here in Toronto, which I'm enjoying, but I'd really like to find those "Hakka" ones that have pork belly as the ubiquitous meat (or pork, in general). That seems to be a tough find.

Hey Nab,

could you say more about "Hakka" cuisine in this context? I thought the Hakka were from a particular region in southern China, and known for dishes like salt-baked chicken. I didn't realize the label/ethnonym was also associated with the Indian interpretation of Chinese dishes.

Amata

p.s. what happened to the idea of moving to Chicago?

Amata,

I'm hoping someone more knowledgable will chime in, but my understanding is that Indo-Pak Chinese somehow got labeled Hakka cuisine, most likely by the fact that the Hakka people from China were a migratory bunch, and many ended up in India & Pakistan. Somewhere along the line, their signature dishes (like salt-baked chicken) and cooking with pork was lost on the Indo-Pak people, who settled for General Tso's. Okay, that last part I'm completely making up, but I do know that they did settle in India & Pakistan.

In my mind, Hakka cuisine is different from Indo-Pak Chinese, but so many of the Indo-Pak Chinese restaurants have Hakka written all over them.

In conclusion, I don't understand either, Amata.

-Nab

PS. still trying to find a suitable job in Chicagoland (and elsewhere) - stuff brewing recently, I'll keep you posted

tatterdemalion wrote:In my mind, Hakka cuisine is different from Indo-Pak Chinese, but so many of the Indo-Pak Chinese restaurants have Hakka written all over them.

Tatterdemalion, Amata,

One of my favorite restaurants, Ton Kiang in San Francisco, offers, in addition to terrific dim sum, Hakka Chinese. On their web site's info section they describe Hakka as meaning ""guest" and refers to people living in an area who are not natives. The Hakka people picked up dishes and ingredients from each of the regions through which they traveled and incorporated them into their cuisines." Possibly this is the aspect to which Indo-Pak Chinese places refer, as opposed to a specific style.

As an aside, Ton Kiang's web site has a nice little dim sum chart. Ton Kiang and Swan Oyster depot are two of mycan't miss in SF mainstays.

Enjoy,
Gary

tatterdemalion wrote:PS. still trying to find a suitable job in Chicagoland (and elsewhere) - stuff brewing recently, I'll keep you posted

Hurry up already! At least you know you have a free place to stay... more $ for chow!

G Wiv wrote:LTH,

Had lunch at the relatively new Usmania Indo-Pak Chinese restaurant on Devon.

Friendly staff, bright, clean interior, well spaced tables, nice selection of hot sauce and peppers on the table, place gives off a good initial vibe.

I was solo so only tried two dishes, Usmania Spring Chicken appetizer, which turned out to be a decent version of Salt and Pepper style. While well made, greaseless with a nice crunch, good use of hot pepper and onion, the dish was marred for me by over use of salt, way over the top salty, though I have a lower tolerance for salt than many.


The chicken itself was tender and flavorful, with a smattering of whole dry peppers, but the Schaumburg-Chinese brown gravy surrounding the chicken made it difficult to enjoy. In reading past Indo-Pak Chinese threads solid recommendations from Zim, Gobi Manchurian, c8w, Haka-Noodles or Pakora appetizers are on my next try list, though these are not Usmania Chinese specific. Interestingly, the seemingly ubiquitous Indian-Chinese starter chicken corn soup was not offered. It's available on the menu, but not an included starter.

Loving Chinese food in all forms, and attempting to develop my knowledge of Indian/Pakistani things culinary, I intend to further explore Usmania Chinese's menu.

Rather you than me, then

Usmaniya-Chinese is not *that* new, BTW - a friend was visiting from
Philly, and he likes Indian-Chinese a good deal, so we went to Usmaniya-
Chinese when he showed up. That was soon after they opened
I think - he visited in about June IIRC.

We didnt care for it much at all - it was somewhere between ordinary
and poor IMHO. I had expected not much better, and had tried to
dissuade my friend - but he likes Indian-Chinese, is vegetarian
(and thus the "real" Usmaniya was out), and there werent many
options available at post 10pm on a weeknight. Anyway. Friend
was very disappointed too - he said the Indian-Chinese even in
Philly was much better. (The evening was partly redeemed
because he wanted kulfi - and I suggested King's across the
street, which he thought was terrific, much better than anywhere
in Philly

Anyway. I *like* Indian-Chinese, but I dont think much of the
Usmaniya version of it - I love Usmaniya in general, their
actual Muslim-food is maybe the best in town IMHO, but thats
across the street. Id go to Usmaniya-Chinese if someone had
a hankering for Indian-Chinese *and* was restricted to only
eating Halal meats... but thats probably the only time I would.

There arent many Indian-Chinese places that are much good
left - certainly none on Devon. The best-loved is probably
Hot Wok in Schaumburg - but even that, the last time I dropped
by, was somewhat disappointing (however its much better
than Usmaniya-CHinese IMHO - and a couple of their dishes
are really pretty good). The best one now may well be a
place called Bamboo Garden in Hoffman Estates - very different,
upscaleish, higher prices, attached bar (serving Mango Martinis
etc), and more Chinese than Indian-Chinese... but a few of
their Indian-Chinese dishes are very good too.

BTW - it is possible that the new Sabri Nehari (when ti expands)
will have Indian-Chinese items on their menu as well. Sabri and
Usmaniya are very similar, do similar styles of food and similarly
well (I, alone on LTH, give a slight edge nowadays to Usmaniya,
I think Usmaniya started doing much better lately, business-wise,
(due, I think as stated above, to the fact that theyre better , but
also because they expanded. Sabri is following suit, expanding
next door, enlarging the menu etc. Usmaniya also targeted the
younger Halal-eating-but-wanting-fast-food demographic, and
their Halal Brown's Chicken on Crawford has been doing roaring
business for a year and more. Sabri has finally joined that race
too, and, last month, took over a KFC - thus you can now get
Halal Colonel's Recipe on Western Avenue (near Pratt IIRC), couirtesy
of Sabri Nehari.

The next step, of course, should be Halal Jerk Chicken - maybe
we oughta suggest it to Uncle Joe's

c8w

tatterdemalion wrote:
There are numerous Indian-Chinese restaurants here in Toronto, which I'm enjoying, but I'd really like to find those "Hakka" ones that have pork belly as the ubiquitous meat (or pork, in general). That seems to be a tough find.

Ah, Indian-Chinese in Toronto!

There is this terrific place called Lucky Indian-Chinese, in Toronto
(not sure exactly where, maybe Scarborough)? Just awesome,
it was.

(Or maybe thats just us - 4 of us friends drove to Toronto all night
Friday-night, were going on no sleep (and little food, just hot-dogs
at a cricket match etc) for 20 hours, then one friend insisted at 7pm
that he had a strong rec for this one spot which we *had* to go to...
and we got lost, were tired and cranky, before getting to this tiny spot.
So maybe it was tiredness, hunger, whatever.. but we took one
bite, and all the crankiness faded away. We ate literally everything
they had, for about 3 hours - and took the rest to go, which we had
cold at the game the next day. And then drove *back* there on
Sunday night, picked up some more, and took it with us... and
ate most of it at a reststop off the highway in Michigan. One of my
most memorable food experiences. Again, maybe it had to do with
hunger, tiredness, and likely the fact that we all loved Indian-Chinese
food but had not been able to eat it for about 4 years - there was
no Hot Wok in Chicago then - but whatever it was, the food was
awesome then, several years ago. If you havent tried Lucky
Chinese... do try it sometime, and let me know if it is still the
best Indian-Chinese in Toronto

c8w

c8w wrote:Ah, Indian-Chinese in Toronto!

There is this terrific place called Lucky Indian-Chinese, in Toronto
(not sure exactly where, maybe Scarborough)? Just awesome,
it was.

I love Toronto and hope to get back again before too long, so I decided to try a quick google so I could bookmark more specifics on Lucky. Found NOW: Hakka's Attack (from 2002) which will probably be of interest to folks... I don't know how current the listings are, but it includes this for Lucky:

Lucky Chinese
3774 Lawrence East, at Scarborough Golf Club Road
Toronto, ON
416-431-0383

I'd been to Lucky several years ago, but not recently, since the western burbs of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have really started to flourish for all things Indo-Pak. So now we usually go to Mississauga, and for Indo-Pak Chinese specifically, there is the nabe of Airport Rd & Derry Rd which has several restaurants. My favorite being Asian Wok & Roll (no, seriously), and there's another across the street called China Garden. Guess we can discuss this on the Beyond Chicagoland, my apologies.

I also like Desi Chinese, but haven't found anything I like in Chicago (including Usmaniya, though I like their regular desi food). If you're ever in NY, check out Kabob King's Chinese. It's not in the normal Kabob King restaurant (though they do serve some Chinese in their buffet) but in the "express" restaurant around the corner.