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Burn Your Brown Bags, Minneapolis; New Kabobs Serving A Good $4 Lunch
I just had the best $4 lunch of the year—and you can too! Here’s the scoop. Kabobs (thekabobs.com) is a great Hyderbadi, Indian, and Pakistani dive of a restaurant operating down on 78th and Portland, in Bloomington. They have another small offshoot, in Maplewood, and just opened “Kabobs Indian Grill” in the State Fair food court on the 4th floor of the Gaviidae next to Nieman Marcus. Their grand opening is set for September 1, but until then they are serving all diners a $4 sample plate of whatever they’ve got. My $4 got me:
*Good well-roasted, tender naan bread
*A puffy, individual-sized poori donut bread
*A spicy, excellent potato-stuffed samosa
*Some kind of chicken-cinnamon-stick biryani rice
*Some sour-tangy okra thing that had a lot of cardamom
*A really good hacked-up chicken curry on the bone
I got there at 12:40 p.m. and the line was about 25 people long; if I had gotten there any later I would have missed the samosa, which was probably the best thing in the meal. Next time I go I’ll probably hit it earlier—who knows what else I missed? The food was great: Spicy, varied, fresh, hot. As to the rest of the restaurant experience, service and whatnot, I have no idea. As of this writing the place seemed very, very provisional: There’s no menu-board, the pop-machine only dispenses water, they were even out of receipt paper on the credit-card printer. On the other hand—$4! For a huge good lunch. Of course, this deal won’t last. As of September 1, the $4 sampler plate goes away to be replaced by a real menu. However, as of this writing, September 1 seems far away. Put away your lunch boxes downtown workers who love spice! It’s now cheaper to eat out than brown-bag-it.
Kabobs Indian Grill
555 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis
(4th floor food court, Gaviidae, next to Nieman Marcus)
612.636.7786
www.thekabobs.com
Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 in Permalink
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Reader Comments:
I hate to write this because I don't want to give out the secret, but the Kabobs in Bloomington is fabulous. It's a total dive, and very tiny, but the food is terrific. We've been there a half dozen times this year, and every time it's a revelation, reminding us of the little Indian places in NYC.
There is no better recommendation for a restaurant than that it caters primarily to its own ethnicity (i.e., you're likely to get great Mexican food if everyone else eating there is Mexican). This is true of Kabobs -- we were the only non-brown people in the place at 5 of our 6 visits. Look for the specials posted on the wall -- the ones we've tried (a goat curry, a Hyderabadi beef dish) were sublime. And the lemon rice is the best $3 you'll spend this month.
There are only about a dozen seats at the Bloomington location, though, so do us a favor and patronize the downtown location, and leave Bloomington to the expat IT contractors and us!
Ok, just had the $4 lunch from Kabobs today -- pretty great for so little ching. I got a piece of Tandoori chicken which was pretty good -- not dried out (a danger when cooking chicken in such high heat) and moderately spiced. Another item was chicken on the bone in rice, which was quite spicy and good! Then there was a curried chicken in a light sauce and a lamb curry in a rich tomatoey gravy with lentils that was unlike the rogan josh I had last week at the Bloomington location -- but as good as the tasty rogan josh. The vegetarian sample I had was aloo matar (potatoes and peas, which was unusual because the potatoes were firm (not mushy, as they often are) while the peas were, of course, mushy peas. I could make lunch of just a bowl of that.
One of the best things was the aloo pakora (spiced potato dumpling), which was just potato, chickpeas and spices coated in chickpea batter and fried. Also with lunch came a choice of 4 kinds of rice, a naan and a papadum.
Each item was 3 or 4 bites -- just enough to get a good taste -- but collectively it was a huge lunch. I still have some rice and naan left for a mid-afternoon snack.
Oh, yes, I will be back to Kabobs. How soon? Probably Monday ...
Sounds delicious! Thanks for the tip!
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