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Heading south on Western i usually find spots. If not, just head south on any of the side streets off of Devon and you can usually find parking a couple of blocks away.

If you go east of Western avenue and then go south on a side street, your near the less-trafficked part of Devon and can find better parking, too.

Parking can be found North on Western as well - just don't park IN the bank parking lot.

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I live a few blocks from Khan's, so we always walk .

However, those of you driving in to my 'hood and parking in front of my house* should know that there are free lots on the evenings and weekends. The West Ridge Chamber of Commerce publishes a map of the lots on its website at http://www.westridgechamber.org/parking.html .

*And, for the record, I don't object to people parking on my block who are visiting Devon--unlike some neighbors of mine who apparently believe their right to park directly in front of their bungalows is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

thanks everyone. the parking lots and tips will make the trip to the delicious khan bbq all the more enjoyable

Thanks for the quick responses, y'all! Knowing than Khan throws all that in for free is good news as well.

Met some friends for a typically great, 'scratch that itch' lunch at Khan today. There was nothing I hadn't tried before and nothing wouldn't happily order again. I've been messing around with a new lens, so it was a good opportunity to take a few shots . . .


Seekh Kabab



Chappli Kabab



Chicken Boti



Frontier Rice with Chicken



Onion Naan



Paratha



Daal Palak



Aloo Gobi



Bhindi



Broast Chicken

=R=

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Looks like you treated yourself to a fast lens.. what is it?

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RIP LTH.

It definitely is fast. It's a Promaster 17-50, f 2.8. I'm not really familiar with Promaster but it was very well-priced for the speed. I've only used it a few times so far, so I don't really have a good feel for it yet. Fwiw, those shots were taken at ISO 100, which was very nice, considering the amount of available light yesterday.

=R=

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Twitter: ronniesuburban

So what, exactly, is chicken boti? I ask because I've ordered it at two other places (Zam Zam and Devon Grill) where it came out orange and tasting of a somewhat different spice profile. Where the green speckled heat of the version at Khan is pretty distinctively different from that. (It wasn't bad at either of the other places, but it sure wasn't Khan's boti, either.)

It's no surprise that a dish can have various permutations, but I'm just curious what people normally think the name means.

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Well, at Khan, it seems to be chicken that's marinated in their raita and then cooked in the tandoor. I was thinking about their menu last night and wondering abuot how transferable the terms are. I'm guessing there's someone here who can shed some light on whether boti, seekh, chappli, etc. have some universally-identifying attributes.

=R=

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Yeah, that's basically what I'm wondering, if we've been referring to it as if it meant a particular recipe and in fact all it means is "cooked chicken" or something.

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I'm not 100%, but pretty sure that boti refers to chunks of bone-less meat, not to a specific type of seasoning. Of course now, I'm hungry for Khans...

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If they only had a Ghulam Mohiuddin or a Maria Wasti on the menu, we'd know for sure that they were Khan-specific terms.

=R=

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You are correct sir. Specifically "boti" refers to boneless chunks of thigh or leg meat when you're talking chicken, or boneless chunks of leg or shank meat from our four-legged friends.

Seekh kebab almost universally refers to seasoned, minced meat hand-molded onto a stick & cooked on a grill.

Chapli kebab almost universally refers to seasoned, minced meat shaped into a patty & cooked on a griddle.

Shami kebabs are a more confusing beast: allegedly they're supposed to be similar to chapli kebabs, but I've often seen the term used to refer to seekh kebabs.

All of the above kebabs can be made of different kinds of meat (generally lamb or chicken in India, often beef in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, etc.), with different seasonings, served with different chutneys, and so on.

Sorry I couldn't offer more exact details...I'm guessing that, over thousands of years, people have taken all kinds of liberties with the recipes & nomenclature as they saw fit.

Yet another mouthwatering post by ronnie_s. I can't stop jonesing for a piece of that paratha with a generous dunking in that oil afloat on the aloo gobi. As my Mom would say, that stuff tastes like "more."

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i was thinking the same thing... ron, thanks for the pictures

Wow, fantastic photos...

One note on Shami kabobs - they are (or should be) a well-defined variant. They are minced-meat kabobs, the texture is very different from other kabobs. Generally a soft, almost-mushy interior.

Thanks for this info!

Do you happen to know how they should be shaped? I always thought they were disk-shaped, but have seen them once or twice at random restaurants where they looked more like seekh kebabs.

Also, any idea where I can find some good examples of them, y'know, for "independent verification"?

Great pics Ronnie! I was there last night with two friends who thought they'd died and gone to heaven.

The chicken boti and seekh kabab are off the charts. Easily the best renditions I've had anywhere.

Another must-have item is the garlic-naan. Hot steaming naan bread with a generous application of garlic pieces embedded int he dough. I want to loofah my body with that stuff it was so good.

I must ask for some feedback on two items I have yet to try there:
- Chappali kabab
- Broasted chicken.

The broast chicken is kind of like Pakistani Popeyes. It's spicy fried chicken, which is usually really juicy inside.

The chappli is minced, highly-seasoned chicken, ground into a sausage-like patty and cooked on the grill. I'd only had it once before yesterday and that previous version was a bit moister but yesterday's batch was still good. It was nice on the paratha with some daal palak under it and some raita atop it.

=R=

_________________
I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Spit out the gum, sister!

Twitter: ronniesuburban

It's chicken? That's sure some chicken that doesn't "taste like chicken."

I agree, BTW - "boti" to me has always just been sort of "hunk of meat". You eat curries (goat curries usually), you pour some for your friend onto his rice, and he says "put a coupla botis in there, will ya?". You go out for goat biryani, and you complain "bleddy restaurantwallahs, skimping on the meat as usual, hardly found a boti in there". To me it was almost always used for meat, goat or beef - hardly ever referred to chicken, really. But it makes sense at Khan's - its boneless chunks that just happen to be chicken. However, there is no specific seasoning for a boti - it can be the green-masala-stuff that works so well at Khan's, or (more commonly) it will be the red-masala stuff you'll get most other places.




Agree with both these defintions too.. though, BTW, I too think Chapli is almost never chicken. Or it shouldnt be, at any rate, not unless they specifically claim "chicken chapli kabab" (IMHO). If you see just "sheekh kabab" or "chapli kabab" on a menu, it ought to be *real* meat Thus goat, or lamb, or beef, depending on where you are... if its chicken it ought to specifically say so.




Disagree with this one - I'll second ab on this. To me "shami kababs" are minced-meat kababs, and very very different from chaplis (the texture is unmistakably different, and usually there are some different seasonings and additional ingredients, to help retain the shape). To me shami's are generally disk-shaped, but dont *have* to be - individualists may go spherical, though its frowned upon (Also, BTW, to me a "nargisi kabab" is a shami-kabab with a hard-boiled egg in it - the actual meat part is identical, minced, same ingredients etc).



True - but again, IMHO, when it says kabab it invariably means *meat* - which excludes chicken unless specified. That is, IMHO you will almost never see "sheekh kabab" anywhere which is chicken - unless it specifically says "chicken sheekh kabab".

c8w

My to-go item at Khan's remains the Chicken Boti - Iam not usually *that* much of a chicken guy, not as much as some other meats, but thats the best chicken dish in the city probably, and IMHO the best item on the Khan's menu.

For my #2 Khan's item... yes, the sheek kabab is up there, but Ive occasionally had a very good version of the kadai-gosht, that (on their good days) may rank ahead of the Sheek for me. But only on a good day. Am not always a Frontier Chicken fan either, but Khan's Frontier-Chicken-rice is actually pretty good too.

In general I think Khan's does goat pretty well (as does Usmaniya) - they are two of the better ones in the city, and often those are the items I go with - usually ahead of the broasted or the chapli, even. One of my veggie friends claimed during one meal that, on that particular day, Khan's daal was the best to be found in the city.. but Ive never gotten around to making an attempt at verifying that claim, and probably never will

Oh, and Ive tried Khan's zarda for dessert exactly once.. and decided that they really make a pretty good Chicken Boti (a block walk for King's kulfi isnt *that* inconvenient).

c8w

C8W -where is King's Kulfi? Never heard of it?

I think it was a reference to King Sweet's kulfi?

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Thats kulfi, just normal kulfi, purchased from "King Sweets" King Sweets is on Devon, east of Western (ie the Pakistani section of Devon, the Line-of-Control being Western itself). You go head east on Western, go past Tahoora, look to your left, and you'll see it - right before you see Daata Durbar. If you see Usmaniya youve gone too far.

Tahoora is the more popular sweet/chaat shop on the Pakistani side of Devon, tis true, and maybe for good reason. But I happen to think that King has the markedly superior kulfi (and falooda), probably the best Ive had on Devon. (Not that thats saying much, nobody really makes great kulfi in Chicago. The best in Chicagoland is at the otherwise overpriced and not-neccesarily-worth-it Chowpatty in Arlington Heights... Chowpatty's all-veggie menu is overpriced and not better than Devon's veggies, but their kulfi is the best Ive had in Chicagoland I think). Oh, and at least once Ive had very good ras-malai at King too (though I have have gotten lucky, I think it was freshly made only an hour or two earlier that time).

c8w

I've never had the kulfi at King's, I'll have to try it nor for that matter at chowpatty though I always think of your fondness for it when I'm near, but remembering their prices generally find my ways to Johnny's for a lemon ice or alternatively to mitsuwa for one of the ice creams at pastry house hippo (I like the black sesame myself) instead. King's Ras Malai is generally decent (it doesn't have that corn starched thickened viscosity that some places' ras malai exhibit) but I generally have better luck with the ras malai at tahoora (and then I can pick up my favorite sweet there- kalakhand), its not quite as sweet, which is more to my liking

One other note about King Sweets - they being the one place I know of to serve sheer chai (which I know I've mentioned elsewhere), I was thinking of this as I had a sweet version of sheer chai at Afghan kabob on montrose with lunch - think of it as a very good kulfi but served warm and liquid.

in talking to the owner, we mentioned that in kashmir sheer chai is usually salty, he noted that in afghanistan the sheer chai is served sweet but salty biscuits/cookies are served for dipping in it.

oh, and the only thing I'd add about the boti/kabob discussion slightly above is that "boti" has kind of a size connotation - its about the size piece you would be served in an entree wet dish (but boneless), larger than a "tikka" but smaller than say a shank or a thigh.

as for the daal at khan's -its ok, I actually like usmania's better - I think that dal preference is more individual than for instance chicken boti preference - there's issues of how wet/dry, how soft/toothsome, amount of tarka, and of course which is the preferred pulse.

Quick question: are they still cash only? I haven't been in about six months and want to get back in the near future; Yelp is listing that they are taking credit cards, but I'm skeptical...

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I've always paid with a credit card at Khan. Visa/MC only I think.

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my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

Yes, they take Visa/MC. We were there on Saturday night.