The smell of freshly fried pooris wafting through the house often welcomed me to the breakfast table on Saturday mornings at my childhood home in Karachi. At other times, it would be homemade paratha with a simple omelet of eggs with onion, cilantro, and green chili. Karachi weather called for specialties: Chicken corn soup with Slims (spicy potato crisps) for winters, handmade Peshawari ice cream with Rooh Afza to cool off in summers and French fries with chaat masala for every season in-between.

I moved to the United States in 2003.  The night I arrived in the city of Chicago, I was badly craving a plate of hot biryani. I could have compromised on daal and rice. But what I got was a sandwich from the neighborhood Subway. The next day, it was Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). By the third day, I was terribly homesick. I missed home, I missed family and most of all I missed food with my family at home. I missed stopping at a roadside food kiosk for kebab roll or chaat.

In this abyss of despondence, Chicago’s Devon Street came to my rescue. Affectionately known as “the Deewan” in the South-Asian community, Devon Street boasts an impressive lineup of restaurants serving Pakistani delicacies, from nihari and haleem to falooda and mithai. My first trip to the Deewan which included a dinning experience at Sabri Nihari followed by falooda and paan, convinced me that America could be my home.

According to Craving comfort: bonding with food across cultures, a study published by Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) at Yale University; “Stress, depression, and isolation are all emotional triggers that are likely to lead us to seek support in our favorite dishes and to indulge in tasty treats, all the while bolstering our association of food with nostalgia for happier times.”¹² As the diaspora makes home in a foreign country, the food takes center age in immigrant households, not only as a reminisce of the bygone tastes and smells but also as an instrument of overcoming loss and anxiety that comes with the immigrant experience. Native foods help create a sense of belonging and curb the longing for home. “Food habits may become one of the last remaining cultural traits of a displaced population in a new land, and the act of recreating comforting dishes from home satisfies both hunger and the heart, ” according to the HRAF study.¹³

One of the earliest Pakistani restaurants in the United States was Shezan, in Washington D.C. The restaurant received a review in The Washington Post on July 12, 1981. According to Phyllis C. Richman, food critic and reviewer for The Post, “the food is mild but rarely dull. If for no other reason, visit Shezan for its tandoori chicken.” Richman seems equally fascinated by the restaurant’s “unique and delightful club sandwich” but she is confused by their lack of understanding of alcohol which is a staple of American dinning. “We had to argue one night about our wine: An $85 Dom Perignon was brought instead of the $21 Chandon that we had ordered, and the waiter insisted that it was the same. Furthermore, the champagne was poured into balloon glasses,” writes Richman. ¹

Richman’s affectionate critique provides a glimpse into two important aspects of the earlier Pakistani restaurants and their clientele. Firstly, menu items were named just as they were on the Indian restaurant menus. For instance, fire-grilled chicken mostly referred to as chicken tikka on Pakistani menus is referred as Tandoori Chicken. Secondly, the restaurant served alcohol. This shows a desire to assimilate on part of the Pakistani restaurant owners, rather than stand out as unique from their Indian counterparts.

Tufail Chaudry and Hamid Latif reiterate the sentiment of creating “happier times” as a motive behind the establishment of Barakah Bistro at the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB). The café started out as a school cafeteria in 1998 and after a few years, provided space for community members to bring cooked foods such as nihari and choolay from home and share it with others at a nominal cost for weekend breakfast. The first person to formally operationalize the kitchen and set up a tandoor (clay oven) at ISB was a Pakistani man, who went by the name of Shah Sahab. “Shah Sahab would make delicious tandoori naans in the morning,” said Chaudry. Today, Barakah Bistro has an extensive menu prepared by a professional staff that is led by a manager. Their most popular dishes include biryani and fresh-out-of-tandoor naan, but they also serve pizza, gyro and other fast food to be cognizant of non-South Asian community members. ²

Pakistani-Americans comprise of a small sub-section of the Muslim minority in the United States. There are an estimated three and a half million Muslims in the United States and Pakistanis constitute a little over 500,000 of that number. ³ Many immigrants from Pakistan migrated to the United States after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which removed discriminatory restrictions from the US Immigration Policy.

Iffat Idrees came from Lahore to Pittsburgh in 1976. Her culinary world was jolted as she moved from the food capital of Pakistan to a small steel town in the United States. Spices were part of the luggage that Iffat carried to the new homeland. But once she was in Pittsburgh, she could find rice, lentils, flour and other cooking essentials at Bombay Emporium, the city’s only Indian grocery store. There were no Pakistani restaurants in the city of Pittsburgh, though. Iffat and her husband visited South Asian restaurants in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York, but it was hard to tell the difference between Indian and Pakistani restaurants of that time. “I don’t think that they were that authentic,” said Iffat while commenting on the quality of food served at the Pakistani restaurants during the 1970s and early 80s. According to her, “both the Indian and Pakistani restaurants back then served the same style of food with cream-based chicken curries and daal. They were all the same.” There was not much to be said for the ambience of these restaurants either. ⁴

So how did the Pakistani cuisine and its creators started distinguishing themselves in a home away from home?

One of the earlier restaurants which was not hesitant to serve the classic Pakistani fare was Sabri Nihari on Devon Street in Chicago. Established in 1996, Sabri Nihari was the brainchild of Abdul Waheed Butt, a Pakistani expatriate who received his early education in cooking by working at an Indian restaurant in the US. He named his restaurant after one of his favorite spots to eat by the same name, on Karachi’s food street, Burns Road. There is no affiliation between the Sabri Nihari in Pakistan and the US, but Abdul held his Nihari to the high standards of its counterpart on the Burns Road.

Today, Sabri Nihari serves an extensive menu which includes Pakistani favorites from haleem and karahi to grilled items such as Bihari kabob. According to Junaid Butt, the current owner and son of Abdul, nihari remains their most popular dish among the customers across generations. “Believe it or not, it is the young kids who bring their parents for nihari,” said Junaid while mentioning that the grilled specialties like malai boti and Bihari kabob are also popular in their younger clientele. ⁵

Sabri’s non-Desi guests are especially fascinated by their Chicken Chargha which has been featured by many Chicago area food columns.

The key to Sabri Nihari’s success is its authenticity. According to Junaid Butt, when his father opened doors in 1996, Sabri was the only restaurant on Chicago’s Devon Street that claimed to be a Pakistani restaurant and not a South-Asian or Indian one. ⁶ Abdul Waheed Butt was not hesitant to serve an exclusive Pakistani clientele by starting out as a nihari joint, which might not bring in Indian guests because of dietary restrictions against beef. He also ran the danger of alienating other non-Pakistani demographics such as White and Black populations, who would enjoy a mild chicken tikka masala but might find a heavily spiced beef curry like nihari too strong for their palate.

However, a restaurant like Sabri Nihari, which reminded people of home with tandoori naans served with succulent nihari in a not so fancy but a pleasant dining experience, was enough to attract customers. Pakistanis flocked to Sabri from four corners of the United States and the restaurant started catering some of the largest gatherings of not only Pakistani but the larger Muslim community in the United States. Today, they are preferred vendors for mass events organized by APPNA (Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America).⁷

Sabri Nihari served as an avant-garde for many other Pakistani restaurants. Inspired by Sabri’s success, others too hearkened to the nostalgic diaspora with names like Bundoo Khan, Usmania and Lal Qila. By mid 2000s, Barbeque Tonights became common place in American cities. But what’s in a name! With no affiliation or copyright to the original restaurant of the same name in the homeland, soon the restaurant would be on its own. The memory of grand buffet at the Lal Qila in Karachi may lure in a customer through the restaurant doors for the first time, but leftovers warmed up for lunch would not bring them in a second time. Quality control and consistency remained a challenge for Pakistani restaurants several of which would go out-of-operation after the first two years of opening doors.

In this landscape, the restaurants that thrived did not compromise on quality. Ravi Kabob House has continued to serve excellent chicken karahi and a breakfast of halwa poori from a minimalist, hole-in-the -wall spot in Vienna, Virginia,  for over 26 years, while many others in the same area could not keep up rhythms of their kitchen.⁸  Some restaurants fell short on the desire of their potential patrons to serve alcohol with meals, and most would not allow even a BYOB (Bring Your Own Bottle) option. However, over the years, the challenge with alcohol would turn into an opportunity. It led to the rise of creative chai cafes, that would not only cater to taste buds but also showcase Pakistani arts, craft, and music in the United States.

In the West, chai has always been associated with the Indian subcontinent. A new breed of Pakistani restauranteurs embraced chai as a brand, and chai spots with specialty drinks and casual fare started springing from the East to West Coast, mostly after 2010. In addition to food, they highlight Pakistani culture with truck art décor and music nights. The Cha Tea House in Virginia and The Chai Spot in New York City and Arizona both aim to provide their customers with an authentic Pakistani experience with their colorful seating spaces and display of Pakistani art works. The menus include a blend of traditional chais like Hot tea, Kashmiri, and several others inspired by cross cultural influence, such as Thai Iced Tea and Hibiscus Iced Tea.⁹

As Pakistani diaspora grows in the United States, the number of Pakistani eateries continue to expand. The restaurants seem to have come-of-age by embracing Pakistani food and identity and providing an immersive customer experience. This is a welcome move from the earlier Pakistani restaurants which in their struggle for survival catered more to the taste of non-Pakistani clientele and lost those who were searching for a piece of home in their food.

I might not be in Karachi, but today, it is not an anomaly to find chicken corn soup, Slims, Rooh Afza and masala fries in the US, anymore. A trip to Ravi Kabob House on a random weekend, can satiate all the karahi cravings. My 17-year-old does not care so much about the karahi though. She orders a gigantic kebab roll prepared in a classic style, complete with chutney and onion. She prefers the roll in a naan unlike the customary paratha and no one does this better than Ravi. The rest of our party digs into the steaming karahi beaming with succulent chicken pieces in a savory mix of tomato and spices.