In South St. Paul, in a truck stop off Highway 494 sits a Pakistani restaurant. I came across a reference to it in a Youtube Reel in mid-January and descended on them with friends almost exactly one month ago on an extremely cold Saturday morning. Only to find they were closed. Not forever but for two weeks for a holiday. That was the weekend we ended up eating at Mañana. That was a very nice meal but I had been denied nihari and paya and I was resolved to return not too long after they re-opened on Feb 4. As luck would have it, one of the friends who’d been thwarted alongside us was out of town the weekend after Feb 4 and since he really wanted to eat there, we agreed to wait another week (we went to Ramen Kazama instead that weekend). And so it was that we descended on them again this past weekend, on an extremely cold Sunday morning, this time having called ahead to confirm they were open. They were indeed open and I am very happy to say that I ate nihari and paya and more besides and that it was all very good. Details follow. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Twin Cities Pakistani
NY Gyro (Columbia Heights, MN)
I’ve been planning to eat at NY Gyro for a few years now. I heard about them about the same time that I heard of Original Mediterranean Grill in New Brighton: two restaurants whose names indicate Mediterranean menus but which in fact are also Pakistani restaurants. Original Mediterranean Grill’s Pakistani fare—especially their halwa-puri—did not disappoint in the second year of the pandemic; and I cannot explain why it took me another year to finally eat at NY Gyro. Well, actually, I can: with the opening of desi and Korean groceries south of the river (TBS Mart, Mantra Bazar, Hana Market), we have had very little motivation for a long time now to make the trek up to Columbia Heights as we once used to do regularly to shop at Pooja Grocers and Dong Yang. But now NY Gyro might become a reason in its own right. I first ate there by myself a couple of weeks ago. I liked what I got so much that I dragged the family and some friends there with me this past Sunday for a meal that became a very good celebration of Argentina’s World Cup win. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 68: Original Mediterranean Grill (New Brighton, MN)
Despite the name of the restaurant this is actually a review of a Pakistani restaurant.
At the end of my rankings of Indian restaurants in the Twin Cities metro, posted late last year, I’d said that in 2021 I would try to finally get up to the Pakistani restaurants in the North Metro I’d heard tell of. Original Mediterranean Grill is one of them. It is one of a few (several?) Pakistani restaurants in the area that trade on Mediterranean, which is to say Mediterranean Arab branding. This may be a kind of allegory for Pakistani food in most of the US: usually elided by the relentless focus on Indian food but not able yet to proclaim its own name as a marketable category. And so in the Twin Cities—at least—it can be found in a few restaurants whose main hustle is a cuisine the mainstream market can recognize: gyros, shawarma, hummus, falafel etc. Elsewhere on the menu are some Pakistani dishes for those who know to look for them. So it is at Original Mediterranean Grill in New Brighton. Continue reading