Twin Cities Pakistani | My Annoying Opinions

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 →

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 →