Kabab and Tandoor
699 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451
(781) 899-0022
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Indian food is pretty popular in the Boston area, with a number of restaurants serving Northern and/or Southern Indian dishes, including such excellent places as Punjab in Arlington and India Quality in the Kenmore Square section of Boston. If you are looking for Hyderabadi Halal cuisine, however, that is a bit more difficult to find around the region, though there are a few dining spots that specialize in this type of Indian food, including a wonderful place in downtown Waltham called Kabab abd Tandoor.
So what is Halal food? Well it is a bit like Kosher food in that there are standards, or requirements set in place for the items served (and which are too detailed to go into here, unfortunately). And Hyderabadi? Well, it refers to food that is often a diverse mix of Indian, Persian, and Middle Eastern cuisines, with the actual name coming from the city of Hyderabad, which is located in central India. We could go on and on with this, but basically, the food served at Kabab and Tandoor will be familiar to lovers of Indian food, but with some twists here and there.
Kabab and Tandoor started out in a shoebox-sized spot on nearby Lexington Street, but has since moved to its bigger, present-day location near where Main Street and Moody Street meet. The interior of the restaurant has a simple layout, but is rather cozy with a mix of sconces and hanging lamps, a wooden floor, comfortable booths along the edges of the room, and tables in the middle. A buffet table which is used at lunchtime sits near the entrance/exit.
The menu at Kabab and Tandoor has a lot to choose from, with a nice mix of vegetarian and meat-based dishes. Appetizers include a delicious (and complex tasting) dish called dahi wada, which is a plate of deep-fried savory lentil dumplings that have a variety of spices and are smothered in a slightly sweet yogurt sauce. Other apps include pakoras (battered and pan-fried vegetables) and papadum (crispy, thin lentil wafers). While Kabab and Tandoor does not have naan (a white-flour bread found in most Indian restaurants), the restaurant does serve paratha, a whole-wheat lightly fried bread that is quite tasty and comes with several different fillings, including an interesting version that has minced chicken inside. Entrees run the gamut from kababs to seafood entrees to chicken dishes to mutton/beef plates to biryani options. One entree worth considering is the oddly-named but outstanding chicken 65, a dish that Kabab and Tandoor calls a "Hyderabadi special." It consists of deep-fried chicken cubes cooked with flavorful (and hot) spices and yogurt, and while the initial burn of this dish isn't too bad, it sneaks up on you, seemingly getting hotter and hotter as you eat it. Another dish that is impressive is the saffron chicken, which includes chicken cubes mixed with saffron in an outstanding cream-based sauce. Drinks include satisfying versions of mango lassi and masala tea, while desserts include kala kand (morsels of milk, cheese, and nuts) and Rasmalai (cheese dumplings).
Don't let the words "Hyderabadi" and "Halal" scare you off; Kabab and Tandoor simply serves delicious Indian food, and a wide variety of it as well. In addition to the good food, the atmosphere is pleasant, parking is relatively easy to find, and prices are pretty reasonable (mostly in the teens). So there is indeed a lot to like about Kabab and Tandoor, a place that is one of our top picks for Indian food west of Boston.
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