Nawab Grill & Restaurant

FOOD

Nawab’s halal buffet brings several strands of Pakistani brunch cooking together: charred tandoori chicken, chicken in gravy, meat-and-rice biryani and the slow-cooked stew nihari. Fried chicken and vegetarian curries broaden the savory selection, with flatbread, sweets and included tea completing the meal. The assortment changes, so these dishes describe its repertoire rather than a fixed daily lineup.

Tandoori chicken comes in pieces with charred edges, while the coated fried chicken includes bone-in drumsticks with a craggy exterior. Tandoori refers to the clay-oven style of cooking, with seasoned chicken roasted at high heat. The irregular breaded coating covers the fried drumsticks, a visibly different finish from the charred tandoori pieces. Chicken tikka masala adds the sauced chicken dish, bringing seasoned pieces of chicken into the curry selection.

Nihari is one of the brunch’s most distinctive dishes: a slow-cooked meat stew with a substantial spiced gravy. Its place at a morning or midday meal follows an older South Asian tradition. The name comes from the Arabic root nahar, meaning day or morning, and the dish’s breakfast association long predates the modern weekend brunch. Traditional versions often use wheat flour to give the gravy body. Atta, the whole-wheat flour traditionally used for this, is also a familiar bread flour in Pakistani cooking. It is the kind of meat cooking built around a long simmer, with the gravy as much a part of the dish as the meat.

Biryani brings long-grain rice to the main-course selection, with pale and golden grains intermixed. Mutton biryani is among Nawab’s buffet preparations. Many biryanis finish cooking the seasoned meat and rice together, allowing the grains to take on the meat’s seasoning. It gives the brunch a substantial rice dish alongside the meat cooked in gravy and the roasted and fried chicken.

The vegetarian curries include daal mash, chana masala and aloo bhaji. Daal mash uses urad, the pulse also known as black gram. Chana masala is the chickpea curry, with whole chickpeas remaining clearly recognizable in the sauce. Their rounded, slightly grainy texture gives this preparation its pulse-based character. Aloo bhaji brings potatoes into the vegetable cooking. These are everyday Pakistani dishes with their own place in the meal alongside the chicken, biryani and stew.

Flatbread accompanies the savory selection. The cut flatbread comes in pieces with browned blisters across the surface, ready alongside the curries. Bread is a familiar partner for nihari in South Asian cooking, and its presence here connects that stew to the wider brunch tradition.

Sweets follow the savory cooking, with the particular selection left to the changing spread. Tea is included with the buffet, bringing the meal through its sweet course and a cup at the end.