Best Indian Comfort Food Dishes for a Cozy Night Out

Ask any cook what they eat at the end of the night and you'll get a very different answer from what's on the specials board. Here's our list.

Dal makhani

Black lentils and kidney beans simmered for hours with butter and cream until the whole thing turns glossy and dark. Eaten with roti and pickled onions, this is the most comforting food we know how to make, and it costs less than almost anything else on the menu.

Butter chicken with garlic naan

Obvious, and still right. Mild, warm, slightly sweet, endlessly scoopable. There's no shame in ordering the popular thing.

Nihari

Slow-cooked beef or lamb shank, stewed overnight until the meat gives way completely, in a thick spiced gravy. Traditionally a breakfast dish in Old Delhi and Lahore. Eat it with naan, fresh ginger, green chili and a squeeze of lemon. Rich, restorative, faintly medicinal in the best way.

Haleem

Wheat, lentils and meat pounded together for hours into a thick, savory porridge. Sounds humble; tastes like the most complex thing on the table.

Chicken karahi

Seared in the pan with tomato, ginger and green chili, cooked down until the oil separates. What most Pakistani families order when they want the meat to taste like meat.

Aloo paratha with yogurt

Potato-stuffed flatbread, griddled with butter, eaten with plain yogurt and pickle. Breakfast, lunch or a 10pm dinner.

Khichdi

Rice and lentils cooked soft together. Eaten when you're unwell, tired, or homesick. Almost nobody orders it in a restaurant and everybody grew up on it.

Masala chai and gulab jamun

The correct ending. Warm syrup, spiced tea, no arguments.

What to order for a cozy night

Seekh kebab to start · dal makhani · chicken karahi · tandoori roti · basmati rice · pickled onions · chai and gulab jamun.

Autumn and winter in the East Bay were made for this menu. We're open every day but Monday at 848 Willow Ave, Hercules. Menu · order pickup · reserve a table · find us.