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A Naan-tastic Feast
Monday Nov 20, 2006.
By Zinny Fandel
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 photo: Zinny Fandel We try to have a "date night" once a weekend, code for "we aren't allowed to feel bad about spending money on dinner when we have a fridge full of leftover spaghetti." The chilly weather and the absence of lamb stew in my life had me craving something warm and meaty, so I nixed his suggestion of sushi and asked him to meet me at Hema's Kitchen II, 2411 N. Clark St. It took a small amount of convincing. We had eaten there a couple of years ago, just after its opening, and were none too impressed. But the dearth of BYOB Indian spots south of Devon, paired with my full-on daydream of a healthy lamb dinner, meant he didn't have much choice in the matter. As I've been trying to wean myself from the vino during my eat-less effort, the decision of which bottle to drink was a weighty one. It being cold, I asked a Binny's employee what bottle of red would go OK with Indian. His facial expression alone pointed out that that was a dumb question. He recommended a German Alsace or a dry Riesling (dry indicated by a Kabinett designation). Cheap good whites are on a whole other plane from cheap good reds, which is how I ended up with an $11.99 bottle of 2005 Schonlerer Riesling Kabinett (a whopping dollar savings over the Alsace I was eyeing). I hightailed it down Clark to Hema's, where Steamer had snagged the cushy window table and downed a cup of tea in my absence. Hungry, we anxiously dove into the menu while placing our bottle in one of the most ornate and silly wine buckets I've seen (still, better than none at all...). We started with a full glass of wine and an order of shami kabob, minced lamb and ground lentils; dal palak, roasted lentils cooked with spinach and curry; and garlic naan. And it was delish. The shami came out as two thick, diamond-shape patties; I grabbed mine, layered it with cilantro, onion and chutney, and bit into its warm meatiness. A quick sip of wine cooled my mouth but not the flavor, proving the Binny's advice true: With such a spice-dominated cuisine, a lightly-sweet wine that cuts the heat but has enough acidity to balance the richness of the spices and the clarified butter is the best bet. At this point, things were fine. We were sipping our well-matched wine (though, in truth, it wasn't a bottle we were wild about, which kind of superseded its delightful pairing) and chatting away. Diet, check. Good times, check. Then I dipped into the naan and dal, and all restraint went out the window. The garlic naan was double-thick, a sort of folded-over bread whose interior was populated with a colony of minced garlic. Dipped in the creamy yellow-green dal, it was all I could do not to slide the silver bowl to my side of the table and devour the thing. It became abundantly clear that the tofu salads I've been living off of were a little light on taste. I was clearly at the point of "full enough." But when Steamer asked if I wanted more—in the form of rice and lamb cooked in cream and oil (yes, cream and oil)—the lady doth not protest. Nor did I refrain from gobbling my half. Nor did I balk at his suggestion of gajar halya (shredded carrots cooked with milk, sugar, butter, cashews and raisins) for dessert. At the end of our feast, Steamer and I agreed on one point—the dieting moaning had to stop. And that was OK by me. I was too busy moaning about the pain in my near-exploding belly to mind. Zinny Fandel's tales of living the (mostly) BYOB life are intended to be attempted at home and in the community, preferably at BYOB restaurants. If you know of a BYOB spot she simply must tipple at, let her know.
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