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Hamza Restaurant & Sweets
179-11
Hillside Avenue, Jamaica
718-657-4498
Cuisine: South Asian
Hours: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., every day
There’s
a restaurant on Hillside Avenue where utensils are optional and the
food is unbeatable.
Hamza
Restaurant & Sweets, featuring food from India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh, is a haven for home-cooked South Asian food.
Not only does it taste a lot like the food served in South
Asian homes, but it’s prepared and eaten the same way, too.
The
pita bread (called nan) with chicken curry is one of the
restaurant’s most popular combinations.
Both are exceptional compared to the few other South Asian
restaurants in the immediate area.
The
nan bread ($1 a piece) is big, doughy and basted with butter
after being baked. It has
enough flavor and texture be eaten alone, but it really shines with
some meat or vegetables.
The
chicken curry is unique, in a very good way.
Four pieces ($4) are served in a pool of thin curry; the dish
is more like a stew than the thicker incarnation at most South Asian
restaurants. Getting to
the chicken is sometimes like bobbing for apples.
The
meat is all white meat and ultra-tender.
Softer than even the pita bread, it falls right off the bone
when you try to eat it.
The
dish, like all of Hamza’s meat dishes, is served with a special mint
yogurt salad, made with cool cucumbers, greens and onions.
Eating
the bread-meat combo is especially fun.
True to South Asian form, no fork or knife is used to get the
food from plate to mouth. The process is simple in concept but hard to
execute without making a mess.
First,
rip off a bite-sized piece of pita bread, which will be used as a
spoon. Dip the bread in
some curry; scoop it up if you really like the stuff.
Then use the bread to rip off a piece of chicken from its bone,
making a little finger sandwich.
Repeat
as necessary, and don’t forget to ask for extra napkins.
There
are dozens of other items on Hamza’s menu, too.
The
restaurant, which opens at 7 a.m., has 10 items on its breakfast menu,
ranging between $1 and $5. Most
of the items are different kinds of fried bread with meat or vegetable
fillings.
There
are 13 small appetizer and snack items, which in quantity can hold
their own as full meals. Most
popular are the vegetable and meat samosas, which just like the
breakfast items are made with fried bread.
Kababs are also popular. All
the appetizers are between $1 and $3.
Bright
red Tandoori chicken, served in different forms from $2.50 to $8, is a
popular and a healthy way to get meat at Hamza.
It’s baked with only a thin layer of Tandoori sauce that
seeps into the meat.
There
are 15 kinds of curry at Hamza, made mostly with chicken, goat and
lamb. They range from $4
to $9.
Vegetarian
entrees include a dozen choices, including a lot of fried bread-veggie
combinations. They cost
$3 to $4.
Despite
America’s newfound hatred of carbohydrates for fear of gaining too
much weight, rice and bread continue to be staples in South Asian
food. At Hamza, that’s
no exception. There are
various biryani dishes ($4 to $8), made of butter-drenched rice served
with a choice of either vegetables or meat.
Plain rice seasoned with rose, called pulao, is $1.50 or $3.
The
nan bread is complemented by several fried breads, all $2.50 or
less and seasoned with vegetables.
As
the restaurant’s full name implies, dessert is a special
consideration here. There
are a whopping 17 kinds of refrigerated sweets available, each sold by
the piece for $1 or $2, or for $4 per pound.
Along with a sweet yogurt drink called lassi, including
a variation made with mango, anyone with a sweet tooth should be
pretty happy here.
—
Shams Tarek
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