Butter chicken for the soul

Irving Park and Elston just keeps getting better

Hello, everyone!

Sorry about my brief absence last week. I developed a severe allergy to a medication I’ve been taking (an eye drop), and it caused me enough distress to the point where I didn’t want to be out in public. My doctors tweaked a few things regarding my treatment, and now I’m cautiously doing a little better. Thank you always for being so patient with me.

This week’s edition of The Party Cut covers yet another type of cuisine I haven’t covered yet, which is Indian food. Indian food is something I really didn’t get to try until well into my adulthood (probably my mid-20s), so every time I have it, I’m still utterly delighted at how beautiful its flavors can be. My innocence does have a drawback in terms of experience — since I’m still somewhat of a novice, I can’t always tell you if certain dishes are necessarily executed properly. But hey, I can still tell you if they taste good.

Today’s pick comes courtesy of Davida, who actually spied this Indian restaurant recently on her daily commute to work. She noticed a new awning on the street and immediately texted me, and so we earmarked it for a future visit. Some weeks later, a post mentioned it on Reddit, so we bumped it up in priority.

The best part is, it’s not terribly far from us, which is good, because we live in a neighborhood with a relative dearth of Indian food. No more frozen Trader Joe’s dinners for us!

It’s time to hit up Apna Indian Grill & Bar in Irving Park.

Truth be told, Apna Indian Grill & Bar isn’t actually a new restaurant.

It simply relocated from Montrose and Elston to Irving Park and Elston. This isn’t a huge move in terms of distance, but it now adds to an impressively dense intersection of great restaurants. That’s because you’ve got Alp’s Pancake House, Katherine Anne Confections, JT’s Genuine Sandwich Shop, Buona Terra Ristorante, Wurst Behavior, a plastic surgeon’s office (I’m just seeing if you’re paying attention), and more, within close proximity to each other.

Apna specializes in northern Indian cuisine, which includes dishes like naan, roti, and curry dishes like palak paneer (spinach and cheese). This fits the bill for a Midwesterner like me, since I do love dairy-spiked dishes like butter chicken.

We could tell that the spot formerly housed a Mexican restaurant, thanks to the “damas” and “caballeros” signs on the bathrooms, but I say that just adds to the charm of the place.

I think people are still learning that Apna is now here; when we went on Saturday afternoon, there were only a few customers, plus the odd third-party delivery driver would pop in now and then.

We started with a few snacks, including the bhel puri ($9.95), which is puffed rice tossed with finely minced red onions, potatoes, peanuts, chiles, and a tamarind mint sauce.

I’ve had bhel puri a few times before, and what’s interesting is that all of them have been slightly different from one another. I particularly like the light puffy crunch from the rice interspersed with the sharp bits of onion and meatier bits of smashed potatoes here, and the tart sauce brightens it all up. And even though it looks innocent, there’s a slight pleasant heat level to it.

I’ve read about Chicken 65 before, but I’d never had it, so we made sure to spring for an order ($13.65).

The photo above doesn’t quite do the color nearly enough justice, because this chicken was extraordinarily red. I was prepared for an ass-kicking, but surprisingly, the Chicken 65 was milder than the bhel puri in terms of heat, and that angry-looking sauce was really mostly just tart.

This is going to sound like a clumsy American analogy, but because of that vinegar-like sharpness in the sauce, it almost tasted like Buffalo chicken to me. From my understanding, most versions of Chicken 65 seem to be breaded and deep fried, and not nearly this wet (see here for example), so I’m going to have to explore this dish a bit further in other places.

And of course — if you guys have any experience with Chicken 65, don’t forget to chat with me in the comments section! I feel like I don’t get to talk to you guys enough anyway.

In terms of main dishes, we decided to divide our meal evenly between two vegetarian entrees and two non-vegetarian entrees.

One vegetarian item we ordered was the paneer tikka masala ($15.95, comes with rice). Our typical Indian go-tos are very basic, like palak paneer and any version of dal (lentils) or chana masala (chickpeas), so we thought we’d stray from our usual favorites and try different preparations for once. And who doesn’t love tikka masala?

The paneer tikka masala is just fun, with blocks of paneer drenched in your usual tangy tomato-cream sauce, with a bit of background heat to it. The paneer is really worth noting because it’s a little spongier than most versions I’ve had, which have usually been much denser. If you’re a fan of tikka masala, you’ll likely be a fan of this vegetarian version.

For the other vegetarian option, we went with something completely new to us, which was the baghaar baingan ($14.95, comes with rice).

This is large chunks of eggplant cooked in a thick blend of coconut, peanuts, sesame seeds, tamarind, and a bevy of spices. It’s an absolute stunner of a dish, due to the heartiness of that thick sauce. The pieces of eggplant are large and meaty, and I would happily eat an entire meal centered around this dish. Davida and I absolutely loved this, and food this good could easily compel me to become vegetarian someday. And this one I’d say has a medium heat level, steady, but not punishing.

For the meat-centric dishes, we went with a few things we like getting at other places, just because we wanted to see if we’d latch onto them as takeout favorites, like butter chicken ($17.95 with rice).

I know it’s not exactly adventurous, but butter chicken is always comforting. The spiced tomato-cream sauce looks nearly identical to the paneer tikka masala, and it’s very similar overall, but it’s subtly creamier than the tikka masala. I’m actually thankful that Apna’s version is a little less heavy on the creamy flavors than other places I’ve had butter chicken, and I’m glad to say that this version actually has a low-medium heat to it.

If you generally order butter chicken because you don’t like spicier Indian food, you might want to specify the heat level when you order this. But overall, it’s exactly what I’d wanted, and we’ll be grabbing this for takeout night in the future.

I’d heard from multiple people that the vindaloo at Apna was particularly good, so we got the goat version ($19.95, comes with rice).

It is indeed, absolutely delicious. I’d been warned by a friend that it can come wildly hot, but that wasn’t our experience. I’d say it was on the top end of medium, and nothing that Davida and I couldn’t handle. We may opt to have it even spicier next time, because the heat is what kept me coming back for more.

The sauce is nice and acidic, with matchsticks of fresh ginger on top, and heavy on the chile component. That meat is bone-in, so expect to get your hands a little dirty, considering some of the pieces can be pretty big. Davida even got a bone with marrow in it, which she spread on her naan like a champion. There’s also big chunks of potatoes thrown in, which are a great vehicle for the spicy sauce. If you’re a vindaloo fan, I think you’ll be more than happy with this.

As mentioned above, every main comes with rice, and we got two comically large boats of it with our food, which we barely put a dent in.

But if you’re more of a naan person, the naan (we got the garlic, $4.95 per order) at Apna is thin, flaky, and charred like wood-fired pizza dough. It’s more crackly than pliant, but that just means it’s a good excuse to dip it into any excess sauce. There’s also a version of naan that includes cashew, raisins, and coconut (piswari naan), that caught my eye after the fact, which I’ll hopefully grab next time.

Davida and I are grateful that we now have a solid Indian restaurant relatively close to our place. I did get some intel that there’s another new shop that opened nearby as well, called Rickshaw Pakistani and Indian Street Eats. It’s also in Irving Park, near Mayfair. (Thanks for that info, Mark B.!) That menu is fairly compact, composed mainly with meat-heavy dishes like fried chicken, biryani, butter chicken, and beef entrees.

One last thing: The server here at Apna was really mindful about asking us about our spice tolerance. That was a detail I appreciated, so it’s nice to know you can tweak your meal to just how you like it. Maybe next time I’ll ask for our butter chicken to be extra-spicy just to see what happens.

Apna Indian Grill & Bar
3641 W Irving Park Rd
Chicago, IL 60618
(773) 930-3467

Hours:
Open daily, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. for lunch, 5 p.m. - 10 p.m. for dinner

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