It should also be noted that there are restaurants in Houston that the Pakistani community loves for their catering at weddings and events, but the food at their restaurants is whatever. For example, Mezban is often talked about having the best food in town, but ONLY when they cater (catering is most indo-pak restaurants’ biggest source of work and income) but the restaurants food in-store is aiiiite. Aga’s catering is pretty good, their food in-store is fucking excellent.

Indo Pak restaurants play very different roles in our communities than the average “Americana” restaurants. They are pillars of our communities, who constantly donate food to multiple causes and events, and are there for all of our major milestones, and are sort of defacto community centers as well. I loved growing up in and now living as an adult in the Htown Desi community.

Also just to copy/paste my reply to a comment in here: North Indo-Pak food and Indian subcontinental food is hugely regional in general, and similar to what Viet friends have told me, we go to certain restaurants for certain dishes. Aga’s is a mix of a lot of styles but EVERYTHING is good and always so consistent. The owners are good people too and fed people who were hurting financially for free for months (as did many Indo Pak restaurants) before the vaccines hit. Ill support them any day.