I've walked past Cumin several times before but never been there before, so when I was back in Chicago and wanted to go somewhere within walking distance of Deanna's place, we settled on Cumin. While they are mostly an Indian restaurant, they also offer a few Nepalese dishes as well - which was pretty exciting since I've never had food from Nepal before.
I would definitely recommend making reservations here because it was definitely consistently packed the whole night and there is not really a big waiting area. I was starving when I got there, so everything sounded amazing. The thing with Indian food is that it's more fun to get lots of different dishes to share and it's a bit hard with only 1 other person but we made due. We started with the chaat samosa ($6) and then we split the palak paneer ($13) and the bhindi masala ($13) and then I felt like I had to get something from the Nepalese side and a meat dish, so I got the chicken choela ($10) appetizer. I honestly wanted to order a lamb dish, a cauliflower dish and a fish dish because they all sounded fantastic but clearly that was not happening. The chaat samosa came out first and it's a deconstructed vegetable samosa served with chickpeas, onions, yogurt, chaat masala, and tamarind-mint chutney. Delicious. The thing that I love most about Indian food is the intense flavor it packs. But I also love that it's also got "cooling" spices such as yogurt to offset it. Shortly after the chaat samosa, my chicken choela appetizer came out. It's essentially diced and boneless chicken marinated with Nepalese spices and then you get a side of flatten rice. In all honesty, it tasted just like tandoori chicken - which is fine because I love tandoori chicken - and the flatten crispy rice was an interesting touch because I had never had it before and it added a fun texture to it. If this is what Nepalese food is, then sign me up. We then had to wait a bit for the rest of our meal to come out but it was well worth it. Palak paneer is your typical paneer served with spinach, home made cottage cheese, Indian spices, tomato curry sauce and heavy cream. Luckily, they give you rice with this dish - which is an absolute must because you definitely need it for the sauce. We thought about getting naan but it seemed like too much carbs for one meal. The paneer packed quite a flavor punch and the cream/sauce was addictive with the rice. I could have eaten the entire bowl on my own. The only downside is that the cream does make it a bit of a heavy dish so you definitely should not eat the entire thing on your own. Next I tried the bhindi masala, which is baby okra sauteed with cumin, onion, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, dried mango powder, and other indian spices. There's no heavy cream or sauce to it, so it's a nice compliment to the rich paneer dish. While there's no sauce, it still has tons of flavor and heat to it and they did a nice job of cooking the okra so that it's not too mushy. By the end of the meal, I was so happy but super full that I couldn't wait to walk the 20 minutes back. If I lived near here, I would most definitely be a loyal repeat customer. Total bill: $43/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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