Straight from the streets of Karachi, Pakistani bun kebab are now popping up all across the southern part of the state. Dating back hundreds of years to the Portuguese conquest of India and the British partition that created modern day India and Pakistan, the dish has found new life stateside with the rise of South Asian food truck culture in Texas.
Despite being Desi myself, I only became aware of bun kebab through Instagram a few months ago. Fellow American-born Desi, Abbas Dhanani, owner of Houston’s Burger Bodega, put Pakistan’s answer to the all-American hamburger on my radar. To get more specific, both sandwiches are served on hamburger buns and involve a minced protein patty plus a slew of standard toppings—although there are some important differences.
For one, bun kebab can either be made with a vegetarian mixture of potato and lentil or a meat patty (shami kebab) which combines cubed beef, lamb, or chicken with lentils. In either scenario, the ingredients are stewed for several hours, reduced to a pulp, and formed into a patty. Often dipped into an egg batter, the patties are then seared on a flat top grill. From there, they’re placed on a slider or hamburger bun, and topped with ingredients such as onions, cucumber, tomato, and various chutneys.
“A bun kebab is essentially a Pakistani street burger” says Inam Moghul, the owner of Bismillah Café in Houston’s Mahatma Gandhi District. His family restaurant has been drawing visitors from as far away as Dallas, Virginia, Chicago, and New York City since 2006. And with the flavor of tangy cilantro chutney cutting through the richness of beef chuck simmered for eight hours—it’s easy to see why many of these customers buy in bulk to take back to their respective homes.
Nestled next to Savoy, one of Houston’s oldest and most iconic Indo-Pakistani restaurants, is another bun kebab standout: Playsure Island. Among a sea of worn pool tables, guests can order a bun kebab with a noticeably higher ratio of minced beef to lentil. The tomato and cucumber topping also make the experience seem a little more burger-like. “My mom used to pack me bun kebab in a lunch box instead of your usual PB&J,” says owner Abbas Dhanani. “Houston is not only the forefront for Pakistani food but street food for most cultures. This is why it is a vital part of what makes us who we are.”
Chef Mayal Istwal of Musaafer, a lavish Indian restaurant in Houston’s Galleria area, points to the bready outer layer when discussing the dish’s distinct taste and historical importance. The Portuguese arrival to the port city of Goa in the 1500s gave the Indian subcontinent pao, a sweet bread similar to the modern day King’s Hawaiian roll (and the predecessor to the bun used in bun kebab). The other key aspect being the influence of kebab culture, which is vast and varied in the Indian cities of Delhi, Bhopal, and Lucknow. The latter is where the shami kabob—a mix of meat and lentil—originated.
After Britain’s withdrawal from the Indian subcontinent, Muslims came to Pakistan bringing these foods. The new arrivals helped develop a burgeoning street food culture specifically in concentrated food market areas like Karachi’s Burns Road. And by the 1950s the bun kebab was born.
It took decades for the dish to find its way to Texas. Istwal cites 2018 as a pivotal year in the dish’s collective growth with the arrival of pioneering South Asian food trucks like Haleem Bowl, Desi Bites, Austin Chai Walla, and 1P2P. With the establishment of the Moosa Colony and Boat Basin food truck parks in Sugar Land, 20 miles southwest of downtown Houston, these trailers were able to build an audience in a highly-trafficked new home.
One such food truck standout is Bun Kabab & More, helmed by classically trained chef Syed Ahmed. Prior to opening Desi Bites at Moosa Colony, Ahmed worked at a range of fine-dining restaurants in Houston and Michigan, where he went to culinary school. But being a Pakistani-native—including eating bun kebab on “the mecca of street food” in Karachi—he always wanted to share his culture with the Sugar Land community.
“I learned from my mom that the key to good bun kebab is chutney,” he says. “While she only uses five ingredients, my version has 11. Now, she only wants to eat my chutney.”
Laden with aromatics like cumin and turmeric, Ahmed’s green chutney also has a healthy amount of heat from the generous addition of crushed red pepper. But what really set this bun kebab experience off was the side of heavily seasoned Cajun crinkle cut fries—a starchy, Americanized outlier that’s rarely seen alongside the dish.
My last stop for great bun kebab was Ahmed’s neighbor, Austin Chai Walla. A former oncology researcher, owner Ahsan Abbas left his time-consuming field in 2018 when he decided to start a family. He found his solution in the world of Desi food, such as his beef-forward bun kebab that’s imbued with garam masala, mint, and serrano pepper, and topped with a sweet chutney. Abbas also utilizes the unusual technique of using a pressure cooker to help condense the entire process down to just 30 minutes.
Whether you find this emerging Pakastini favorite to be a new kind of burger experience or a gateway to sampling an underrepresented kind of street food, one thing is for certain: Houston is the best place to try a dizzying assortment of bun kebab. And that reason alone might make it the most exciting city in Texas to eat, and truly appreciate, Desi food.
