Ali Baba Tandoor
A Cambridge reinvention
BY NINA MACLAUGHLIN
November 4, 2005
It might be that Cambridge isn’t big enough for two Afghan restaurants. Buzkashi, which opened on a corner of Mass Ave just beyond Porter Square about a year and a half ago, was a smaller, spicier, and less expensive alternative to the (rightly) famed Helmand over by the CambridgeSide Galleria. Named after the national sport of Afghanistan — an equestrian rugby in which the ball is a headless goat carcass — Buzkashi was recently renamed Ali Baba Tandoor. The ownership is the same, but now some of the dishes have a decidedly Indian lilt to them. Perhaps people found the former plates a little too rough-and-tumble, a little too foreign. The name, and some of the dishes, have been tamed.
The mourgh challow ($12), for example, is extremely tender chicken-breast chunks, sautéed with spices and yellow split peas in a yogurt, cilantro, and curry sauce. It’s extremely flavorful, and the flavors are Indian. The challow rice it’s served with, as noted on the menu, is boiled, drained of water, seasoned with cumin seeds, and baked. The pallow rice, which comes with most of the meat dishes, is seasoned with cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin seeds, and black pepper before it’s baked. The vegetarian special ($12), a remnant of the restaurant’s Buzkashi days, includes a chunk of sweet and soft baked pumpkin, a slice of pan-fried eggplant in a bitter yogurt sauce, sautéed spinach, and okra sautéed in fresh tomatoes. The okra was the meal’s highlight for its flavor and almost meaty texture; it was a shame there wasn’t more of it.
Ali Baba Tandoor is trying to lure more diners with all sorts of specials and deals. If you go soon, you might get served complimentary Afghan green tea (otherwise $2), a mango lassi (a perfect dessert and normally $4), a small saucer of vegetarian soup ($3), a light salad ($2) of chickpeas and potatoes over greens, and baskets full of warm, flat, cushiony Afghan bread. A tiny saddle, which would just about fit a two-year-old riding a golden retriever, hangs by the door, a reference to the national sport. Ali Baba Tandoor, thankfully, is a more relaxed way to experience Afghan culture.
Food Flight
Local restaurants take a world view
by Kathleen Burge
November 6, 2005
In the globalization of American cuisine, sushi now lies beside cod in Star Market. Thai restaurants populate my neighborhood more quickly than Dunkin’ Donuts. Mexican is mainstream and Indian restaurants call themselves bistros. So in these dreary, dark days of almost-winter; we sought uncommon inspiration in the city’s more far-flung cuisines.
Ali Baba Tandoor
2088 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge
617-876-8664
The restaurant formerly known as Buzkashi has changed its name and added a few Indian dishes, but it remains one of the few places around to get Afghan food. Ali Baba is compared incessantly, and sometimes unfavorably, with Helmand, the Cambridge icon owned by the family of the Afghan president, Hamid Kharzai. But Ali Baba, with its handful of tables and hanging sapphire-blue lights, has a sweetness that Helmand, in all its hipness, lacks. I love the aushak ($11), Afghan-style open ravioli, filled with scallions and topped with a yogurt sauce and yellow split peas. The kaddo ($5) is best ordered in its vegetarian form, without the distraction of beef sauce. My husband raves about the sauteed and spiced spinach in the entree called simple "Special" ($12), a cooked vegetable platter.