Zareen’s Is a Late-Night Pakistani Food Gem in Palo Alto

The Midnight Diners is a regular collaboration between KQED food editor Luke Tsai and graphic novelist Thien Pham. Follow them each week as they explore the hot pot restaurants, taco carts and 24-hour casino buffets that make up the Bay Area’s after-hours dining scene.

For me, the most scenic vista in Palo Alto isn’t the view from the top of Hoover Tower, or within Gamble Garden’s immaculately manicured grounds, or deep inside a coastal redwood grove, lovely as all of those might be. As of last week, I’ve decided that the most beautiful sight in the entire city is the front patio at Zareen’s at 10 o’clock on a gorgeous mid-summer night, when the umbrella-bedecked picnic tables are lit up with string lights and bustling with dozens of contented kebab and curry eaters. The vibe was so choice, I started to fall in love even before I took my first bite.

The beloved Pakistani and Indian restaurant, a staple on the Peninsula for the past 10 years, has two other locations, including the Mountain View original, which opened in 2014. But the Palo Alto Zareen’s is the only one that’s open late — until midnight every day — so that’s where we headed on a recent Friday night, joining the long queue of customers waiting to order at the front counter.

The menu covers a wide gamut of contemporary Pakistani and Indian food trends. There is, for instance, a whole section devoted to desi burgers, naan wraps and other hybridized street foods that would fit in at any next-generation desi food truck — chapli burgers, fried chicken tikka sandwiches and so forth. Meanwhile, the traditional thali plates, which come with rice, pickles and lentil daal, are perfect for the solo diner.

We decided to stick to the kind of cozy, homestyle Indo-Pak dishes upon which Zareen’s first built its reputation. In many ways, the restaurant embodies the apotheosis of fast-casual dining: Within five minutes flat, our order arrives at our patio table piping hot, everything fresh and vibrant as a home-cooked meal. The chicken biryani, a specialty of the restaurant only available on Fridays, is an excellent version of the dish. Each grain of rice is perfectly toothsome, without any clumping, and we couldn’t stop eating the moist, well-spiced chicken and red-tinged potatoes buried underneath. Even better is the lamb gosht, with its tender chunks of meat and rich, savory gravy — the ideal vehicle for Zareen’s outrageously fluffy naan.

I have to admit that I may have been profiled just a bit: When I inquired about the gola kebab sizzler, the staff member at the front counter took a quick glance at me and suggested, not unkindly, that the dish might be too spicy for me. Of course — something something toxic masculinity — I couldn’t back down from that challenge. When the dish came out sizzling intensely, as promised, on a bed of grilled onions atop a cast iron plate, we took our first bite with more than a little trepidation. Thankfully, these beef meatballs were spicy enough to leave our tongues tingling but not so much that they set our mouths on fire. More importantly, they were delicious — incredibly soft and flavorful. We smashed them onto pieces of sheermal, a slightly sweet, flaky flatbread that the restaurant suggests ordering to accompany its kebabs. It was a killer combo.

What we loved best, though, was the whole atmosphere of the place, whether you’re eating outside on the patio or inside the small but cozy dining room, with its chalkboard art and hanging, mobile-style lending library providing a spark of warmth and color. The vibe is equal parts relaxed and lively, but also cosmopolitan in that uniquely Bay Area way — the crowd is a mix of families with kids, tech workers, older white couples and groups of mostly South Asian teens and college kids.

On this particular night in Palo Alto, there wasn’t anywhere else we’d rather be.

The Palo Alto location of Zareen’s (365 S. California Ave.) is open 11 a.m. to midnight daily (takeout only after 11 p.m.). The restaurant also has locations in Mountain View and Redwood City that close earlier in the evening.