This is from Lake Lindo Grill on the prairie of Woodside Avenue. It's a low working with long outdoor tables in its forecourt.
Lake Lindo Grill
Lake Lindo Grill
"Any great?" I ask this lean person eating kabob with his young lady. "Marvelous, fella," he says. "You get a great deal."
Inside dividers are French blue, white, and block red. I see the menu has message on the back in Arabic, Russian, and is that Turkish?
"I am from Afghanistan," says the proprietor, Jan Sidiqi. "When I needed to leave, and Russia acknowledged me, I arrived through Turkey."
Jan Sidiqi
Jan Sidiqi
The menu is a combo of kabobs, gyro sandwiches (around $6), wraps ($5 for chicken, $7 for sheep), and mix platters with basmati rice, serving of mixed greens, and baked bread for $10 (chicken) $12 (sheep and chicken), and $14 (sheep). Also, there are sides that are a decent arrangement. Like, you can get a stick of charbroiled chicken bosom for $2.99.
"Would you like tea? I make it. It's natural. Hot or frosted."
I go for the hot, and it comes steaming greeny-gold in a glass container.
At that point, stunning. He draws out this plate with finger-sized examples, seven of them. "This is my free sampler to enable you to choose," says Jan. It has chicken kabob, sheep, meatball, yellow curried chicken, barbecued chicken, chicken korma sautéed in a darker sauce and sabzi korma, and sheep sautéed with spinach in a dull sauce. The curried chicken and the two kormas are delicious.
Sheep and serving of mixed greens platter
Sheep and serving of mixed greens platter
I wind up with a substantial sheep platter ($8.99). Also, it is substantial. Has the basmati rice, bread, serving of mixed greens, and multi lumps of sheep. "In Kabul it would go ahead the stick," he says. "Here, I can't, for lawful reasons."
You get a major flame broiled tomato and lump of barbecued onion too, in addition to mung beans blended in with the rice. In addition a tub of green chutney to put with the meat, and the serving of mixed greens has tzatziki cucumber sauce with it. A heckuva combo. This person is extremely attempting.
Turns out Jan is a doctor. A pediatrician. "Be that as it may, my capabilities don't exchange," he says, "so I began this."
For what reason did he leave Afghanistan? "Taliban," he says. "Peculiar individuals. They need to take us back 1400 years. I was in the healing facility when they came. I was keeping an eye on a young lady. They said 'Why are you nurturing a female? That isn't allowed. Next time we see you doing this we will drop you from this window.' It was on the third floor. Things turned out to be excessively unsafe."
So here is this doctor, this specialist, conveying Mediterranean nourishment to Lakeside, serving me. How might you not appreciate his guts and flexibility, to begin once again like this?
Such a misfortune for Afghanistan. Such a pick up for Lakeside.