Nihari was invented in either Delhi or Lucknow. You can find it and Haleem on menus in North Indian restaurants. India is still home to a very large population of Muslims and most of them live in the north part of the country.
(Oh, it looks like this was already said… never mind me 
)
Also, I’ve been to Karachi a few times (and Lahore once) and I don’t remember anything substantially different from the Punjabi cuisine mentioned here. Not a lot of seafood - except for, interestingly, Chinese restaurants (with Indian spices).
Sure, but it’s not an exclusively beef dish, it can be made with lamb. And yes, non-Hindu communities don’t have the same restriction, but nevertheless, within Indian cuisine, beef is not a common meat.
It is not rare to find beef dishes in North India, especially in areas with high numbers of Muslims (as alluded to before, India has 172 million Muslims).
Most of the “beef” India exports is water buffalo, which your link says but you neglected to mention. That’s notreally beef… And like i said, people do eat it, but it isn’t common. Just ask McDonalds India…
There are many Indian states (including Punjab, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana -all in the North) where cattle slaughter is totally banned, with fines and jailtimes for offenders. Or worse just for being suspected of it.. and that was a Muslim. In fact, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the harshest anti-cattle-slaughter laws are in the states bordering Pakistan, not further South.
Buffalo meat is generally considered beef-y (they are usually in the same area of the meat section of the supermarket). In addition, killing of bulls and steers isn’t banned in North Central India (where Lucknow is). Regardless, it doesn’t matter one whit whether or not cow beef or buffalo meat (or lamb or goat, which is used just as much if not more than beef in Pakistan) is used in judging when something becomes an entirely different cuisine.
That’s also where my supermarket puts the ostrich. Doesn’t make ostriches beef.
But the sale of beef is. Eh, unless you are all after 15yo bullock…
Still waiting for a trustworthy damn haleem recipe… 
If the place you’re talking about is East West in Arlington, get the chicken karahi. That’s what my Pakistani friend who went to high school around there recommends.
Yep, that’s the place. We’ll try that next.
What does he say about the haleem and nihari?
I don’t know much about Pakistani cuisine except that the shrimp can sometimes be a little stringy.
Well it kind of takes a while (whether it be beef, lamb, or chicken haleem), so it may be better just to go and buy it. I remember whenever my mom made it that it was an all afternoon activity with constant stirring.
Yeah, you’re looking at several hours of stirring. Also, you need at least a stick blender.
There’s an economist/food blogger named Tyler Cowen who has various rules about how to find the best restaurant with a given cuisine for good price/quality (in the U.S., although the arguments may apply elsewhere as well). Among his rules are that you can generally find Pakistani restaurants that are better deals than Indian restaurants. Similarly, you can generally find Vietnamese restaurants that are better deals than Thai restaurants. All this is true despite Pakistani and Indian food being reasonably similar and Vietnamese and Thai food being reasonably similar. This article is a very good explanation of Cowen’s reasoning:
I agree with this.
I find this generally true for Vietnamese or Asian Fusion vs. Thai and Japanese. Our best sushi and Thai comes from a Vietnamese/Chinese/Thai/Sushi restaurant. But things are a little different here on my weird island. We have a lot of restaurants, but the vast majority of them are not of the kind of quality that would befit their prices, even the very economical places. Chinese around here is usually low quality except for one Cantonese place with a limited menu. Thai places are also low quality. Our best deals for quality/price are old side street restaurants. Best places for quality are waaayyy overpriced.
In the article that I linked to, Cowen says something like that. You’ll often find the best restaurants for price/quality in the side streets as opposed to in the biggest streets. You’ll often find that the best restaurants for price/quality are in odd places like motels, strip malls, food trucks, or even gas stations. The best time for certain restaurants will often be in the first few months after they open and haven’t yet had a chance to get known as a first-rate restaurant and thus aren’t overcrowded. The hip places where the staff and customers are well dressed are often not good deals for price/quality.
A) that’s not what the article said. It said it didn’t know how much of the beef was cattle vs. water buffalo. Obviously there is some concern for beef production if (as stated in the same article) there are Hindu nationalists who are alarmed.
B) Pakistan uses quite a bit of water buffalo beef itself (and yes, they call it beef there as well):
http://www.dawn.com/news/968331/buffalo-a-milk-and-meat-enterprise
In addition, even if Pakistan used only cattle beef and India used only water buffalo beef, that wouldn’t substantially change the cuisine.
I can see that. But the bit about Vietnamese and Thai food being reasonably similar? I can’t see going to a Vietnamese restaurant when I’m in the mood for Thai or vice versa. Indian and Pakistani, that’s close enough.
