This Tenderloin Restaurant’s Food Is So Good I Broke Up With My Girlfriend

Shalimar changed this writer’s life — for better or for worse is anyone’s guess. (Google Maps)

BY TOUTA BAHER

I wanted to write about an Indian and Pakistani restaurant in the Tenderloin, but had a hard time deciding which one to focus on. There are so many delicious options within two blocks, but I decided to talk about Shalimar Restaurant, the place that inspired me to leave Astrid, my first and only girlfriend. They have a few locations in the Bay Area, but the only one I have been to is right here by my apartment on Jones Street and Geary Boulevard. 

I am no food expert and do not claim to be. I’m just some dude with a broken heart who loves food and Astrid. I have been coming here since 2016 and I have so many reasons to love it. They are local, I know the families that run and work at the restaurant, which makes it feel like home. The people here are deeply connected to the local community and even let a neighbor paint an abstract mural on the wall by their entrance, which hilariously had, “Pimp My Restaurant” and “Get Out” written across the bottom. I asked Psalm, the artist behind the painting, what it meant.  “I don’t know,” she grinned and said. “But, who doesn’t like Xzibit?” 

Everything about this place just screams good vibes and positivity. The menus are playfully printed in the style of a newspaper with hilarious section titles, and anecdotes about the different dishes. The chai is self-served and the food comes out fast. I’ve tried a lot of different dishes and have loved every single one of them. The curries are amazing; the palak paneer, the okra, and the chicken kofta are all to die for. Every dish is slammed with flavor. The meat is perfectly cooked, tender, and you can literally taste the love they cook into both the food and the local community with every bite. The chicken tikka masala is probably the best in SF, and the saag gosht ruined my relationship with its deliciousness. 

So let’s talk about Astrid, the woman I loved and dated until I ate at Shalimar. Astrid and I met in kindergarten; a typical BOY MEETS WORLD love story of two kids growing up together. We were the same age and lived across the street from one another, we would trick-or-treat together, ride bikes, and would carpool to school every day. We even watched Lion King together in theaters, and shared tears when Mufasa died. I think she grabbed my hand, I can’t remember, but do you know how intimate that is? Lion King was our generation’s introduction to the concept of death. Mufasa died and, suddenly, everything became temporary, and it was like we were bound to one another. When Simba begged his dad to wake up, we became one, aware that life was fleeting, and we were desperate to spend as much time together as possible. We were each other’s first kiss in seventh grade, we had a cringy-shared Myspace page, saved all our passwords as each other’s names, and even got each other’s initials tattooed when we turned 18. Our parents and siblings were also close, and our families would go on trips together. It was everything Disney wanted us to be.

But there I was, in 2016, at Shalimar for the first time with who I thought was the love of my life. We ordered garlic naan, saag gosht, rice, and fried okra. When the food came, I looked at Astrid, and she almost had a sad expression on her face, like she knew something was to come. I ripped a piece of the warm naan, dipped it into the saag gosht, and took a bite. My life changed, again, as every bite was like watching Mufasa die for the first time over and over. I looked at Astrid and felt nothing, it was like she was a stranger, or worse just a character on a TV show I grew out of. I ripped another piece of naan and grabbed a chunk of lamb, I put it in my mouth, and I felt tears run down my cheeks. I couldn’t help it, something came over me and I just kept crying and eating, crying and eating; it was primal.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked. 

I paused, took another bite, and with a mouth full of garlic naan and saag gosht said, “We need to break up.”

To this day, I am trying to understand that moment. My therapist calls it “post-naan clarity. I’m still trying to understand if anything was real between Astrid and I, or if it was just proximity that brought us together. The saag gosht and okra understood me. It was like the food knew me better than I knew myself and accepted me for all of my flaws. The dishes at Shalimar challenged me, made me want to be better. But not just for me, but for Shalimar. 

As it turns out, Astrid was cheating on me and had been for years. Since high school, actually. She yelled at me, told me that she never loved me, and that she had been seeing other people pretty much the whole time we were together. I was silent. I had nothing to say. I just kept crying and chewing, thinking of all the wasted memories and Shalimar’s deliciousness.  None of the staff looked at us when this happened, it was like they knew what was going on and they gave us space to grow, to know ourselves better, to evolve. It was spiritual. 

I still miss her. How could I not? Astrid was a big part of my life and I still have her initials tattooed on my ribcage. But sometimes when I’m feeling extra sad, I go to Shalimar. I sit at the same table where my life changed, and I order garlic naan and saag gosht. And when I’m finished eating, I feel a little better.

Touta Baher is a man framed by Shia LaBeouf. (This is satire, but Shalimar is really amazing.)