There are quite a few Indian restaurants in New Tampa, but one thing is for certain — none of the Indian restaurants in our area also served American breakfast — until now.
The Kabob Café & Grill, located at 18101 Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. (in the same location that also has been Sukhothai and a couple of other restaurants) recently added Breakfast Kitchen & More, which serves American breakfast every day (except for Mondays, when the restaurant is closed) from 7 a.m.-11:30 a.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, the Kabob Café & Grill offers a lunch buffet with a large variety of Indian (predominantly North Indian/Pakistani) items. The buffet begins at 11:30 and the restaurant’s full Indian menu is available every day for lunch and dinner (it stays open until 8:30).
While that may seem a little confusing, owners Javed and Rabia Mubin hope you will come try Chef Keith’s tasty breakfast items, including the bacon, egg & cheese croissant sandwich (left) and Protein Power Bowl (top photo). Please note that because Kabob Café’s entire menu is Halal, the bacon on the bacon, egg & cheese is beef (not pork) bacon, which I don’t believe I’d ever had before, but Jannah and I agreed it tasted very much like pork bacon. The chicken in photographer Charmaine George’s Power Bowl combined egg whites, grilled chicken, spinach, feta cheese and avocado, which also was quite tasty. The Breakfast Kitchen also serves waffles, French toast, oatmeal and Greek yogurt bowls, omelets, Benedicts, breakfast wraps and more.
We also sampled the buffet, which has many Indian favorites, like Tandoor oven-baked chicken and Naan breads, as well as chicken biryani (above right photo) and butter chicken, as well as some items I’d never tried before, like goat qourma (or korma), tender beef nihari (which tastes a lot like my mom’s brisket/pot roast, but slightly spicy), and vegetarian dishes like palak paneer (curry with spinach, cheese, tomato & creamy sauce), channa masala (chick peas with spices, tomatoes & onion) and halwa, which is a sweetened semolina flour mixture that can be a side dish or dessert. Speaking of dessert, the banana pudding with vanilla wafers was my favorite, but there’s also Gulab Jaman (deep-fried dough soaked in rose-flavored sugar syrup), Rubri Kheer (Indian-style rice pudding) and more.
For more info about Kabob Café & Grill, which has a 4.9-star (out of 5) overall Google rating on 900+ reviews, and Breakfast Kitchen & More, visit KabobCafeGrill.com or call (813) 405-8740. — GN
