Buffalo wing fans should flock to Shalimar

Shalimar's Tandoori Chicken Wings (Credit: By Pam Spaulding, The Courier-Journal)

Review: Shalimar

In July 1964, Teressa Bellissimo invented the Buffalo wing. The story goes that at midnight one Friday, some revelers at Buffalo’s Anchor Bar developed a bit of an appetite. Bellissimo happened to have a platter of chicken wings chilling in the fridge. She cut them up, fried them, improvised a sauce, and served them with celery and blue cheese dressing. And before long Buffalo wings were as famous as Kentucky Fried Chicken.

For reasons I can’t quite peg, I’ve never been enamored of Buffalo wings. I like the individual elements: chicken, blue cheese, hot sauce, fried things. But assembling all those parts into a red, sticky conglomeration of skin and bones just doesn’t do it for me. Moreover, the sports I like to watch on TV — curling and golf — don’t get much love in the sports bars where buckets of chicken wings are the main culinary attraction.

Still, there’s no denying that for millions of Americans Buffalo wings and their many variants are an essential part of the football season. In fact, football and chicken wings are so closely intertwined that last spring, when it appeared there might not be an NFL season this year, there was palpable panic among poultry producers and chicken wing chains.

The season has started. And though I still can’t muster much enthusiasm for the Buffalo wing itself, I submit for your consideration what you might call the anti-Buffalo wing: the tandoori chicken wings at Shalimar Restaurant.

In terms of atmosphere, Shalimar is about as far from a sports bar as you can hope to get. At night, the lighting is calm and dim (there’s a bit more bustle during the daily lunch buffet). Service is graceful and adept (you can usually count on a platoon of folks filling your water glass and slipping menus into your hands as soon as you’re seated). And the soundtrack is dominated by the coiling melodies of Bollywood pop. If there’s a TV anywhere in the place, I’ve managed not to see it.

The menu is full-on Indian: curry, biryani, naan, an assortment of outstanding breads, and chutney with everything. And of course there’s a clay oven capable of roasting fish, lamb, shrimp and chicken at temperatures approaching 900 degrees — a technique pretty much guaranteed to yield succulent outcomes.

At Shalimar, they soak a batch of chicken wings in some Indian spices, then blast them in the searing heat of that oven, and send them to the table with mint, tamarind and a cooling, creamy onion chutney.

By the time they arrive at the table, the wings — fleshy drumettes — have a fine reddish bronze look, slightly charred, but plenty juicy. And they pack a fine, focused heat that calls out for a cooling beverage — like one of those oversized bottles of Kingfisher or Taj Mahal, or perhaps a big glass of the frothy yogurt drink called lassi.

I suppose that if you were planning to watch a cricket match at home, you could pick up an order to carry out, but these wings are really best — and worth seeking out — when piping hot, straight from the oven ($6.95 for six pieces; $9.95 for a dozen).

Shalimar is at 1850 S. Hurstbourne Parkway; the lunch buffet is open daily from 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., dinner is served Sunday-Thursday, 5:30-9:30 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 5:30-10 p.m. Call (502) 493-8899 or check www.shalimarlouisville.com for information.