Kennedy’s Irish Pub and India Curry House Restaurant

welcome to Kennedy's! tin tin!

India Curry House is a restaurant inside of an Irish pub called Kennedy’s, over on 1040 Columbus Street between Francisco and Bay Streets, right across from Bimbo’s nightclub in North Beach. I have wanted to eat there and try a pint for about ten years now. My chance finally came last week. Since the eatery’s in the middle of the pub, you’re surrounded by the sounds of people playing bar games and loud intoxicated partiers. I liked the excitement of the place though it might not be for everyone. The restaurant itself is dark with pretty Indian art displayed everywhere. Some of it is silvery with sparkles. Thrilling!

To me, it sounds a little odd to have an Indian place in a pub, but Prof T., who’s been to the U.K. several times, says it’s fairly common. Pubs are very important for the British and Irish. They’re community gathering places where people meet to socialize and to organize events. They’re very popular, perhaps because the other longstanding community gathering place, the church, is not quite as fun as the pub. It’s great to experience a little slice of that pub culture in San Francisco.

India Curry House dal soup

The Curry House serves Southern and Northern Indian foods which was a big part of the draw for me. In the Tenderloin, where I usually go for Indian, it’s generally Pakistani style. My understanding is that Southern Indian is quite different. That Rasam soup that Heguiberto served at his Indian food evening, for example, is a typical Southern dish. India Curry House offers a dal soup that is similar to the Rasam! It’s not as good; maybe because the homemade one was prepared with love and all, but I liked it anyhow. The cauliflower/ potato dish called Aloo Gobi is really nice and it’s served warm in a round silver bowl as if it just came right off the stove. They didn’t use too much oil as some Indian food veggie dishes tend to be prepared. The Garlic Naan is really crispy and filling. I could only eat half….thus fulfilling my French use of moderation learned from Mireille Guiliano! Prof. T. ordered Chicken Tandoori and an additional order of Chicken Tikka Masala that the waiter said is very popular, but for all you pescetarians there’s plenty of fish and veggie dishes with similar sauces and of course the unmentionable redder meats!

aloo gobi

A real treat is choosing from a two page beer menu with hundreds of different brews; some are on tap though most of them are bottled. You can get anything from Hebrew Beer, to Belgium, Japanese, Chinese and South American, and then some. The restaurant is dangerously close to the pub thus the full supply of beer. The India Curry House also offers quite a few wines that you can buy by the bottle for pretty reasonable prices, like under 25-dollars. They offer corkage for 15-dollars for all you-bring-your-own-bottles-of-wine corkage people! We ordered Belgium Hogaarden beers, served with a lemon. This is a rich beer we learned to love while we were in Belgium recently for Prof. T’s work. Overall we enjoyed the experience and we’d go back to the India Curry House. Next time I’m going to order more exotic beers and I’ll come extra hungry so I can really pig out! Oink, oink!