• Samosas Vegetable and Beef (shared) $3.35
• Chicken Karahi $6.99

Pak Zam Zam first is a great name. It is truly a hole in the wall type of restaurant...it is in an old video store and not much has changed since then. They are still getting themselves together, they don't have a high chair so we took the food to go. The food reminds me a bit of Bombay Deli from across the street mainly in that they are only (currently) serving the portion of the menu that they have made that evening. But what they make is really good.

I really liked the samosas. My chicken karahi was a very flavorful chicken stew. I got some flat bread to go with it and it was really good.

If you live in the neighborhood, I suggest you check it out. It could become one of you new favorite restaurants on the Central eat street.

• Goat Baryani $7.99

Okay, Renee tells me that this is the type of hole-in-the-wall that foodies will seek out. Me, I’d rather find good Middle Eastern or Indian until Pak Zam Zam gets its legs underneath it. That is, the service and décor need some work. They are working on a shoestring budget, and it shows. The walls are virtually bare. Someone online wrote to expect bare tables and fluorescent light, and he was spot on. Seeing as they did not have any booster seats or high chairs, we opted to take our meals to go.

We had one beef, one vegetable samosa. The samosas were average in every respect, including value. I’m sure that there are better samosas in the Twin Cities. However, the green dipping sauce accompanying the samosas was yogurt-based with chiles and spices. The sauce was fantastic.

At first we wanted to order chicken biryani, but they were out. So I ordered the goat biryani, which was enough to feed three people. The mixture of meat and rice filled a nine inch pie tin, and it was good.

A piece of advice for diners: order off the board. It’s in, fresh, and a special. We should have ordered off the board instead of the menu.

A piece of advice for Pak Zam Zam: work on the décor. Put more on the walls. Consider some music. Visit La Gran a few blocks away and you’ll see what I’m getting at. Also, it would be fascinating to watch some foreign language Pakistani videos, for example.