Four sections, nine dishes
The menu
Nothing here is priced by the plate — packages are built per guest and the final menu is written with you after a tasting. Market items like lobster and whole fish move with the season, and he will tell you straight if something is not worth serving that week.
Low, slow, post oak
From the Smoker
Everything here starts on the offset or the pellet smoker and finishes over open coals. Cook times run 4 to 14 hours, so these are set the day before an event, not the hour of.
Reverse-Seared Ribeye, Bone In
38 oz prime ribeye smoked at 225°F to 118°F internal, rested, then dropped onto coals for 90 seconds a side.
Rubbed with black cardamom, coarse pepper, garlic ash. Sliced to order at the station.
Beef Ribs, Plate Cut
Three-bone plate short ribs in a dry rub of coarse pepper, Kashmiri chili and toasted cumin, 11 hours over post oak until the bark goes almost black.
Served whole on the bone. One rib feeds two guests comfortably.
Lamb Chops, Frenched
New Zealand loin chops in a yogurt-and-green-papaya marinade for 8 hours, kissed with pecan smoke, seared hard.
Finished with charred lemon and a dusting of chaat masala.
Whole fish, salt, fire
From the Sea
Fish comes from a Santa Monica supplier two days ahead of any event. If the quality is not there, the item comes off the menu — no substitutions without a call first.
Salt-Covered Seabass
Whole branzino packed in a two-inch shell of egg-white and sea salt with fennel fronds, roasted until the crust rings hollow.
Cracked open at the table with the back of a knife. The most photographed dish on the menu, and the reason a lot of hosts call.
Split Lobster Tails
Cold-water tails split lengthwise, brushed with ajwain butter, three minutes shell-down over coals.
Priced by market. Two tails per guest on the Ember tier.
Cooked in front of your guests
Coals & Skewers
The skewer trough is the part people crowd around. Flat steel skewers, boneless meat only, hand-turned over live coals and plated straight off the metal.
Beef Tikka Boti
Boneless tenderloin cubes in raw papaya, mustard oil and roasted cumin, threaded with onion petals and charred fast.
Twelve-hour marinade. The papaya does the tenderising, not a mallet.
Chicken Tikka Skewers
Boneless thigh meat, hung yogurt marinade with Kashmiri chili and ginger, blistered until the edges go black.
The crowd-pleaser. Kids eat it, so do the grandparents.
Wok steel, open flame
Karahi & Handi
Cooked live in a 22-inch karahi so guests can watch the tomatoes break down. This is the part of the menu that tastes most like a Lahore roadside and least like catering.
Karahi Beef
Bone-in shank and short rib, tomato, ginger julienne and green chili, reduced hard until the oil separates and rises.
Roughly 40 minutes in the pan, finished with crushed kasuri methi.
Karahi Chicken
Small-cut bone-in chicken, tomatoes and butter, black pepper heavy, cooked in under 25 minutes at full flame.
Ask for it white — no chili, extra ginger — if the table runs mild.
Before you ask
Halal
All beef, lamb and chicken sourced zabihah halal from a Chino supplier. Certificates available on request.
Dietary
Mild versions of every karahi and every skewer, and the smoked and seafood items carry no gluten. Tell him about an allergy on the enquiry and he cooks round it.
Travel
No travel fee inside 35 miles of Pasadena. Beyond that it is $2.40 a mile round trip, quoted up front.
Holding the date
A 30% deposit holds it. Balance is due the week of. Cancel more than 21 days out and the deposit rolls to another date.