Most Pakistani (and a healthy percentage of Indian) food around NYC remains Punjabi, and a lot of it comes courtesy of Lahore, the region’s major metropolis. Standouts include the recently resurrected Lahori Kabab, back to life a block away from it's original location, damaged in a fire back in 2016. My local delivery place is Lahori Chili, which offers the city’s famous Chargha, along with other favorites like Haleem, Kulcha and Nihari.
Despite its ambition, Laree Adda still has something of a ramshackle vibe to it; the curries, for one, are cooked in advance and then microwaved, which is a fairly common practice overall, but still sometimes results in an uneven temperature. I didn't mind when the result was as good as the Palak Paneer, in which the blending of the paneer into the palak was an especially nice touch, assuring ample richness in every bite. This was also made up for by the fact that naan appeared to have been homemade, in a denser Roghni-style preparation than is usually found; the restaurant seems to have fairly serious ideas about bread. Some of the presentation is just bougification, catering to the local neighborhood, fair for a place that's a bit further afield from most of the India Square area, part of the more modish Grove Street strip, with all that that entails. The summer cooling drink Jal-Jeera is thus renamed “Mint Margarita,” which doesn’t really prepare for its husky taste, especially since going by the description, one might expect the more affable Nimboo Pani instead.
Taking the menu as a whole, the closet point of old-world comparison is probably the canteen-style restaurant, with specific reference to Lahore’s historic Pak Teahouse made on the website. Long Island City's Adda, a less regionally-focused spot most notable for advancing the dialogue on how adventurous the average eater is willing to be, is also a clear inspiration. Another reference point is the Lahore Gymkhana, which is mentioned in the menu’s description for its Shami Kebab. Menus for this vaunted establishment - which includes several different restaurants of varying degrees of fanciness - remain tantalizingly hard to access online. Still, what can be seen of the Gymkhana menu is instructional, showing how the proletarian world of fried street foods melds together with the upper crust of English-inspired tea snacks, part of a program of cultural flux that’s likely been in motion ever since the place opened 140 years ago. That same flux is in effect at Laree Adda, where chutney drizzled chapali burgers mingle with slow-cooked mutton trotters, coalescing into a menu that's as interesting as it is jumbled.