Koyla Pakistani BBQ presents its beefed-up menu every night of the week, but Sundays really sizzle

Walk into any Pakistani restaurant in this city and you’ll notice the meat-forward menus at places like Kabab King, Chaat House, Tawa, BBQ Tonight and Sizler Tandoori have beef in a starring role. But there’s an actor down on the Orange/Osceola county border that Paks in the protein and lures folks from Seminole, Hillsborough, even as far as Dade County. The name is Koyla Pakistani BBQ, and while its frowzy backdrop (just down the street from the Florida Project motel) is short on looks, there’s real beauty in its fare.

That wasn’t evident when we pulled up one Sunday evening and were told that they were only offering a buffet ($24.99). “No” was the response to our inquiry about ordering off the menu, and that included nihari, a dish the pal and I were excited to try. So we resigned ourselves to picking through the uncovered trays of meat that, at first blush, didn’t seem all that inviting. A spoon was missing from one tray, and there were splats of chutney on the table courtesy of an evening rush. But that’s when chef-owner Bilaal Dugan walked in the door. The man laid some charred goods from outside into those trays, and we couldn’t help but follow him back out to the source.

To the side of the restaurant, under a tent, sat a long rectangular grill propped up on a steel table. Hot red coals sat beneath skewers of beef and chicken, their drippings scenting the air. “We only do this on Sundays,” said Dugan, and the resignation we felt just moments before evaporated like fat hitting scorching charcoal.

“This bihari kebab is my favorite,” he said before de-skewering the eye-of-round morsels onto a plate for us. The plush chunks had been marinated in papaya paste and a bit of yogurt overnight, lending them a soft, almost creamy texture with a crusty charred exterior. A “treasured family recipe” is used for the seasoning blend, but garlic, ginger, chilies, poppy seeds and nutmeg are basic elements.

We slathered on the green chili chutney and enjoyed it “as is,” but when a plate of puri paratha ($4.99) came out, our eyes bulged wide. “Only four places in the country make this,” Dugan said, and whether the claim checks out or not, it didn’t take away from the fact that this fried bread, thick like a paratha but bubbled and airy like puri, is alone worth driving out to Kissimmee for. Best of all, it’s included in the price of the buffet, and we quite enjoyed rolling some of the other kebabs inside it — cylindrical gola kebab fashioned from minced beef, chicken seekh kebab, and chunks of gingery chicken boti kebab.

Now, all these charcoaled meats are available every day of the week; they’re just not grilled outside except on Sundays, and outside is where you’ll feel like you’re dining on a busy street in Karachi. A cat strutted past us and curled up near the entrance of the restaurant; Pakistani families chatted away in Urdu; we even witnessed a fender-bender from the outdoor table where we sat.

Then, more superb eats: fry kebab, a street food staple on Burns Road in Karachi, is more of a spiced minced beef curry fried in a whole lot of ghee. We scooped it up with butter naan, which is also included in the price of the all-you-can-eat affair. Admittedly, I de-prioritized the chicken biryani that sat in a steel receptacle at the end of the buffet line, but that was a mistake. This was one of the better biryanis I’ve had in a while, and the separation of the extra-long-grain Sella rice Dugan uses had a lot to do with it. I almost passed on the rice dish, but I’m glad I didn’t.

And I’m also glad I stopped by Koyla (the Urdu word for “charcoal”) the following day to revel in the dish I’d wanted to order the previous night — nihari ($17.99). Of all the renditions of Pakistan’s national dish I’ve had in this city, Koyla’s is, without a doubt, the finest. The beef shank is so yielding, and the luxuriant gravy so redolent with cinnamon, ginger, garam masala and chili powder, that I ordered two puri ($1.99 each) to sop up the thick liquid. Never on a Sunday, I hummed inside my head as I enjoyed this most comforting of stews but, as it turned out, Monday, Monday was so good to me.

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This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2024.