Al Hamra Indian Pizza & Curry — Restaurant in San Francisco

Hands down, my go to spot when I'm always in the Mission, especially 16th Street and Mission. I skip every spot nearby just because of how consistently smackin' this spot is.

They even took care of me once when I was GONE off the drank. Their hospitality and love is 1/1. Trust me.

Something about this spot always brings me back. There's a couple of ways to get there. If you're coming out the way, and want some great Indian/Pakistani cuisine, 16th Street Bart is not that far away, and the 49/14 bus stop to get you around. They got a bathroom, and plenty of seating inside.

I started out with the chicken tikka slice when I first came here. Ask for the tikka sauce on the slice, and for them to warm it up. Trust me. It's something else. 4.5/5

Their chicken roll is always my go to. It's a buttered chicken burrito, nicely packed and rolled into some naan; with seasoned basmati rice, and onions. Make sure to ask for the Mint Chutney and Spicy tamarind sauce to accompany all the flavors in the roll. 4.75/5.

When I'm feeling jiggy, I go with their chicken thali. Now these last few times I've been there, I substituted the lentils with the saag paneer. If I'm feeling extra jiggy, I go with the garlic cheese naan. The garlic cheese naan is immaculate, has a beautiful cheese pull every time I get it. This time, I went with the regular buttered naan.

Every bite I took, I damn near wanted to cry of joy. The saag paneer and tikka chicken is smothered in flavor, in rich spices and ingredients. I can go here anytime of the week; and it's ALWAYS consistently smackin'. Almost like they sprinkle some crack in their dishes. Always gotta go with a Sprite. 5/5.

Much love to the owners and people that work here. That's what keeps this place going. Without them, it wouldn't be Al Hamra. Hambeezy...

When you go to eat at any restaurant and you finish your delicious food, and then instead of just paying the bill you place another order of other items you didn't try, I think is a pretty good sign that the food was excellent. That happened to my family and myself at Alhamra!!

I agree that the place is very modest inside, but the food makes up for it many times over. If you can overlook that and enjoy your company and food then you should be ok. Is not that it's dirty but more of old furniture and so so lighting.

Now to the food, any curry item I think is simply delicious, creamy, great aromas and tender pieces of chicken (which is the item we order the most). The chicken Tikka Masala and the chicken Chana are incredible!!

The vegetarian section is really tasty also, my son loves the Mushroom Mutter is excellent.

The Tandoori chicken and prawns are succulent, the meat on each super tender and just full of great flavor.

Nan, ohhh the nan, I think they make each order as it is ordered, perhaps I am wrong but it tastes fresh and great!! The first time we went there the server was confused as to why we ordered like 4 different styles of it, he even said that it was a lot of food, but we love tasting different things.

The vegetable Samosas are big and delicious, the sauces they bring for them, one red and the green sauce are superb. I also tried the Papadam, which is a sun dried lentil flavored wafer, which to me had a strong and yet delicious cumin flavor.

All in all, an excellent food experience, and the prices are really good for the quality of food you are getting, the portions are not huge and you leave feeling satisfied.

At least for us is worth the 29 mile drive to have...

TL;DR: High quality Indian food and OK pizza. Exactly what I was looking for, will definitely order again.

The chicken tikka and lamb bhunna were fantastic. They had tons of flavor without being overly greasy or heavy. The bindi masala and lamb samosas were similarly great. The aloo gobi was a bit bland but still quite nice. The meat and veg were all clearly high quality ingredients.

We also ordered a cheese pizza because my kids have poor taste in food and don't like Indian for some reason. It was fine, the sauce was maybe a bit overly sweet, but the kids loved it and I think it was awesome to be able to get this alongside the Indian food in a single delivery order.

I'll be back for sure. There were a bunch of other things on the menu that I want to try and I'm definitely curious about the Indian...