Break the chill with spicy halim

Purnima opened last year at the far end of a strip mall on Buford Highway. Men dressed in black slacks and pressed shirts dote helpfully on tables, bringing bottles of water and cold glasses if you happen to bring in your own beer or wine.

Bangladeshi cuisine shares much with the more familiar staples of Indian food, though in the predominantly Islamic country beef is not unusual. Highlights include the decadent, coconut-milk richness of beef korma, and the gamy bone-in goat with spicy vindaloo, rich with ginger and cinnamon and wafting with the aroma of cardamom and tumeric.

But I go time and again for the uncommonly spicy halim of slow-cooked lentils and bird’s eye chili studded with a few pieces of tender beef. It arrives at the table still steaming, thick with heat and spice. Just a spoonful can break the chill in my bones. The whole bowl is fortifying enough to send me back into the cold.