My Journey to Pakistan: Enjoying Local Food

A culinary travel in Pakistan is a delight for those who appreciate exotic spices, powerful flavors and spicy food.

For me Pakistan is a country of contrasts: very rich people and very poor people, five stars hotels and people who sleep under the stars, golf courses and slums, luxury restaurants and small food stalls with 20 rupees (around 70 bani or 0.17 euro) tea and pratha.

Although I ate in 5 stars hotels and in restaurants of private clubs, I have found the best local food in tiny and (sort of) insanitary dhabas (street restaurant in Urdu) where I would never stepped in, had I not been taken there by people who knew the place. I was surprised to find there people from different social and economic backgrounds all of them attracted by the quality of the food and so I learnt that there are few restaurants – small family businesses – who have maintained their clientele generation after generation.

Pakistani food has few basic ingredients: lentils, chick peas, rice, wheat, meat (chicken, beef, mutton, goat) and, obviously, spices: ginger, turmeric, cumin, chili, coriander, cinnamon, clover, cardamom and many other.

The traditional breakfast – halwa puri – is conceived so that it offers a boom of calories and energy and it is made from a slightly crispy – soft fried dough and a paste made out of semolina, sugar, spices (cardamom, clover and others) topped with pistachio or almonds. This halwa puri is usually served with some hot gravy from potatoes (aloo salan) or chick peas (chana salan). Local restaurants serve this kind of food from 7 to 11 AM. The alternative for a traditional breakfast can be a black tea with milk (Pakistanis are huge fans of tea, signs of the former British colonialism) and pratha (a sort of a crispy pancake fried in local ghee).

For lunch the most common dishes are biryani (a tasty spicy rice with meat), samosa (deep fried snack stuffed with vegetables or meat) and different gravies (salan) made out of vegetables (with or without meat) served with roti (a whole wheat round shape thin bread baked on traditional tandoor).

During the day I have found very few local restaurants opened and those which were opened were offering a limited number of dishes, saving their energy for dinner, when people start to come in.

After 7 PM the temperature becomes bearable, the city starts to look alive and the streets become very crowded. In Karachi there are many streets filled with restaurants and local dhabas. 

On these so called food streets the smell of kabab, tika, sish tok is instantly making your senses rejoice. The waiters are in the middle of the street, trying to convince you to stop at their restaurants, they chase after cars, throw the menu through your car’s open window and, although they try to attract the same customers, I’ve not seen the competition generating conflicts.

So for dinner the variety of dishes is overwhelming: from grilled meat (kabab, boti, tika, bihari boti etc. ) which instantly melts in your mouth, served with extremely hot sauces of turmeric, garlic or other spices, to vegetables cooked in huge pots of cast iron or in clay pots, all served with naan, pratha, roti, puri (varieties of wheat products).

After having their dinner, Pakistanis enjoy a good milk yellow tea (black tea with milk). I have had a fantastic Kashmir tea (originating from the Kashmiri region) which has a subtle taste of cardamom, pistachio, almonds and which is usually served in colder days, because of its thermic effect.

The options for desert are very wide: puddings rich in milk (kheer, rabri, firni), local ice cream called faluda, kulfi and the enchanting carrots delight made out of carrots, milk, sugar and spices.

Of course all these are just few dishes from the Pakistani cuisine which is very rich due to the high availably of vegetables, fruits and, most of all, spices (below is a part of what I plan to take with me back home).

One thing is certain though: no matter what you choose to eat, you always have to be prepared with a glass of water just in case you ran out of breath from the extremely hot and spicy food.