Top 5 Resturants

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Pakistan Food & Cuisine Guide

Geographical location plays its part in Pakistani food. Pashtuns and Baluchis who live near the Afghan border have retained the flavours of their western neighbours whereas Punjabis, Sindhis and Muhajirs eat food similar to what is offered in the east - rich, spicy Indian food. As expected, when recipes are imported, they are transformed to suit the local palate, making the dishes unique.

Magnificent Meats
A traveller finds a magnificent variety of meats in Pakistan. A meal without meat would not be considered fit enough to be served to a guest, though vegetables and lentils and freshly baked wheat bread, called roti, is a staple on the table. The food is spicy by most western standards. Besides native food, American fast food and Chinese cuisine have also made their presence felt in major cities.
Most of the cuisine is Mughlai (influenced by Mughal rulers), which is distinguished by a rich, spicy curry that is the base of most of the dishes, be it butter chicken, gosht masala (literally spicy meat), lamb curry, or various vegetarian dishes. Rice takes on an exotic form when it becomes biryani (meat - mutton or chicken - cooked in yoghurt and rice). Spinach and lamb come together as sag gosht, and dry, charcoal grilled dishes include the famous tandoori chicken (full chicken) and chicken tikkas (quarters), shish kebabs, (skewered grilled meat), shami kebabs (chopped meat patties), and tikka kebabs (spicy lamb pieces).
Pakistanis are mostly meat lovers. There is an enormous and enticing variety of meats, cooked in a variety of styles which tempt the palate. The vegetarian fare often takes a back-seat, and strict vegetarians need to be careful and ask questions about the manner in which food has been prepared.

Royal Desserts
Imperial Mughal delicacies are reflected in Pakistani desserts like shahi tukray (literally royal portions of fried bread cooked in milk and served in a thick syrup with nut and saffron toppings), firni (a rice and milk concoction with more than a passing resemblance to vanilla custard), and halwa (a sweetmeat staple whose ingredients include milk, carrots, maize cream and nuts)

Drinks
Strong and sweet tea is definitely a national drink of Pakistan. It is illegal to drink liquor in public. In fact, there are no bars and visitors can drink only in specified hotels, and that too only if they have a Liquor Permit issued by the Excise and Taxation Office. Choice of alcoholic drinks is limited and wine is both expensive and difficult to get. Locally brewed beer is, however, widely available.

Freddy's Café

Over here you'll get a lot of choices to choose from. The Quality of food is excellent. The atmosphere in the restaurant is nice. The decor sets the style perfectly.The service was excellent but the choice of meals is mouthwatering. The menus are printed in a newspaper tabloid style including the Japanese menu.

When going to Freddy's Cafe you should have a good stamina, because almost certainly you will be waiting sometime in the entrance area until a table is free. It is jam packed almost all the time.

All in all a restaurant that has set new standards for Lahore and one which others will struggle to match. Well done Freddy !!!!

Coco's Cafe

Set in the old Lahore's Diamond Market (Heera Mandi), Cocco's Den is an old Haveli converted into a resteraunt. The owner was born in this Haveli, some floors are still used as residential area, the ground-floor and the rooftop has been converted into a seating area. The ambiance is superb - next to Badshahi Masjid and Lahore Fort, serving local dishes.

Food is really delicious; additionally you will get double bonus (a) nice views of ancient Badshahi Mosque and Lahore Fort from the roof of the restaurant (b) if you are fan of art and history, then this place is a mini museum as well. Entrance to the restaurant is not inviting but once you are on the roof, then it's a totally new experience. I found Handi gosht and kebabs very delicious, bit spicy for foriegners. You can smoke sheesha here as well (lots of arabs would love it) , lots of tourists come here to dine, so you will always find good security around here.

One thing that people may not know about this place is that the most of food items served here are not made by the resturant themselves. Instead it is freshly bought from the smaller "Dhaba's" and resturants which we can find if we go deeper into "Taxali" (behind Coco's Cafe)

"FRENCH FRIED FACTS"

Have you ever noticed that whenever you consume french fries from McDonald's the quality and taste is always extremely consistent and has a certain standard to it. Well I hope you will be surprised to find out that McDonald's follows a strict 16 step procedure merely to make sure that the french fries you consume are the best. This procedure is strictly followed at every McDonald's across the globe, and if you are surprised, yes ! the same procedure is followed in Pakistan as well. Just because the Federal Department for Health and Hygiene does not make routine checks is not an excuse for McDonald's to relax standards.


Following are the steps which go into making some of the worlds best tasting french fries:

1. First of all potatoes are harvested from more than 300 square kilometres of farmland across the country. Currently Pakistan has also begun to supply potatoes for McDonald's.
2. Then the potatoes are transported to factories in major cities (Lahore and Karachi). In Pakistan McDonald's processes about 100 tonnes of fries a year. Before this Pakistan had frozen french fries imported from Kuwait.
3. The potatoes, after reaching the factory, are checked for flavor, colour and size.
4. Then soil and dirt is cleaned off the potatoes and vegetable matter is seperated out.
5. Small stones and grit is removed afterwards in a centrifugal machine.
6. The potatoes are then steamed, peeled and the defected areas removed by hand.
7. The potatoes are cut into strips and inspected for consistency in size after which they are blanched and dried.
8. Then the potato strips are par fried in a process fryer in pure vegetable oil.
9. After being fried the strips are cooled and quick frozen so as to retain natural flavors.
10. The french fries are then cooled to -18 degrees and packed after being inspected.
11. Then the sealed bags are passed through metal detectors.
12. Every thirty minutes the fries are tested by quality control personnel.
13. 16 criteria have to be met including color, consistency of length, texture, flavor and temperature.
14. The fries are held in cold stores at -25 degrees before being distributed to the restaurants on refrigerated lorries.
15. Fries arrive at the restaurant where a 16 step checklist is followed for preparation.
16. The fries are kept for no longer than 5 minutes after being fried, this is called the holding time, within this time if the fries are not sold they are disposed. KFC has a 7 minute holding time. You may have noticed that the fries at KFC are usually not very fresh, well this is the reason.

So next time if you walk into your nearest McDonald's food chain I hope you will remember this list while chomping down those excellent French Fries. And I also hope that you will appreciate the effort that McDonald's goes through only to serve you a mere bag of French Fries. I havent even started on how they prepare the Big Mac, that is even more complicated than this!

"My bad food experience"

Nandos is currently offering a dish by the name of "CATAPLANA". At first when you are warmly welcomed and enthusiastically seated, the waiter comes to your table and insists that you do not go through the menu card and rather try the new in house freshly cooked CATAPLANA. You take the waiter seriously for obvious reasons because they know about tastes better than the potential customer. After all of this climax, when you have placed your order all of the waiters start clapping sichophantically as if you've just graduated from university.

When the dish arrives you are in a total state of shock! It's rice with chicken pieces, garnished with alien vegetables like eggplants and zukinis. The dish tastes worse with every spoonfull and eventually makes one throw up, but thats not the worst of it. You see if you go to nandos with a couple of friends and order the dish they give you one free, subjecting more torture and hatred upon themselves. And as if thiswere not enough, the bill per dish turnsout to be Rs.650 including taxes. I mean what a rip off, and as if nandos had not played with my emotions enough, it had drinks which were essentially coke and sprite modified to look as if they were some type of tropical refreshments. Overall my entire experience was horrible to say the least and putting it nicely.