Sway with Pakistani spices at Des Pardes

Now I know that Pakistani restaurants generally share this reputation of un-hygienic and overly spiced food but I as a foodie confirm that the food you eat at a hawker stand is far better than the one you get at fine dining 5 star luxury restaurants. Des Pardes is a small cafeteria kind of place in Oud Mehta and they serve Karachiite cuisine that means coal smoked karhayi with layers of oil on top and crisp naan straight from tandoor.

The staff was so friendly, I had to pinch myself to realize that I am not in Pakistan just yet. We ordered Chicken peshawri karhayi that’s a north frontier delicacy in Pakistan. It is specially delicious because the amount of spices in here are quite low, the meat gives its original flavor in combination with tomatoes.

We also had the galawati kebab curry which was outstanding. The chefs nailed this one as it was packed with bags of flavors and a variety of spices. The kebabs itself were tender.

The chicken biryani wasn’t as good as I was expecting. Perhaps it needed more moisture, the masala was a tad bit dry but even then it tastes pretty decent.

The showstopper for me was the lassi. I have been extremely disappointed of the lassi standards here in Middle East because yogurt blended with sugar is considered as lassi at most of the restaurants. But I grew up having the perfectly proportioned milk and yogurt lassi and I am so glad that I found it at Des Pardes.

The best bit is that these guys are open 24 hours. I highly recommend you enjoy movie night on weekends and hit it to Des Pardes for mouth watering karhayi and grilled kebabs.

October 20, 2019 0

The Era of Milk cakes

I would be lying if I deny the fact that my frequent appreciation for milk cakes is what keeps me away from becoming a size zero model. I am so glad that milk cakes have made their way into the dessert industry and recently we can see so many variations in terms of flavors available when ordering one. The most famous ones I have come across are saffron, pistachio and rose while a few are going the extra mile with karak and faluda milk cakes on the menu.

I visited London dairy bistro to enjoy their milk cakes on the occasion of Eid. They had three flavors to choose from; pistachio, rose and plain milk cake. So I went for rose and pistachio. For some strange reason the pistachio milk cake was 10 aed pricier than the rose one. I personally loved the flavors and loved the rose milk cake more than pistachio perhaps it was more rich and slightly more sweeter than the latter.

Honestly, there are only a few desserts that fail to impress me but I wouldn’t recommend you this place for milk cakes because I have had better in the same price. Luxuriously Satisfying desserts at The Living Room

But I want you to try these out and let me know what you think. 🙂

August 18, 2019 0

Stay for the fun at Chowking

If you’re having one of those days when you just don’t feel like having the ordinary usual meals, you gotta visit chowking for the innovative chinese dishes and so much variety on the menu in such affordable price and amazing service. Their team makes sure that you’re having a wonderful dining experience.

I happen to visit this restaurant several times for their fried chicken, I am in love with how they do it. It remains crispy, juicy and salty (in a good way) but this time I tried a lot of other dishes on the menu. Started off with an intensely strong iced tea that was really nice and also tried their milk ice tea that had tea jelly on top. (brownie points for creativity) Loved it!

Appetizers:

I had the dimsum platter which was composed of 4 pcs. vegetable spring rolls, 4pcs. dimsums including beef and chicken ones and 4pcs. fried chicken balls. My favorite were the crispy spring rolls that came with a sweet chilli sauce to dip in. Surprisingly, I loved the dimsums as well, its rare that I like dimsums anywhere but these guys nailed them!

Then I had their vegetarian sweet and sour soup which was quite strong and didn’t work with my palate so I didn’t liked it that much but the veg. sweet corn soup was delicious. It even had steamed broccoli in it.

Main courses:

Started off with veg. hakka noodles that looked beautiful in the skillet topped with some crushed fried onions. Where my fellow bloggers thought it was bland and needed spices, I found it pretty nice and comforting.

Followed by this, was my favorite main course served here that was the prawn thai curry. It was a perfect blend of spicy curry and prawns cooked with bell peppers, I suggest you have it with the fried rice to enjoy fully.

I highly recommend you their cauliflower manchurian as it was amazing, cauliflower was roasted to perfection and the manchurian sauce paired so well with it.

Then, I moved on to the sweet and sour fish which I loved, the fish was soft and tender while the sauce was a little too sweet for me.

Thank you for such an amazing evening Team Chowking. Loved having your hearty meals. Can’t wait to drop by again soon.

January 24, 2019 0

Maximum Meaty Madness at The Meating Room

A true foodie will understand the happiness of having a pure carnivore dinner full of different cuts of meat and sauces. I have always believed in good food that’s not heavy on the pocket and that’s exactly what the meating room offers. Their menu is full of creative meaty dishes on super affordable prices. No wonder, these guys have been bagging so many awards from Zomato UAE and the title of top 100 restaurants by Time Out Dxb.

There is an outdoor seating area that’s decorated simply with light bulbs on top and looks pretty nice. The indoors are not that tiny either, it can fit 20 foodies at a time. You can actually watch your food prepared through the glass window into the kitchen where you can have a glimpse of chefs hard at work. The door to kitchen literally says “Chefs at work”.

Their head chef Mr.Ram made sure that we were satisfied with the food and kindly asked for any feedback as well. These are the little things that enhance an individual’s dining experience. The only suggestion I have for you is to work more towards cleanliness as the menu cards that you handed me over had stains on them.

We started off with colorful masala papad and couldn’t help but notice the not-so-mainstream wall art that shows a parallel world. I was really impressed by this.

I had chicken and cheese croquettes with a red schezwan sauce, loved the cheesy bites of minced chicken that was seasoned lightly and paired amazingly well with the spicy sauce.

Then came in the showstopper platter that was full of meaty delicacies and I couldn’t help but drool all over the meat. There were lamb chops that were well done and juicy, the classic chicken tikka, wings, shish beef boti, grilled vegetables, dips and fries. I went from one meat to another and gobbled up the entire platter. Every piece of meat was spiced appropriately except for the seekh kebabs that could use some more spices.

So glad that we ordered their mango minty fizz drink along side the meat because it was tangy, sweet and had a subtle hint of herbs that tasted so well altogether.

For the dessert, my heart was set on the gulab jamun cheesecake yet I overcame this idea and went ahead to order the chilly chocolate because I have never tried one. It came in a piping hot skillet with warm chocolate brownie and a generous scoop of vanilla icecream on top garnished with an actual whole red chilli. The chocolate had an evident kick of chilli in there and tasted beautiful with the icecream and some chilli flakes.

Thank you so much for a wonderful dining experience Team Meating Room Dubai.

January 2, 2019 0

Exhilarating meals at Baydar

Baydar is Lebanese food paradise with exhilarating bites as you dig into your meal. The interiors are simple and neat. Their service is commendable and the staff is well trained because they give amazing suggestions when you ask anything about the menu.
So, we started off with freshly squeezed orange juice and lemonade. I loved both the juices as they were fresh and not diluted with sugar or other ingredients.

We were served oven fresh bread with hand picked olives and pickled vegetables to munch on. The bread was velvety soft and when we teared it apart, we could see the smoke coming out. It paired so well with the Labneh served.

Starters:

For starters, we ordered Fattoush and Hummus which were individually incredible. I have had fattoush at numerous places in Dubai before but this was exceptionally good. The balsamic vinaigrette was diluted with subtle hints of sugar or jaggery that aided in the resulting flavor.

Hummus was pretty decent too and tasted really fresh.

Appetizers:

We ordered chicken shawarma samosa for appetizer because let’s just be honest about my feelings for samosa. Its the only snack that stays close to my heart and because shawarma samosa would have been something new so I decided to order it. It was absolutely delicious as it lived up to the name, tasted like a shawarma but felt like a samosa.

Mains:

We went all out’for the main course and ordered the chicken tikka tandoori style which was boneless and came with hand cut french fries and a fiery green chutney composed of mint, green chillies, coriander and parsley.

In awe of this dish as it was full of flavors and spices and finally grilled to perfection. The exciting moment was when we dipped the chicken fully in chutney and then took a bite of it. *pure love* I tell you!

Desserts:

I’m sure you are familiar with the famous middle eastern dessert called “Kunafe” that comes with either creame or cheese and lots of sugar syrup to pour on top. The Kunafe we had here was really different than the usual ones because it didn’t had a crispy top so usually a kunafe has crispy vermicelli on top that gives it crunchiness and I missed that element here. The cheese filling was pretty generous though!

Next, we had the rice pudding which was an instant hit for my toddler as he didn’t leave the bowl at all. The pudding was served cold (just the way we like it) and it was garnished with toasted almond shavings. It was so comforting.

Thank you for the amazing service and wonderful hospitality Team Baydar. I look forward to visiting you again soon.

November 2, 2018 0