Raheel Shakeel

Back in the day, Karachi used to have only Sakura at the Pearl Continental or Fujiyama at Avari towers if one wanted their sushi fix. After that there was a second wave of sushi establishments like Oishi Sushi and Kamemeshi which eventually closed shop. It seemed the market wasn’t big enough for Japanese fare at […]

Pakistani or desi food in general has failed to scale up the way many western food chains have, while the likes of McDonalds and Subway have opened several hundreds of thousands of branches across the world. While the franchises across the world operate on the strategy of grow or die, desi food eateries operate on […]

If you take a trip down memory lane then you might remember Ponderosa, the restaurant that popularised south Indian thaali food in the 1990s after which it faded into obscurity. There have been few and far options when it comes to thaali food. It also might have partly to do with the fact that the […]

There is a new ‘kid’ on the block by the name of Yoshi and just a first glance at their menu it seems to be one of the most ambitious of the new crop of restaurants that have opened of late. There are ramen bowls, Japanese hot dogs, different varieties of pizzas including a wasabi […]

Japanese food has largely been synonymous with sushi and teriyaki and beyond that that familiarity and knowledge of the cuisine starts to fade. Which brings me to a deeper question of whether people truly care about different cuisines for their own sake or do they want to appear refined and cosmopolitan by showing off their […]

Many of you might recall Thyme restaurant that was on Zamzama. After nearly closing shop the original owner partnered with the dynamic duo of husband and wife, Aurangzeb and Zoya Marri with a new look, location and purpose. In restaurants the first meal they serve is always the ambiance that you experience upon entering the […]

Let us not fool ourselves, apart from biryani, daal chawaal and other desi favourites Pizza too is one of our most beloved meals. Some call it peeza some choose to call it pizza, there maybe dispute in how you would you like to pronounce it but one thing is for sure, you would definitely want […]

Competition in the food scene is so intense that instead of selling all kinds of cuisine, restaurants are specialising in their own little niches, serving a particular brand. It’s a different thing to have an eclectic menu catering to different tastes but quite different to excel in it. A casual glance at The Patio’s menu […]

Restaurants serving steaks are a dime a dozen in Karachi and Lahore but what makes for a good steak may stir anger, resentment and even confusion among people here. It is nigh impossible to have an authentic experience of the steak here that one has in say the finest steak houses in the states. Patrons […]

In recent years, burger wars have really heated up in Karachi with international chains and an ever growing crop of local brands vying for consumer’s taste buds – the winner in all this competition has to be the consumer. My quest to find the perfect burger in town led me to the new burger establishment […]