If you have never eaten Pakistani food, the menu is the problem. Eighty-five dishes with names that give nothing away, most of them variations on things you have not tried. This is a first order that works for most people, with prices from our restaurant in Abu Shaghara, Sharjah.
Order these three things
- Chicken Biryani, AED 15: spiced rice layered with chicken, the single most representative dish on any Pakistani menu
- Butter Chicken Handi, AED 32: mild, creamy and rich, the safest thing on the table for anyone wary of heat
- Butter Naan, AED 3: the bread everything else is eaten with
That is roughly AED 50 and it feeds two people who are not especially hungry. It covers the three things Pakistani cooking does best: rice, slow gravy and tandoor bread.
If there are more of you
Add a grill. The Mixed BBQ Platter at AED 45 puts several kinds of kabab and tikka on one tray, which is the fastest way to work out what you like without ordering four separate plates. For a larger table the Shahi BBQ Platter is AED 95 and the Monal BBQ Platter is AED 165.
A whole chargha at AED 40 is the other good group order. It is a marinated whole chicken, it feeds three, and it needs no explanation to enjoy.
What to hold back until next time
Charsi and shinwari karahi are excellent and genuinely hot, and they taste strongly of mutton fat, which is not a first-visit flavour for everyone. Chapli kabab is heavily spiced. Achari handi is sour and sharp. Nihari is superb but very rich, and better once you know you like the cuisine.
None of these are traps. They are just the deep end, and there is no reason to start there.
The easier route: eat the buffet
If choosing from a menu in an unfamiliar cuisine is the part you dislike, skip it. The dinner buffet is AED 42 for adults and AED 22 for children Monday to Thursday, 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM, and AED 65 and AED 33 Friday to Sunday, 7:00 PM to midnight.
You can see everything before it reaches your plate, take a spoonful of anything unfamiliar, and go back for more of whatever worked. For a first encounter with a cuisine that is a considerably better system than reading descriptions.
On heat, honestly
Pakistani food is heavily spiced but a lot of it is not hot. We wrote a dish-by-dish breakdown of what is actually spicy, which is worth two minutes before you order. Yoghurt and bread fix heat; water does not.
Everything is halal, we are open noon to midnight seven days a week, and every price is listed on the offers page and the full menu.
Start with the buffet
See everything before you choose. AED 42 on weeknights, AED 65 at weekends, in Abu Shaghara, Sharjah.
See the Buffet Timings & Prices
