There is excellent Pakistani food in Dubai. There is no argument to be made that there is not. The argument is about what you are paying for, and how much of it is rent.
The price gap is real and it is mostly rent
Restaurant rent in central Dubai is a multiple of restaurant rent in central Sharjah, and rent goes into the menu. So does licensing: much of Dubai's dining is built around an alcohol licence and the cover charges and minimum spends that come with it. Sharjah is dry, so none of that is in the price.
The result is that the same dish, cooked to the same standard, tends to sit at a different number depending on which side of the border it is served on. That difference is largest on the dishes that are supposed to be cheap, like biryani, and smallest on the ones that are supposed to be expensive.
Our prices, as a benchmark
- Chicken Biryani AED 15, Mutton Biryani AED 20
- Chicken Karahi AED 29 half, AED 48 full
- Charsi Mutton Karahi AED 55 half, AED 95 full
- Chicken Handi AED 26, Butter Chicken Handi AED 32
- Whole Charga AED 40, Mixed BBQ Platter AED 45
- Plain naan AED 1.50, butter naan AED 3
Those are from our full menu in Abu Shaghara. Compare them against what you last paid for the equivalent and the gap will speak for itself better than we can.
When the drive is worth it
It is worth it when you are a group. The saving scales with headcount, and so does the buffet arithmetic: the dinner buffet is AED 42 for adults and AED 22 for children Monday to Thursday, and AED 65 and AED 33 Friday to Sunday. For a family of five, that is a materially different evening from the same meal in Dubai Marina.
It is also worth it for the charsi and shinwari karahi specifically, which are the dishes where cooking for a resident Peshawari and Punjabi clientele shows most clearly. Read what charsi karahi actually is if you have not had it.
When it is not
If you are two people having a quick weeknight dinner, the drive will cost you more in time than you save. If you want a licensed venue, Sharjah cannot help you at all: no restaurant in the emirate serves alcohol. And on a Friday evening the border traffic is genuinely bad, so leave early or come later.
Where we are
Abu Shaghara, opposite Nesto Hypermarket, Bu Shaghara, Hay Al Qasimiah. Open noon to midnight, seven days a week. Parking around the restaurant is straightforward, which is not nothing.
Directions and both numbers are on the contact page, every price is on the offers page, and if you are booking for a group the catering packages start at AED 45 a head.
Worth the drive?
Every price we charge, in one place, so you can decide before you set off.
See Every Price on One Page
