Went to a Pakistani restaurant last night—Al Zaman—which is across the road from the Women’s and Children’s Park in Fujairah.Was welcomed warmly and taken to the portable addition in front of the restaurant which was clean and the air con was blowing vigorously.
The main restaurant was crowded with Pakistanis watching a television and cheering on their side against India in the final of the Cricket 20:20 World Cup. This annex has the regular partitioned rooms, which are common in the Emirates, for families who wish to dine behind the veil.
There was no menu or did they have them there in Urdu?
It was in the style of ‘we will give you the food we think you will like’—touches of those modern French restaurants where they first sit you down, ask you about your life, your interests, passions, your current mood and then they prepare a meal accordingly. Al Zaman was therefore modern and trendy.
Out the food came with amazing speed and little fuss.
For starters there was a big plate of pakora and this came with a dip which we soon discovered was tomato sauce. Is this a Pakistani, epicurean custom or the regular fare for ex-pats?
The main course came with a giant piece of hot bread each that had been cooked in the Tandoori oven.
There was a huge mound of light, feathery and nutritious mixed rice.
A plate of curried chicken served in a hot container.
A plate of mutton kadai.
A good-sized plate of fresh salad.
A bottle of iced pani—water.
It was delicious, spicy, ample (we couldn’t eat it all) and the ambience superb—they kept on coming in at regular intervals to give us the cricket score!
And the bill?
21 dirhams for two people.
10.5 dirhams each or at today’s currency:
US $2.80
AUS $3.31
NZ $3.89
UK £1.42
Makes you wonder why we ever bother to fire the oven up at home and cook, especially when there’s no one to give us cricket updates while we dine.
Geoff Pound
Image: As the food was coming.
