Why Boat Basin is no longer a place to dine in for families?

 

Boat Basin, sometimes called boating basin which is one of the most popular food street in Karachi. Located near Benazir Bhutto Park Clifton, Boat Basin has all kinds of restaurants serving Desi, Fast Food and Chinese Cuisines. Despite the variety of food items available, Boat Basin Karachi is considered absolutely not the place for the families. The reasons are listed below:

 

Congested Parking

 

As the food street is located on the service road, you’ll find it mostly blocked by the restaurant owners by placing the seating arrangements for customers and grills for the barbecue. With the remaining space left, parking is really hard to find. So if you are visiting the place, be prepared for such issues.

 

 

Seating arrangement and cleaning issues

 

A part from parking issues, the seating arrangement and cleanliness is also a major issue. You’ll find trash everywhere while dining thrown by customers. Even though most restaurants have family halls, there are relatively smaller in size. As far as the seating arrangement is concerned, you can see the image below to get my point:

 

 

Customers Themselves

Customers or I must say, the class of customers that usually visit the place aren’t that much literate and often behave in an awful manner. Unless you aren’t familiar with Pakistani culture and customs, it is a very big mistake to bring your family to dine at this place.

Restaurant owners desperate for customers

With family or not, as soon as you enter their “territory” even though you are just passing by and have no intention to eat at all, waiters from the nearby restaurants will swarm at their prospective customers to make them dine at their restaurant each one appearing more desperate than the other. Their behavior will sure irritate you enough to flee the area swearing never to show yourself in this place again.

 

 

Hot and Humid Environment

With most of the restaurants being open air, Karachi usually has a humid climate especially during the months of June, July and August. Moreover, the  seating arrangements are quite close to the grills and coal bins where barbecue is prepared adding more heat. So it is highly recommended NOT to visit this place in this months.

 

 

 

*Please note that all images and GIFs are been taken from google.

Try something different to eat

Are you willing to try something new or different to eat? Are you willing to change your taste? Well, there comes a time when you are trying to eat the same thing over and over again. Even when it is your favorite, you can eat it all the time; every day the same dish will even make your favorite dish taste and even look awful. Whenever this happens, you often want to change your taste and try something different. That’s the theme of this blog i.e. to explore and trying something different whether is it a place or something to eat. Anyway, coming back to our topic, there are some places when I found different than the norms defined.

 

Solace Istanbul

 

If you love Turkish food or anything not too spicy and a big fan of barbeque, this place is for you. As the name suggests, it’s a Turkish restaurant. Restaurant began by restaurateur Mehmet Celal Ulutatar, it has been labeled “A treat from Turkey” by Express Tribune, a local newspaper from Pakistan.

 

 

Solace Istanbul Counter

 

I had a chance to eat it food court at Dolmen Mall with family and ordered two platters including Doner Kebab, grilled chicken, bread and rice with two soft drinks. Two platters cost is about Rs. 2400 for four persons. Even the owner of the restaurant was seen at the counter monitoring the staff. As far as the taste is concerned, it wasn’t too spicy retaining the flavors of meat. Overall, the taste was really good, new and something different.

 

Solace Istanbul BBQ platter

 

 

 Naan Sahab

Located in Khayaban e Bukhari Commercial (Bara Bukhari) area in Karachi, I had a chance to visit my friend on weekend and he insisted me to visit this place. It’s a small, open air restaurant serving tea, soft drinks, appetizers like fries, onion rings, garlic bread etc. and their specialty; stuffed Naan (A popular oven-baked flatbread found in the Middle Eastern, Central Asian and South Asian cuisines). We looked at the menu and found a variety of stuffed naans and ordered Chicken Chedder Melt Naan and Tex Mex Naan as we agreed to order a spicy one and a mild one. I must say the taste was awesome. It almost felt like as you are eating a stuffed pizza. I would recommend everyone to visit there and try something different to eat. For the menu and other details, please visit their facebook page.

 

 

Chaiwala

Chai has become an integral part of our culture over the past few decades introduced by the British. Along with chai, we also require few snacks to be served now a days or else, we feel something is missing. I won’t talk about something missing in this blog but I will talk about something different especially if you want to make your tea time special.

Similar to Naan Sahab mentioned earlier, this place is quite similar except that they server stuffed Parathas instead of stuffed Naans. Along with that, their main theme is Chai and they have a lot variety of Chai available from normal tea with milk to Cadbury chai, Elaichi (Cardamom) Chai, Adrak (Ginger Chai) etc. Along with Chai, they also server Kahwa (Green Tea). I had a chance to try one of their Gourmet Parathas and Ginger Tea and I had quite a good time. You can visit their website http://www.chaiwala.pk/ for details.

 

Iysh Cleem

If you have a sweet tooth plus you are an ice cream lover, then I guess you have to visit Iysh Cleem. It is an ice cream parlor and by reading it’s name, you can imagine your two year old kid saying “I want some iysh cleem!”

Iysh Cleem 3 step

The unique thing about this place is they have installed a large screen at the counter where you can see the making of the ice cream live.

 

Iysh Cleem Live

I went there only once with family and tried there Choco nuts, Oreo and Peanut flavor. Choco nuts and Oreo was good but Peanut felt like you get a stash of peanuts in your mouth and you won’t even feel the cream. One more thing, they use Nutella in their chocolate flavors. Well I would rate this for being something different but as I went there only once, I can’t say much about it.

Iysh Cleem served