The very white - Fika

3 of us from work decided to go for lunch. Since I really wanted to try out Fika and was nearby we all thought let's give the new place a try.

It's located in Clifton Block 4 near Café Koel. The first impression when you walk in the restaurant is that it breaks the clutter with its white decor. It gave my eyes a very soothing effect and right there and then I made up my mind that this place due to it's decor for lunches is actually very good.

The waiter knew the menu inside out as he helped us by describing every dish we asked in detail. Finally I settled for Melt Chicken sandwich and fresh lime. My friends ordered Seafood chowder soup, Penne pasta in white sauce and Chicken Chiptoli.

The seafood chowder came within 10 minutes. Though the taste of the soup was good but it had a lot of salt. It was sent back and when it returned it was a bit better.

My Melt Chicken Sandwich was loaded with cheese and chicken perfectly seasoned in grain bread. The bread was fresh but the crust was a little on drier side. I tasted Penne Chicken in white sauce and it was just perfect. It wasn't something which you find normally in restaurants loaded with mushrooms but it had capsicum and onions in it. The sauce was cooked to perfection, not too creamy not too light just the right consistence.

People who enjoy spicy food should try Chicken Chiptoli as it had that spicy kick in its sauce.

For dessert we ordered Baked Cheesecake (Philadelphia cream cheese). It was absolutely wonderful. Perfect biscuit base with fluffy cream cheeses a The whipped cream that they served along with the cake was hands down the best whipped cream served in Karachi.

The only downside was the serving size. The serving of Chicken Chiptoli was so less that a person with normal appetite even wouldn't feel satisfied. Even the serving size of my sandwich and pasta were small. They were generous with the Cheese Cake Slice though

Over all the bill was around 3000 including 2 soft drinks and one tea. I had a really good experience and would be looking forward for summer lunches and evening tea sessions there!

8 out of 10 for Fika.

#Karachi

The not so cool Food Festival – Karachi Eat Festival 2015

So the city of lights was buzzing with hype regarding the food festival. The festival was organized at Frere Hall. I attended on Sunday 25^th January around 7:30pm so maybe my review would be biased.

First thing the food available there is easily accessible to everyone on this side of the bridge. I did not see anything from Burns road, Ghaffar ki Nihari or Zameer Ansari's chatakh boti. I did not see innovative food, something different from the usual cuisine that we have here in Karachi. I was expecting more of things like Dhood Jalabi, Lassi from the streets of Lahore and street food from around the globe.

The other thing that I hated was that when you are organizing an event which is being marketed heavily across the city it should be able to manage the turnover of people as well. The festival was extremely crowded and mismanaged. Although every food kiosk was giving away food in wraps and paper plates there were no rubbish bins to dispose wrappers. The ground was extremely uneven making me confused between the choice of either tripping on uneven surface or running into someone standing nearby (Seriously the place was super crowded I wasn't even able to breath). 

Forget all that, did Karachi seriously ran out of open ground spaces that the organizers had to select an important heritage sight such as Frere Hall to ruin it?

There was no system to handle the traffic. Now you are organizing an event on weekend in a city like Karachi where you already have crazy traffic problems. And then you chose a venue which honestly has zero parking capacity. Chaos is what all you will get in the end.

I was not able to enjoy food or anything else. Brand activations were super weak and did not grab my attention at all. Although a huge number of people might have attended the festival but it was a complete failure for me in terms of management and creativity.  

#EatKarachi #FoodFestival #Karachi