Go to any locality in Karachi and you will find a multitude of food options, even for breakfast: from bakeries to sweetmeat shops. They range from aloo chholay [potato and chickpea curry] and puri [fried flatbread] or halwa puri [semolina dessert with fried flatbread] or paaye [trotter curry] and nihari [meat stew] with paratha, kulcha or naan [different kinds of flatbreads]. This is also the case in the densely populated neighbourhood of Lyari, if you care to explore that oldest part of Karachi. 

A man with a big pateela [cooking pot] set on a wooden stool stands on the side of a road selling biryani. Asked if it is chicken biryani or beef, he laughs. “You are in Lyari, you won’t find fancy biryani or pulao here,” the man tells Eos. “Here, we make chana [chickpea] biryani.”

This is in line with the socio-economic make-up of this locality, with most residents in the lower income strata. As a result, the gastronomists in the area concentrate on meals that cost........

© Dawn (Magazines)