Pakistani food – desi style

We visited our ‘local’ Pakistani restaurant today for lunch and as it is one of my favourite restaurants here in Brunei I thought I would blog about it.

Seri Damai (which I think means Peaceful Place in Malay, but correct me if I am wrong) is located in Kuilap. A smallish restaurant at the end of a row of shop houses that looks no different from many Malay restaurants in Brunei.

Seri Damai in Kuilap

Since we last visited they have done up the menu and changed some staff. The menu is good – a fine selection of various traditional Pakistani dishes but not so extensive that you get lost in the choice.

Authentic Pakistani Cuisine (in the Abode of Peace)

A fine selection to choose from

Plain Lassi

Their plain lassi is a must for a beverage to accompany your curry. There are flavoured ones but I usually opt for the plain one (which can be taken sweet or salty).

Today we ordered; chicken ginger, aloo gohbi, beef sheek kebabs, roghni naan and tandoori roti. All orders arrive with a small side dish of raita (yoghurt chutney) and chaana masala (chickpeas in gravey).

The food took about 15 – 20 minutes to arrive (exactly as stated on the menu!).

The freshly cooked bread is always excellent here. The chicken has such a rich flavour and the yoghurt base for the sauce compliments the fiery spices used with the ginger. There were a generous number of thin chicken strips and the coriander finished the dish off nicely – as it does in most Pakistani dishes.

Chicken Ginger and Aloo Gobi

We enjoy aloo gobi when we eat out as it is not something we cook at home. The sweetness of the cauliflower makes it an excellent side vegetable dish.

Beef Sheek Kebabs

The beef kebabs were cooked well too. Although they were nicely spiced they could have had a few more finely chopped green chillies added. They work well as left overs too, heated up in a panini press!

Freshly (and perfectly) cooked

We thoroughly enjoyed our meal in the simplistic décor of the restaurant with posters of a few famous Pakistani landmarks scattered around the walls.  We must make more of an effort to head there for a meal more often! I would recommend paying a visit to Seri Damai if you are looking for a different type of curry than the usual Indian based ones offered here at places such as Le Taj, Sagar or Tandori.com.

Delicious!

So, do you like Pakistani food? Where’s your favourite restaurant? Have you been to Seri Damai? If you live in Brunei, where do you like to go for a curry? Let me know your thoughts!

PlaneSimple

Dining at Home

Living as expats in this part of the world we are fortunate enough to be able to employ a maid. Although the main reason for doing so is to look after family member #3 when she comes along in December, we have enjoyed getting used to having someone ‘live in’ and complete the chores and prepare some great meals.

This blog post is going to showcase this coming week’s meals prepared by our hard working maid, May. Usually May cooks 4 or 5 evenings in the week. She is happy to follow recipes out of books (in fact, I think she prefers doing this) so it is great fun browsing through cook books as though they are menus!

We have pencilled in the following meals for this week – subject to change of course; Pork stir-fry, Bindi (Ladyfiger / Okra) Curry and Lemon Chicken with Broccoli.

Let me know what you think or if you have any recipes you think we would enjoy!

[Pictures to be updated each evening this coming week. Make sure you keep coming back and checking the blog!]

Monday - Stir-fry pork with Chinese greens, broccoli and celery.

Tuesday night - 'Bindi' Curry (Okra / Ladyfinger) with chapati

 

Wednesday - Broccoli Lemon Chicken

The Broccoli Lemon Chicken was followed by carrot cake that May had made during the day – a nice surprise!

Carrot Cake!

-PlaneSimple

The Fund Raiser

Last night we hosted a Pakistani dinner to help raise money following the floods in Pakistan. A few weeks ago I had the idea and you can read my thoughts on the floods in Pakistan on my previous two blog posts here and here.

The calm before the storm!

I put out an email to all the staff at school explaining I’d be hosting a dinner catered for by a favourite Pakistani restaurant of ours here in Brunei – charging guests for the evening. There was a great response, both from those interested in coming along to the meal but also many just offering donations. So this blog post is a report of the evening – which we raised over $1000 (Brunei) from after costs (and still expecting a few more donations).

The various tasty dishes on offer!

Friday is a half day for us at school, so we had time to prepare for the evening during the afternoon. I had ordered the food the previous weekend when we had lunch at the restaurant. We were expecting 35 people, so set up seating outside and inside.

The first guests (who shall remain nameless!) arrived an hour early having misread the starting time! Not to worry, it allowed for a G+T and a catch up before the rest of the guests and the food arrived.

Guests started to arrive from the 6.30 start time onwards – but still no food! I text Amjad to make sure everything was okay and sure enough he was on his way. 15 minutes later, the food arrived; Chicken ginger, beef seikh kebabs, bindi (okra / lady’s fingers ), chana masala (chickpea), plain biryani, tandoori roti and roghni naan! All smelling delicious!

Enjoying the evening.

Guest continued to arrive – just about finding parking spaces along the simpang. At 7pm we took the lids off the food and we all tucked in.

The evening continued on with lots of chit-chat, drinks and continuing ‘picking’ at the food – obviously so tasty there was always room for ‘one more bite’!

Just enough seats!

All in all a great evening that I think most guests enjoyed and best of all, plenty of money was raised that will be sent to help rebuild communities in Sindh, southern Pakistan, following the floods.

PlaneSimple