Video
Cheese Paratha hunt in Karachi 🇵🇰
· 16 min · Watch on YouTube
Cheese Paratha hunt in Karachi 🇵🇰
An evening at Boat Basin in Karachi with Mac, looking for the cheese paratha Harry had been asking strangers about for a week. What he had eaten a few days earlier turns out not to have been the real thing: the proper version is thinner, with less cheese and a crisper pastry, and it becomes what he says he wants to eat for the rest of the trip.
The part that matters is what happens while they wait. Three separate people try to pay for their meal — the landlord of their old Airbnb, who spots them in the street and settles the bill before they can stop him, and then two strangers in succession who offer and are told it is already paid.
One of them gives the explanation that this bundle’s whole insist on paying page had been missing. He tells Harry that this is what Muslim families do for a guest, that giving is the better side of the exchange, and — the line itself — that Harry accepting would make him feel good. Harry’s response is to say he wants to start doing it himself at home.
Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles, which are garbled in places; amounts the transcript leaves ambiguous are marked unverified.
Itinerary
Uber tuk-tuk across the city → walking Boat Basin asking after cheese paratha → a roast-chicken place that has it → three attempts to pay for their meal → flavoured soda made to order at a drinks stall.
Key moments
- [00:00] You can book a tuk-tuk through Uber in Karachi — 280 rupees, about $1.59 — and Harry recommends it outright: the app price is the price, so there’s nothing to be overcharged on.
- [00:30] Buses with about ten people riding on the roof and twenty more hanging out of the sides.
- [02:35] The hunt itself: several restaurants claim to have cheese paratha, which he thinks they’re inventing, and one tells him it isn’t sold anywhere around here. His fallback rule is to go wherever is busiest, and it works.
- [05:32] A stranger asks where they’re from, then insists on paying — and when told the bill is already settled, explains why he wanted to: it is what is done for a guest in a Muslim family, and Harry accepting is what makes it good for the giver.
- [06:33] Three people in one evening. Their former Airbnb landlord found them in the street and paid; two more offered afterwards. Harry counts it as the fourth or fifth time in a week and says he intends to start doing it himself.
- [07:34] The real cheese paratha: thin, crisp, modestly cheesed, and eaten with chai. He calls it incredible and says he could live on it for the rest of the trip — which, roughly, he does.
- [09:36] Flavoured soda made to order: carbonated water, fruit syrup — peach, blueberry, strawberry, lemon — and, in the local version, a dash of masala and black pepper. About 40 cents, and he rates the peach best.