Islamabad Cheese Paratha Hunt🇵🇰

The first evening in Islamabad with Mac: checking into an Airbnb, then walking out into a restaurant district and eating two things worth recording.

The city reads differently from the start — more modern infrastructure on the drive in, and noticeably colder than anywhere they have been in Pakistan so far. Kids playing cricket on two separate patches of ground on one 20-minute journey, which he notes is the one thing that does not change between cities.

Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles; amounts the transcript leaves ambiguous are marked unverified.

Key moments

• [03:06] The Airbnb: about $80 a night, and Harry says plainly it is expensive for Pakistan, that they are overpaying, that the location isn’t good, and that they may move. What sold it was that there was very little else they wanted.
• [04:06] Cold. Not freezing, but a real drop after three weeks of warm cities, and he wasn’t packed for it.
• [04:36] A shop called Poundland with a pound sign over the door — and the exchange rate that makes it work: £1 is about 200 rupees. A dollar store next to it.
• [06:06] The district itself: snooker halls, an Irish café, a great many coffee places, busy because Friday is the day off — which he keeps having to re-learn.
• [07:07] A 24-hour paratha restaurant. The cheese paratha here is mozzarella, cheddar and cream cheese together, thin and crisp, served with a garlic dip — the restaurant version against the street version he had been eating, and he can taste the difference between the cheeses.
• [10:57] Locals at the next table invite them out for drinks; they are too tired and decline, and get a dessert recommendation instead.
• [12:36] Burning Brownie, the recommendation: a cheesecake he rates the best thing he has eaten in weeks despite not liking cheesecake, plus cookie ice cream and a cupcake.
• [15:11] Just over 1,000 rupees, about $6, for all three desserts — less than he expected in a smart place with wifi.

Extracted pages

• Islamabad
• Pakistan
• Mac