Dawn Images

CHAKWAL: Most people who travel the Lahore-Islamabad route, either on the M2 Motorway or along the G.T. Road, constantly complain of the costly and subpar food offered at various outlets located along the two main roads connecting the federal capital with central Punjab.

But those who have discovered Shehryar Restaurant, located by Talagang Road just a few yards from Balkassar Interchange, don’t complain about this as much.

The restaurant’s building and the parking area look like they were built from the same local clay used to erect mud houses in its rural surroundings. The spacious and flowery gardens add to the eatery’s ambiance, where customers come from far and wide to sample their two trademark dishes: Rajasthani tikka and Shehryar’s famous ice cream.

The Rajasthani tikka, once a favourite of the rajas of Rajasthan, is inevitably part of every customer’s order at the restaurant.

In a sea of mediocre roadside eateries, one restaurant has customers coming back for more

Aftab Ahmed, the man behind the grill with 12 years of experience as a barbeque chef, said the masala for the tikkas contains various items, including “black and white pepper, green chillies, ginger and garlic paste, mustard sauce, cream, eggs, Maggi flavouring and salt”.

Chaudhry Husnain, one of the restaurant’s owners, explained that Rajasthani tikka cannot be made from an entire chicken, because only two tikkas are made from one fowl.

“The Rajasthani tikka only uses chicken drumsticks, and one thigh-cum-leg piece makes one tikka,” he said.

Once the marinade is ready, it is applied to the chicken, which is then marinated for six hours before being threaded onto skewers and grilled over coal with lashings of cooking oil. It takes about half an hour to cook a tikka and the chef ensures their tenderness.

The smoky tikkas are then served with tamarind sauce, to complement its barbeque flavour. The tikkas are also accompanied by tandoori bread, made from pure wheat flour using the traditional chakki method of grinding wheat, rather than the fine flour made by machines at flour mills.

Although the restaurant offers a variety of delicious dishes, from fried meat and vegetables and lentils, only Shehryar’s special ice cream can match the demand for Rajasthani tikkas. The ice cream offered here is not available anywhere else in the country and is made from buffalo milk. Buffalo are in plentiful supply in the villages surrounding the restaurant and the milk is usually obtained fresh.

“First, the milk is boiled. Then ice cream powder is added and the mixture is allowed to cool. Almonds and pistachios are added, and voila,” Nasir Khan, who is responsible for making Shehryar ice cream, told Dawn.

The ice cream is available in three flavours: kulfa, mango and chocolate, with kulfa being the most sought-after of the three.

“The demand for kulfa ice cream is so high in the summer that we run short within two hours and customers have to return dejected,” Chaudhry Shafqat Ali, also one of the owners, said.

“The secret behind our success is that we have not only focused on the serene environment and on the quality of food, but our rates are also easily affordable,” Chaudhry Husnain said.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2016