Al Baik Comes to town …. & Sinks (literally) :p
Well well , so the long awaited Al Baik restaurant finally opens up in Karachi after months of speculation about its opening date. I have put up the picture of albaik on my flickr link sometime back and every now and then i would visit the restaurant and give hell to the guards about the delay in opening and such . Now finally, all of that was over and February 23rd was slated as the opening date of the Saudi food chain’s first restaurant outside middle east.
So well – me along with my mom, brother and sis in law went there at 8.30 last night and it turns out theres a whole lot of City officials present such as Nazim and few of his goons and some stage comic was the compere who was performing there and basically buttering the city govt and the good work they have done (its beyond me what does it have to do with buttering the nazim and op ening of a saudi food chain for sure its not some initiative taken by them to improve citizen’s life :p ) Nonetheless, there was a huge crowd and we were told that restaurant will open at 9pm so we went back home. Upon returning there at 10.30 pm it turns out it was pandemonium going on there with around 50-60 people standing outside and pushing each other with gates of the eatery CLOSED !! Yes, it was closed ! Again after inquiring it turns out that they went out of stock and they had shut down the gates. T hats how our adventure to attempt at eating al baik broast went out of the window.
Today it was decided that we ll have lunch over there in hope that it wont be as jam packed as last night – so my whole family went there in the afternoon. As you will see in the pictures, interior is not very spa cious but they have alot of seating capacity with the way they have arranged their chairs, but their kitchen/counter area is quite congested and thats not really a good thing. They had 5 counters and ALL OF THEM WERE JAM PACKED ! alot of people were there taking orders for take-away and a few of them were eating inside the restaurant like us . Now comes the fun part – We were having our meal ( we ordered the Mega Family meal ) while suddenly i felt some wetness and i looked at the floor and right under my ta ble was there was a water storage tank and water was literally flooding out of the cover and in NO TIME the whole floor was submerged in water – You guys should have seen the faces and the reaction of the customers present there , a whole group of girls and guys were sitting right next to us and ALL 8 of them stood up on the table and started shouting with one girl shrieking ‘ I WANT MY MONEY BACK ‘ :p so that was really really hilarious ! Anyhow … water kept pouring out of the tank and customers had horrified reaction on their faces, considering it was only THE FIRST FULL WORKING day of the restaurant and such a mishap took place, where literally one quarter of their floor was submerged in water and rest of it was also affected because of it. Sad part was the manager’s absence in this ridiculous situation and he came alot later during which his waiters were either scratching their heads and few of them mopping the floor and using wiper s to clear the water out. Saddest bit was that the manager, who should have taken control and ordered someone to fix the mess up, he decided to remain behind the counter and after alot of hue and cry frm the customers did he come out and tried t sort out the issue .
p.s: Unfortunatley for some reason this picture comes out as a thumbnail and incase you want to check out the larger size of the picture then go to my flickr page.
As it turns out, they had called for water tanker to fill up their tank and apparently whoever was the designer of the place, placed tank right in the dining hall – recipe for disaster as witnessed today. While we were leaving my brother asked the manager about this whole mishap and he goes like ‘ we should shoot the tanker guy for his fault ‘ I questioned it WAS NOT the fault of tanker guy, it was the fault of their designer/architect whoever it was because NOBODY MAKES A WATER TANK INSIDE THEIR DRAWING/DINING ROOM !!! Sight of whole floor submerged in water and waiters wiping the floor was hilarious as well as sad as you can see from the pictures.
Back to food, we ordered Mega Family meal which was for 900 rs/- and it included 6 pc chicken, 5 cold drinks, 5 fries, 5 dinner rolls, 2 Mexican chicken sandwich and 3 garlic sauce. On the whole, price is comparatively lower than KFC with a difference of 20-30 rs/- on every deal/item. Taste wise – WAY better than kfc. Do try it out but make sure, you bring along your water boots, swimming flaps and goggles :p who knows you might have to endure another water disaster !
Hope all of you had a great one.
