For M and I, there was another concern because the original dates proposed were my birthday and our wedding anniversary. I don't know how you spend your birthdays and wedding anniversaries, but I didn't really want to spend it attending a close family member's wedding, and I also didn't really want to share our future wedding anniversaries with anyone in the family either if it could be avoided. Especially considering our present living situation. One of the benefits of having extended family living with you is getting free babysitting to do things like go out on your wedding anniversary, but if your babysitter's wedding anniversary is the same day then there goes that perk out the window.
I can't remember if that was the only reason or if someone else had another conflict. (Come to think of it, I think the prefered venue wasn't available on those dates either.) Anyway, they shifted the dates over by one which meant that the day after the wedding was my birthday, and the day after the reception was our wedding anniversary.
We'd planned to go out to dinner for our wedding anniversary. The day after the Valima, though, is the first REAL day that the new bride is a part of the family - she's only been around for two days at that point, and everything before it has been rushed and full of wedding functions and formalities. Also, because of the aforementioned school and work vacations, most of the family was already at least halfway through their stay in Pakistan. Plus the girls has been sick so we had all been apart for much of the time, with 2 of the 4 families rushing back and forth to the hospital for so long. This anniversary day was the day both kids came home healthy, so it was one of the first events that everyone was present for. So Mian and I planned our wedding anniversary dinner, but we had also decided to bring the whole family along with us.
You know, a nice, quiet, romantic dinner for 13.
I really, REALLY wanted to go somewhere nice. Mian's family is not rich and does not live in Clifton or Defense (both "nicer" or "high class" areas in Karachi) or anywhere you find fancy restaurants. On our prior trips, I'd been more concerned with experiencing the "real" Pakistan, or more accurately, the Pakistan of my husband's youth. I hadn't been to any of the nice places. But these days, I have some other Pakistani or Pakistani-related friends, and I've been able to find out a lot about the other side of Karachi, and I had hoped to see part of it for myself. I told everyone as much, and somehow it got decided that we would go to China Town Restaurant.
It was an okay choice. I wouldn't have picked Chinese food myself, but somehow the plan was already made. I don't know, I like Chinese food allright enough, it's just not my absolute favorite. We left late, around 9pm, I think, because that's usual dinner time for Pakistanis, and when we got to the restaurant we were told it would be a 45 minute wait.
This was just the packed waiting room.
We were eventually seated downstairs, right next to a large 2-story waterfall/pond thing. The waterfall actually kept distracting the baby from his dinner and my mother-in-law, his Dadi (meaning paternal grandmother) too him over to check it out after the meal.
The food was good. I'd never had Pakistanized chinese food. Well, not professionally at a restaurant, my mother in law has given me a few recipes for chinese food that are clearly hybrids. My mother- and father-in-law had never been to that restaurant (and probably won't go again - they almost never eat out, and never in these kinds of restaurants, not until their children take them) so we ended up ordering a lot just so we could try some of everything. Actually, WE also will probably never go to that restaurant again just because there are too many other things to try, since we get to spend so little time in Pakistan, we should probably boaden our scope and not go to the same place twice!
I digress. The food was good. The resounding winner at the table was something called Chicken Manchurian, though, and it was fantastic and came our on a sizzling plate for extra drama. Everyone else was raving about all the rest too, but since chinese wouldn't be my first choice, I was just happy with the food, rather that raving about it. One big problem was the drinks, though. We'd all ordered a drink and the waiter had to be told specifically to bring them when they still hadn't arrived even after the soups and appetizers had already been devoured. I don't know if that's standard - not bringing out drinks until the entrees - but Americans I know generally want their drink as soon as possible, especially with a spicy soup! (Luckily we'd brought a bottle of our own water for the Americans and expats among us.) Besides the soups, two kinds of fried rice, some kind of chicken/pineapple curry, shrimp rolls, and lo mein. Even with that much food, there was very little to take home. We packed it up, though, and stopped by that waterfall thing on the way out which turned out to be a bad idea.
Shrimp rolls. The tempura part was good, but it was just chopped shrimp inside.
Lo mein and the pineapple thing.
Vegetable fried rice
The much-loved Chicken Manchurian
The pond at the bottom of the waterfall. Yuck. I hope that's not where they keep the fish they cook!
After dinner, while waiting for the cars, Mian spotted a paan stand and we walked to the corner to procure some paan for all the family (except me. I'm not that adverturous.) At the corner, I saw there was a Student Briyani right there! I've heard a lot about Student Briyani, I asked if we could get some to take home so I could at least taste it later. In fact, I can't remember why we didn't get some.
Paan stand. Sorry it's blurry.
Briyani, and you can see all the dust/dirt in the air in Karachi, most of the pictures I take at night with flash end up looking like this.
After dinner (and paan) everyone agreed they still had room for dessert and Chachoo's new wife said there was a Baloch ice cream nearby we could go to. This was met with approval from everyone, because Baloch ice cream is, I guess, supposed to be really good. We got lost a bit on the way, and we drove by some really nice-looking park, which they told me is some new park built for and dedicated to Benazir Bhutto (remember, the politician who was assasinated in Pakistan when we were there in 2007.) It was night and dark, but it still seemed like it must be a really pretty place to be in Karachi. That's on my list of places to visit whenever we go back next time.
When we got to the ice cream place, half of our party decided they'd take their ice cream to go and eat in their cars because it was so cold outside. I didn't think it was cold at all and while I don't remember exactly, I think it couldn't have been less than 74 degree outside that evening. I'm always on the wrong side of temperature discussions in this family!
M was on a mission to recreate his youth, seeking out his favorite childhood ice cream flavor of "Caramel Crunch." Sounded good to me, so I asked for the same. I do really like to partake in his youth recreation activities. But I was expecting something carmel-y and creamy. I assumed the crunch came from some puffed rice, perhaps, Rice Krispies style. Nope. The caramel crunch was just broken sugar, like crushed up rock candy, on top of ice cream. After a few bites I'd been sufficiently versed in my husband's childhood and I decided I wanted to REAL ice cream afterall and sent him back to get me some other flavor. He was more than happy to take the remaining portion of my caramel crunch. I can't actually remember what the other flavor was, though :(
You can see the "crunch" pieces hanging out on the outskirts.
It was a nice dinner, nice dessert, and it was a good time hanging out with the family all together like that. A good anniversary dinner. For 13.
