Stories on food waste in Pakistan, eating well in Islamabad without overspending, how restaurants and bakeries can recover surplus inventory, and what it takes to build a food marketplace from scratch.
Think of the last time you threw away good food. A few rotis. Half a plate of rice. Bread that went hard at the back of the kitchen. For a moment it felt wrong. Then you moved...
You got up before sunrise. You cooked, baked, served and cleaned. And at closing time you stand in front of the trays that did not sell, and something tightens in your...
You have been there. The picture looked great and the price looked even better. Then the food arrived smaller than you expected, or the deal needed three extras you did not know...
A little over a year ago, someone posted a simple question in r/islamabad: where do you actually order food from in this city, nothing overpriced, nothing outside Islamabad itself. It is a completely...
When food ends up in a landfill instead of a plate, the problem is not just that it was wasted. It is that it keeps causing harm on the way out, releasing methane as it decomposes...
Islamabad's food scene has a hygiene problem that is not a rumor. Health inspectors carrying out snap restaurant checks in the capital have found reused chicken bones, expired ketchup...
This is one of the most common questions we get, asked in exactly as many ways as there are neighbourhoods in the city: SastaKhana kidhar milega. Where will this actually be available...
Ask anyone who has lived in Islamabad for more than a few years, and they will tell you the same thing without needing a single statistic: a plate of food that used to be an easy, thoughtless...
I spent years building software in Europe. Good salary, stable company, comfortable life in Germany. By most measures, it was exactly what a Pakistani engineer working abroad was supposed to want. But every time...
Thirty-six million tonnes. That is the amount of food wasted in Pakistan every year, according to research published by the Food and Agriculture Organization and multiple Pakistani policy studies. To put that in perspective:...
Islamabad is an expensive city to eat well in. A sit-down meal at a mid-range cafe in F-7 or F-8 can easily run Rs 800 to Rs 1,200 per person before a drink. For...
People ask what it is like to build a startup. Usually they are expecting something cinematic. The honest answer involves a lot of version 47 of the same screen design, video calls at 11pm...
Walk past any bakery in F-7, F-8 or F-10 Markaz at 9pm. Peer through the window. There is almost always food visible croissants, cakes, pastries, bread that will not be there in the morning,...
The obvious version of this question is whether Pakistani consumers will use a food app. The data on that is settled Pakistan has over 190 million mobile users, smartphone penetration is growing by double...
Between 2017 and 2019, while living in Italy, I was a partner in a small hamburger restaurant, working the kitchen and managing day-to-day operations, all while transitioning into global tech roles. It was exhausting,...
People keep searching "shakshuka near me" in Islamabad. Here's what the dish actually is, where the trend came from, and why it's quietly taken over the city's gourmet brunch menus...
Ask anyone who has lived in Islamabad for more than a year and they will tell you the same thing: the city is not actually short on affordable food. It is short on people knowing...
Every semester, the same conversation happens in every hostel common room across Islamabad: someone runs out of money before the month runs out of days, and the fix is always the same. Instant noodles....
Every neighbourhood in Islamabad has one. A woman who makes biryani on weekends that half the street quietly orders. A retired uncle whose karahi recipe gets passed around on WhatsApp like a secret....
Walk into almost any bakery in Islamabad at 6am and you will see the same thing: trays coming out of the oven in a steady rhythm, timed against a forecast of how many customers...
The name shows up a lot lately: on a delivery bag someone spotted, in a WhatsApp forward, in a search bar late at night. Here is the direct answer to what it actually is...