Karachiites love eating and then talking about the food we just ate! Thus when any new eatery or home delivery service opens up – we want to try it or know from our ‘social’ circle if it is worth trying out.
As off late my Facebook timeline has been full of comments for Rowtisserie!
One patron declared that she “Had the most delicious shawarmas … (made by) Rowtisserie. Never had better ones!”
Someone else stated that: “The secret “Row” sauce is beyond yum and the Rowtisserie chicken is super healthy.”
… Since the social media consensus was every one ‘loved every bit of (Rowtisserie]’ my husband and I decided to give it a try too.
Delivery motorcycles at Rowtisserie
Delivery Service: Called up on the given number and placed an order on Buffalo Wings & Mezze Platter as starters and Row Meal IV as our main. The gentleman on the other-side was polite and gave us a 45-minute time period in which our food would be delivered. And they were there on time with warm food!
Menu of Rowtisserie is extremely healthy yet basic – two types of grilled chicken, two types of shawarmas and 3 sandwiches are all you have to pick from basically – but to fair they do give us options in salads, sidelines, drinks (hot & cold) to augment it. Also the foodie in me rather just get one good item from an eatery than a choice of 50 that are all bad – so not complaining!!
Food: For starters we had ordered the Buffalo Wings – which we pleasantly noted was not marinated in a bottled sauce, but the Buffalo sauce had been prepared in the Rowtisserie kitchen giving the wings a very nice taste. It’s just that for PKR395 (almost 400) we were expecting more than 4 pieces of chicken wings in the order.
The other starter we had ordered was the Mezze Platter – which included feta cheese, olives, tabouleh, pickle, mutabbal, tzatziki, hummus, pita & grilled chicken. Everything was done to perfection (and trust me I am very finicky about my Mezze) but I did have two observations:
- Such a large choice of items and one pita bread with it was just not enough. I wish the order taker had informed us for this so that we could have ordered at least 2 more pitas to go with it.
- The quantity of the Mezze was very small – especially felt cheated with the quantity of the hummus.
Coming to our main course, we had order Row Meal IV that included full chicken with 4 choices of high sides (we had ordered Mash & Gravy, Hummus, Pita & New Potato) and a 1.5 litre soft drink.
Everything in the main course was done to perfection – and the special treat was garlic & row sauces that the rotisserie chicken was served with were just awesome – super yum!!
The hummus that came as one of the high-sides with the meal was just not in a large enough portion to justify in PKR150 price independently. But overall, the meal was superb.
The open kitchen and the serving staff
Dine in option is also available and I did go to check out the place for lunch and also to have the shawarma – which had been calling out to me since I had seen the below photo on the Rowtisserie Facebook page.
The restaurant is tucked away in the corner of Khadda market, and has a seating capacity of 12 people at max. To say that it is a very small dine-in place is an understatement to me – because even with 8 guests in there – we had to wait 5 minutes for a table.
Ordered the chicken shawarma (we also wanted to try the beef shawarma, but were informed by the serving staff that the management is working on improving it, so it is currently off the menu) that by the way is pricey at PKR425 for lightweight and PKR475 for a heavy weight.
The meal was served within 5 minutes of ordering it and the chicken was wrapped in freshly made pita & was served with pickles as the side. I found my shawarma to be a bit dry, but it was immediate taken back and some yummy garlic sauce was added to the shawarma to make it perfect.
Row Chicken Shawarma (image: via Rowtisserie Facebook page)
Also wanted to give their chocolate eclairs a try – but sadly they were not available.
For a quick and healthy lunch or dinner – Rowtisserie is a perfect choice, and if you smartly order a meal can cost you from PKR600-1000 per head.
What I rated Rowtisserie:
(Rating scale: Five stars, excellent; four stars, great; three stars, good; two stars, fair; one star, poor.)
Food: 4/5
Ambiance: 2.5/5
Service: 3.5/5
Prices: About PKR1000 per head. (excluding desserts and drinks)
Address: 14th Street, off Khayaban-e-Shamsheer (Khadda Market), Phase-V, DHA, Karachi.
Blog originally published on Express Tribune.
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