Hello, foodies of Hive. I hope you all are doing well.
With the days of the holy month of Ramadan ending, I wanted to share a small part of the enjoyable experience I had with a few of my friends who took time off their busy days and made this event possible. It was a night when we went outside for Suhoor at a steakhouse.
Without further ado, let's begin!
Each Ramadan, my friends and I try to make at least one suhoor plan to try out different restaurants' cuisines and have a pleasant getaway from the rigorous work life has in store for us. That way, we get to hang out in a safe space and see if their platters live up to the hype created by local food bloggers like Rafsan and Foodappi. This year, we elected a steak place after having a short discussion of about 2 hours.
We set the motion for suhoor 2 weeks before we finally went there. At first, we discussed going to a restaurant with high hype; fortunately for them, we did taste their food, and it was not bad at all. This time, however, I asked that we look for other places since we had already visited them once. Later, a day before we headed out, we decided to visit a steak place. Choosing the place was a bit complex as we had to account for everyone's budget, and after seeing the latest reviews of the other places that sold similar food, we found that most of them were giving out uncooked food or were forgetting to put a side dish along with the main course. So, about 2 hours of discussion later, we ended with the best option: a restaurant giving out 20% off on their menu and providing their meals till 2 am. When everything was set in motion, we found out that my friend's brother could not make it that day due to some Uni work. We had to change the date once but that date had finally arrived.
We decided to head out at 10:46 pm and be present at the place at 11:30 pm. That way, we could explore the neighborhood after we were done ordering our food; the restaurant staff told us beforehand that the food preparation would take about 30 minutes. So, we took that into account.
Like clockwork, we reached the place and took a few minutes to review the menu. They were only providing 2 platters: chicken steak and beef steak with different sides on each one.
The link to their Facebook page where you can also view their platter.
I honestly wanted to get both as they would only come out to less than $20, but I saw that there were too many items.
In the end, 3 of us went with the beef, and one of us went with chicken.
Afterwards, we paid a small fee to the restaurant as a confirmation for our meal and headed outside for a walk in the silent neighbourhood. Seldom does a car pass; the streets, however, were illuminated with bright lights with no observer. It made us feel safe that no random incident would occur but then again, we were not prepared if a group of men suddenly appear out of the corner of the street. Such cases have been reported multiple times even in this blessed month of Ramadan where women were assaulted in other regions of the country. Fortunately, it was safe and secure.
To commemorate it, we took a few pics. Of them, this one looked good. I took their permission to put this pic here, of course.
We headed to the nearest clothing shop, where we browsed a few Panjabis. Eid was right around the corner, and we had to get some new clothes. The thing was... I already bought a Panjabi for myself, I only put this black Panjabi on because they insisted that it would look good on me. Even though I do look a bit fat, it felt good. The downside of this was that it was tight around my hips. My friend's brother selected 2 Panjabis and got both of them while I left, knowing that I wasted their time. XD
We browsed the nearest Levi's shop and found that each item cost around $70-50. This may seem cheap to some, but it was a lot for students like us.
At 12:20 am, we took a small detour to a tong where a tea seller had almost closed his shop, we were his last customers of the night. We had milk tea and made a boomerang video clip.
The time was 12:50 am, and the first one to arrive was the beef platter. It consisted of fried rice, dori fish fry, deep-fried onion rings, crispy potato, chicken fry on a stick(don't know the exact name lmao), and stir-fried onion rings. The dori fish was tender and soft and melted right after putting it in my mouth, the deep-fried onions were extra crispy and very satisfying to chew. The crisp potato was sublime, but the only thing I hated was my fried rice. It felt a teensy bit watery. Everyone else had good rice with no such issue. I realised that I had received the rice from the bottom end where the water seemed to reside.
Next came the chicken option. It had a saslik, a mixture of creamy sausage, mushrooms, cheese, 2 wings, a good portion of chicken steak, and fried rice.
It went quite well with the occasion, dining with mates from school and now in university on the verge of becoming unemployed. With the meal ending, we realised that we had never asked them how we had wanted our steak. So, it came out medium well. My jaws were getting tired of chewing the steak, but the sides were extremely amazing and went quite well when I made some combinations with the rice. For beverages, we only had soft drinks and water. I did suggest the bunch grab one of their signature drinks, but they refused immediately.
This place was cozy and offered an amazing ambience. But it was kinda weird; they served food in an American-style cowboy leather coat with the pieces of furniture in asian style, and played Arabian music while speaking in our native Bangladeshi style. A variety of combinations here.
Before we paid the bill, we called for an Uber and waited till it was close by. Then, we asked for the bill. We had our usual discourse about how to split the bill. Regan, as usual, tried to split it, and his balance proved that we each had to pay $15. I reworked it and found that we only had to pay $13 each. That way, I saved a little money for each of us, enough to pay for the Uber.
Once we got out, I turned back to snap a picture of the place and found that they had already put up the CLOSED sign. We were literally their last customers. Moreover, there were only a total of 3 groups of guests at their place. Maybe they'd had a few while we were away, but once we were heading up with the levator, we saw the only group of friends who arrived after us leave. Maybe business was not going well for them, which is perfect for us since they can now concentrate on us and give us their best steaks and other dishes.
In the end, it was an amazing night with friends with whom I'd love to do this over and over again. Hopefully, we will go on a tour abroad before we permanently part ways as the familial responsibilities catch on.
