2012-05-11 BBQ Chicken Hara Masala with Arabic Rice @ Hanifia

Hanifia was a popular eatery for previous generation of ours in Karachi. I never had the all-famous Hunter Beef and its variants in my priority list. But, last week I got a chance to try a different and a new recipe @ Hanifia. The BBQ Chicken with three different variants; Hara, Lal and Arabic (Black Pepper and Salt only). The deal comes with a full BBQ Chicken (considerabl small in size; though smaller ones are the tastier ones) with Arabic Rice (PKR 500) or with out Arabic Rice (PKR 450) and yes that means this is primarily an Arabic Recipe. Do try out and share your feedback!

DbSchema - An impressive DB Tool!

Today, while I was looking for a suitable tool to reverse engineer a PostgresSQL database to an ERD, I came across with this amazing tool:

DbSchema by WiseCoders.com

It turns out to be an impressive tool. The neat and crisp layout and the ease with which I was able to reverse engineer the database to an ERD was simply amazing!

• It supports a plethora of Databases
• Visual Browse of Relational Data is one of its kind feature never seen before
• Very nice Explain Plan feature
• Excellent forward and reverse engineering features
• Very good layout/theme
• Its FREE to try!
• Cheap, if you want to Purchase - US$ 127 only

Momo's Cafe @ MAHS

Good place to have an informal sitting with friends, family and alike. Overall nice arrangement, small but elegant. Quality food - tried Momo's Special Pasta (Creamy and rich - calorie conscious should avoid that :)) and Fettucine Alfredo along with Peach Daiquiri.

For more details please log on to Momo's Cafe

Visionary Genius - Bret Victor

Bret Victor's worrydream

Gole Gappay @ Liaquatabad, Karachi

Breakfast of Chota Lachay-daar Paratha @ Alamgir, Bahadurabad

If you guys have not tried it yet, do so as it is quite good in taste. I wonder how they kept it so crisp even though it is much thicker than the normal ones.

You can order Chota Lachay Daar Paratha with Tea or Doodh patti, Omelet, Half/Full fried egg, Channa, etc.

Deep Sea Fishing @ Charna Island

Had another exciting fishing trip with Shoaib Ahmed Paracha. He targeted Parrot or Popat and Yellow Fin Bream or Captain fishes this time and was well on target. We left early in the morning at 4:30 am, and after picking up some equipment from a friend and having a breakfast at Nasir Barohi Hotel, we reach Mubarak Village at around 8:00 am.

Shoaib bhai booked Mama’s boat which was the most spacious boat, of this kind (Horra in Urdu), I ever went on to. By 8:30 am we were in the sea heading towards Charna Island.

We used bait prepared from alive Rock Crabs. Shoaib bhai told the boatman to catch these Rock Crabs a day earlier so we can use them as a bait in our trip.

The technique to prepare the bait from Rock Crab is to hold it by its two claws so it can not do any harm to you. And then disjoint the two arms having claws right off the shoulder. Do the same for all remaining legs and remove the hardened top shell. What is left can be cut into sizable pieces good enough to be used as a bait.

We anchored close to Charna Island and the water was so clear that we were easily viewing fishes roaming beneath. There were captains and parrots. Also, there were two huge size parrots of fresh blue color, but we do not have any bait sizeable enough to lure them and ultimately catch them. So, they kept teasing us throughout our stunt

We caught 11 parrots. 2 of them were around 1.65 kg in weight, 5 were around 0.90 kg, and 4 were around 0.5 kg. We also caught 3 captains each weighing around 1.25kg. (And yes… these are not shikari weights otherwise I would’ve mentioned, 3 kg, 1.75kg and 0.75 kg )

What I noticed was that despite the fact that there were lots of parrots and captains underneath which we saw with our bare eyes, we did not end up having a lot of catches. In fact, the fishes were literally playing football with our baits, and most often eating it without getting hooked. Also, numerous times I end up hooking my tackle with the rock or may be the parrot fish drag it back to its coral

We also end up snapping a Shakespeare ® Rod just because of that

Besides that, after searching on how to catch Parrot fish on the internet, I felt we did one thing differently i.e. we placed the weight/sinker at the bottom of the hook, however people suggest that it should sit just above the hook

Also we didn’t used the Beak Hook to be specific.

Any how, our catch count and weight was good enough to cheer us up, after all we are in the process of learning the art

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Deep Sea Fishing at Chota Talaar, near Charna

This Sunday we went for deep sea fishing at Chota Talaar and Anwar Ka Pathar. This was our first such trip with Mujtaba Karim and other senior anglers. We left at 4:00 am in the morning and reach Fisheries at around 5:00 am to buy fresh bait (Louvar and Bangra). We left Fisheries after Fajir prayers at around 6:30 am to reach Nisar Barohi Hotel at around 7:15 am.

Besides angler community, there were a good number of bicyclers out there as well, for some club level bicycling event. Looks quite encouraging from community building perspective and also serve as a sign of a peaceful and positive recreational activity for social uplift.

After doing breakfast of Paratha, Channa and Doodh Patti Tea, we left for Mubarak Village at around 8:45 am.

There were around 8 teams with 3 to 5 anglers on each team. 5 of the teams went to Chota Talaar and 3 of them went to Hayat.

Those of us who went to Chota Talaar didn’t caught much (as per the standards of senior participating anglers, but for us – me, Kashif and Humair, we did quite well ).

We did trolling…

But unfortunately didn’t get any thing via Trolling except a 3 or more kg Grouper (Ghisser). Though, Mackerels did bite the bait twice.

We then go for Taru… Mujtaba Karim is doing chumming, in below image, to lure Mackerels. We used fresh Louvar and Bangra as a chum and bait.

Lastly, we tried manual jigging (without rods)… but to no avail

But Alhamdolilah! Bottom works well for us and I caught a Spotted Grouper (Ghisser) weighing around 3 kg and a number of Rock Cods (Damba) weighing up till 1.5 kg.

It was total 7 kg or more fish that I got as my share…

Those 3 teams who went to Hayat… did remarkable job and caught huge Mackerels . One team caught 22 Mackerels ! other 17 Mackerels and another 11 Mackerels… man! that was a REAL CATCH!!! Great Job Guys you did exceptionally well!

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Shawarma Platter at Shawarma House, Saba Avenue, DHA, Karachi

Shawarma House is a small “Dhaaba” type outlet at Saba Avenue, DHA, Karachi. Based on my friend’s recommendation we decided to give it a try this Saturday.

Unlike normal rolled or sandwiched Shawarma, they served it as a Platter, which was something new. Taste was good and Pita was very fresh and soft. A single platter would cost you around PKR 325/=.

Tabasco Chicken @ Red Chilli, Khadda Market, Defence

Tried Tabasco Chicken @ Red Chilli, Khadda Market, Defence, this Saturday. Quite unique taste, specially the sauce they had on top. Grilled to perfection, very delicious. Do give it a try!

Crazy Kit Kat as a smoothie works well after the main entrée.

2012-01-29 Deep Sea Fishing at Power House and Jamna

11 Barracuda or Kund - 0.5kg to 0.75kg
40+ ? or Khapartaan - 0.25kg to 0.75kg
1 Red Snapper or Heera - 0.5kg

Used squid, shrimp and small fish (louver in urdu) as a bait

Click on the images below to open slideshow in a new window