With another incredible day in Lahore, Pakistan ahead of me, I headed out on an early-morning market tour! Join me as I explore the Pakistani street food in Ichra Bazar in Lahore, Pakistan!
My day began in Ichra Bazar with my guide Adeel from Manaky. Ichra Bazar is the most famous cloth market in Lahore. It’s such a colorful and vibrant place. There are lots of shops selling clothing and shoes, and there’s also Pakistani street food!
In addition to cloth, you can also find lots of home goods, like buckets, brooms, and storage bins. We also passed some shops selling some beautiful bridal gowns! On our left were lots of vendors selling jewelry, including bracelets, bangles, necklaces, and more. They were beautiful! The vendors were so friendly!
As Adeel and I continued down the lane, we stopped at a vendor selling bakarkhani, a large, flaky biscuit with a hole in it. They also had biscuits, naan, and some chai! The biscuits contained a lot of ghee and were really dense, so they’re best eaten with some chai. The vendor then gave me a bag of bakarkhani for free! The people in Pakistan are too nice.
It was a little after 9 a.m., and the market was starting to come to life. We continued past some butchers cutting up organs, including liver, kidney, brain, and stomach. Everything is super fresh!
They had goat heads arranged on tables, which had been freshly killed. It’s very graphic, but it’s also a raw and real representation of daily life in a Pakistani market. The smell of the blood is pretty intense! From there, we passed a shop that makes mugs, jars, cups, and even banks out of clay. Then, I tried some delicious dates at a stall and met up with my other guide, Rashid!
Then, we stopped at Al-Rizwan to have some parathas. They sell aloo parathas and chicken parathas. They take one paratha, top it with filling, and then place another paratha on top. Then, they roll it out flat and grill it on a massive pan with eggs on top. They get super browned and crispy.
The parathas look almost like pizzas when they’re done. They reminded me of the dosas I eat when I’m in southern India! We took them to their dining hall next door to eat.
I loved the double layers of the parathas, as well as the crispy, eggy crust on them. They were very unique, and the chilies added a nice amount of heat.
The aloo one was great, but the chicken-and-vegetable took the cake! The meaty chicken and tasty vegetables were an amazing combination. You can only get these parathas here. They were my favorite paratha ever.
Then, we finished up with our bakarkhani from earlier and some chai. The chai was sweet, and the bakarkhani was super crispy and flaky and contained a lot of jaggery.
I dipped my bakarkhani into the chai and let it absorb some of it for a few minutes. It got really soft and tasted almost like Frosted Flakes!
Back out on the street, we passed some fish vendors and more butchers before reaching the clothing section. The market looked and felt like it was centuries old! We saw vegetable vendors selling cucumbers, carrots, onions, ginger, okra, and more. Nearby were more cow carcasses, a chapati vendor, and a guy making beef stew!
Further on were milk, yogurt, and malai vendors at Akbar Milk Shop, the most popular dairy shop in town. The milk was in a huge vat, and then a vendor invited me over to try his malai. It was super sweet and tasty! Then, we reached a clock market and passed more vendors selling bangles. The market really was a labyrinth. Parts were super narrow, and others were more open.
Next were fabric shops. I could also see clothing shops selling clothes for women and men. These shops sell fabric and the tailors will stitch clothes for you based on your size.
After seeing more wedding dresses, we found the most famous puri shop in Lahore, Shahi Pathoora. They sell pathoray with chana, pickles, cabbage, and raita. The pathoray looked like a large puri and contains lentils and masala in the dough!
The pathoray was extremely tasty and soft. It was both oily and doughy, and I loved the cabbage salad on the side. It wasn’t too spicy, but the pickles had a bit of a kick to them.
The raita killed some of the heat from the pickles, while the cabbage gave it a nice, fresh crunch. It was the perfect combination of savory and refreshing. Together with the creamy raita and the crispy pathoray, it was a match made in Pakistani food heaven!
Then, I tried some seviyan, which is a sweet and creamy semolina noodle dish. The noodles were super thin, and it was a great palate cleanser.
We finished up with dahi bhalla at Lahori Dahi Bhalla near the market’s entrance. Dahi Bhalla is a mixed chaat with fried dough, chickpeas, mint chutney, and yogurt. It was crunchy, sweet, and refreshing, and it contained a nice amount of cabbage and carrots. It felt like I was having a super filling dessert and was the perfect way to end my Pakistani market tour of Ichra Bazar in Lahore, Pakistan.
I hope you liked coming with me on my traditional Pakistani market tour of Ichra Bazar in Lahore, Pakistan! If you did, please give this video a thumbs up and leave a comment below. Also, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and click the notification bell so you don’t miss any of my travel/food adventures around the world!
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