KARACHI: During the holy month of Ramadan, Karachi residents are told it is best to avoid using Burns Road, the oldest and longest food street in the seaside Pakistani metropolis.
Burns Road is what some have called “the holy grail for foodies”, and especially during Ramadan, it is thronged with crowds getting ready to break their fasts with delectable snacks, making it almost impossible for commuters to pass.
It is also where Fresco Chowk — famous for its Fresco sweets — is located.
What makes this road intersection a favorite among the city’s dwellers is the lure of South Asian fare such as the savory dahi baray, the crispy samosas and kachori, delicious chicken rolls, aromatic Arabian paratha and sweet jalebis made in desi ghee.
Dahi baray or dahi vada is a centuries-old savory snack, made of deep fried lentil flour balls soaked in thick yoghurt and spices. It is also a staple food item for many households during Ramadan.
Ali Hasan, now 25 and a resident of the upscale Clifton locality, says the dahi baray on Burns Road has been mandatory for Iftar Dastarkhwan at his home for several decades now.
“When I was a kid, my father would take me here to buy dahi baray, samosas and other special items for our Iftar,” Hasan told Arab News.
“These items are delicious. One can try to prepare these at home but no one can match their taste,” he said.
“Seeing the crowd, one would think the people believe they won’t get it after today! Everyone is just dying for it. It’s very difficult to buy these items,” said Mazhar Ali, a 50-year-old resident of the garden vicinity, who was queuing up for Arabian paratha at Faseko.
Nearby, the samosas of Hafiz is also attracting an equally large number of people drawn by its unique taste.
“Jalebis are mostly fried in cooking oil. Using desi gee makes its taste special,” Ali said.
The owner of Faseko, Hafiz Faseeh, says his stall has been offering these delicious local delights for fifty decades. Families of Punjabi Saudagaran-e-Delhi, who migrated to Karachi from the Indian capital of Delhi, brought the recipes of these savory snacks with them. One of the most prominent figures from this family is the president of Pakistan, Mamnoon Hussain.
“With each Ramadan, the number of buyers increases,” Faseeh told Arab News in between serving his long line of customers outside his outlet.
“According to our estimates the activities at Iftar in Karachi generates a business of Rs2 billion daily,” Muhammad Atiq Mir, the chairman of All Karachi Tajir Ittehad, an alliance of market associations in Karachi, told Arab News.
“Although Iftar items are also being prepared at our home, we occasionally buy famous dahi baray, samosas, kachori and other special items from the famous outlets,” he admitted.
Burns Road, one of the busiest in the city which attracts customers from all across Karachi, is not the only place where crowds throng during Ramadan from the late afternoons till Iftar. Several food places in the city are equally popular.
Sales of fruits have also increased manifold, and so have their prices.
Despite the price hike, most people are undeterred.
Mir said that hundreds of trucks loaded with different fruits constantly arrive in the seaport city of Karachi, where more than 20 million people reside. Those busy with other errands usually rush towards shops like Pakistani Fruit Chaat — to take home the sweet and spicy cut-fruit salad.
During Ramadan, crowds bring traffic to a standstill in Karachi’s Burns Road
During Ramadan, crowds bring traffic to a standstill in Karachi’s Burns Road
Is sourdough Saudi Arabia’s latest craft food?
- Saudi home bakers point to a practice that was once routine, not artisanal
- Naturally fermented bread reflects a broader shift toward process-driven, premium food culture
ALKHOBAR: Sourdough has started to shift from a niche interest into a mainstream feature of home kitchens, cafes and specialty bakeries across the Kingdom.
The rise of sourdough is part of a wider shift in Saudi Arabia’s food landscape, where artisanal production and slower preparation methods are gaining traction.
Specialty coffee seems to have set the early template for this transition, normalizing premium pricing, craftsmanship and an interest in process.
Bread is now undergoing a similar shift, with fermentation replacing extraction and roasting as the central point of differentiation.
In both cases, the appeal is rooted in the product’s perceived authenticity, reduced additives, and a clearer link between raw ingredients and final consumption.
Home bakers in Riyadh, Jeddah and the Eastern Province have adapted natural yeast cultures to the Saudi environment, adjusting feeding schedules, hydration ratios, and fermentation times to accommodate higher temperatures and lower humidity in the summer months.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Home bakers in Riyadh, Jeddah and the Eastern Province have adapted natural yeast cultures to the Saudi environment.
• They adjust feeding schedules, hydration ratios, and fermentation times to accommodate higher temperatures and lower humidity in the summer months.
Cafes and specialty bakeries have responded by adding sourdough loaves, baguettes and focaccia to their menus, often positioned as premium alternatives to conventional commercial bread.
For younger home bakers, the appeal lies in the craft and the learning curve rather than nostalgia. “It feels more real and more intentional,” home baker Sarah Al-Almaei told Arab News. She began experimenting with natural yeast at home after watching starter tutorials online.
The technical aspect — hydration percentages, fermentation control and starter maintenance — has become content in its own right, with TikTok and Instagram compressing trial-and-error learning into short videos and recipe cards.
But the practice of maintaining a natural yeast culture is not new in Saudi Arabia. Long before sourdough became a global trend, Saudi households kept what was commonly referred to as the “mother dough,” a natural yeast starter fed and used daily.
“We used to maintain it every day and bake with it,” said Hessa Al-Otaibi, 56, a Saudi home baker with more than four decades’ experience. “People today call it sourdough. For us, it was simply bread.”
Her comment highlights a cultural continuity that has remained largely unrecognized, partly because the practice was not framed as artisanal or health-oriented, but as a routine household function.
The modern sourdough trend differs in its market positioning. While the older model was practical and domestic, the current model is commercial, aesthetic and often health-coded. Bakeries justify higher pricing through longer fermentation times, higher ingredient costs and smaller batch production.
Consumers justify their purchases through digestibility, perceived health benefits, flavor and product integrity.
“Once you get used to it, it’s hard to go back,” said Amina Al-Zahrani, a regular buyer of sourdough from specialty bakeries in Alkhobar.
Digestibility and texture are often cited as reasons for substitution, especially among buyers who report discomfort from standard commercial bread.
Another consumer, Majda Al-Ansari, says sourdough has become part of her weekly routine, noting that availability and quality have improved significantly in the past year.
The social media component has played an outsized role in accelerating adoption. Home bakers document starter feeding cycles, cold proofing and first bakes, turning a once-private domestic process into visible public content.
This has also created micro-markets of home-based sellers, where individual bakers offer loaves to local buyers, often fulfilling orders through direct messaging.
What remains to be seen is how far the trend will scale. If specialty bakeries continue to expand and consumers maintain willingness to pay premium prices, sourdough could establish a long-term place in Saudi food culture.
If not, it may revert to a smaller niche of committed home bakers and specialty cafes. For now, however, sourdough occupies an unusual position: both a newly fashionable trend and a quiet continuation of an older Saudi baking practice.
