‘Lamb’ being inaccurate, as the animal used for Shinwari style barbeque is most certainly mutton. A couple of us went down to one of the better known places, Charsi, for a dinner of mutton, ordering half a kilo between us (leg and chops), along with a quarter kilo of rump fat, a couple of chapli kebabs and some naan. The tikkas were slightly tough, but the flavouring was excellent, and of course the rest – the smoky fat and the chapli kebabs – are among my favourite things. I know that not everyone shares my fondness for little grilled lumps of actual fat, even those from KP where this is common food, but I do love it very much and am good at not over-eating. Though I skated close to that edge last night.
The chapli kebabs were tender and moist, with a lovely crispy edge around them, the naans were such as you don’t really get outside this part of the world. We finished with some qehwa with little chunks of gurh to dip in it. Lovely stuff.
The next table had, I was later told, a minor local celebrity: an attractive woman in a wheelchair who adopted a child and has a massive social media following, and is perhaps the only person with a disability who appears in ads etc. So that’s something, I daresay.