The Zouq Mughal is a restaurant situated in the scheme III Rawalpindi. It is a good restaurant for desi(traditional) food. It is a branch a food chain that is available in Middle East as well. In Rawalpindi, Zouq Mughal has two branches. One is in Commercial market Saddar and this is a relatively new branch that is opened in scheme III. Its location is ideal for people living in scheme III, Scheme I, chaklala Garrison and Nurkhan. The meaning of its name is divided into two parts. The word zouq means impressive taste and Mughal refers to the Mughal emperor. This restaurant is basically made on the mughal theme.
As you enter Zouq Mughal, you are welcome by colorful lights, antique stone outer walls, wooden tables, yellow and gold chairs and white pillars with gold motifs on it. Sitting arrangement is simple. In Pakistan, there is always a separate hall for families. If you go there with male friends only then you can sit in main hall otherwise if there are ladies and kids with you then you can sit in the family hall. Although the theme of the restaurant is Mughal and they have tried using yellow and gold to reflect that but the interior is simple but not that impressive. Before going, you can book the table as per your requirement but if you do not book, the wait will not be long and you can easily get a table within no time.
The menu of this restaurant offers a great variety of scrumptious food items, starting from hot soups, fish and chicken in starters. From starters, I had “hot and sour” soup, whereas my kids took chicken corn soup. The soup was served with fish crackers. My kids enjoyed having chicken corn soup with fish crackers. The main course has a variety of options like Mughlai, traditional, barbeque, Mexican, Chinese, continental, Italian and fast food items for young generation foodies. I ordered mughlai chicken, babe que chicken and seekh kabab along with plain naan, garlic naan, raita (yogurt) and fresh salad. Naan is a oven baked flat bread and there were a multiple variety of flavored Naan were available, so we ordered a plain one and garlic flavored. For drinks they have cold drinks, mocktails, non alcoholic drinks and fruit champagne. Due to cold weather, we were not interested in cold drinks so we just ordered mineral water. While you wait for your order to be served, you can enjoy the soft background music while you will chat with your family and friends.
All the food is made fresh so it takes 20-30 minutes for your order to be served. When the food arrived, we drenched into the amazing aroma of mughlai chicken and barbeque. All the food was delicious, the mughlai chicken was bit spicy and the texture was smooth and delicious. The barbeque was perfectly cooked and the naan were soft and light. The serving size was good and the price was reasonable. The service of waiters was okay, they were trying to meet the needs of the customers. Despite not so fancy interior and décor as compared to the name Mughal, we had a pleasant experience of dining. If you live near scheme III and are not looking for fancy interior or décor but for good food at reasonable rates then I highly recommend you to visit Zouq Mughal.
