So, I decided to man up to my food adventures and go beyond lahore and islamabad. Hence, landing in peshawar - not much of a hyped diners city primarily due to the culture of this land. It becomes a bit cumbersome to go dine out with family with all the parda [viel]; family places etc. But during my recent visits to peshawar I realised that we are getting more eateries both in quantity and quality. Thanks to our food connusure we got to Balana on the Park Turk Road right next to a famous roof top Afghani Rice place that we had to toss against because of the heat.

We entered the dim lit dining hall, to the right was the family zone, to the front was the richly set Buffet - we focused on the buffet to avoid troubles of all sorts .

Great things about buffets is you don't have to browse the menu, involve opinions and then wait in anticipation. At a buffet you just grab the plate and start cramming it up - low risk. I started off with the BBQ and would really like to commend the way they did the chinioti both which was fried lamb chops - very well done and from there on this was pick of the menu with everything else be it rice - gravy or the vegetables. Speaking of vegetables - they were very well done specially the bhindi. Vareity is the essence of any buffet and there was much of it here. From Pakistani to chinese that could cater to the barbarian meat lovers and the sophisticated vegans both - and yes the generously laid salad table.

I ate to my full and when I say full its usually my 'food chamber' and I have a separate chamber for desserts. There is one word for the desserts bar then kept ringing my head - RICH. They had more than half a dozen desserts from pudding to kheer to fruit triffle to fresh fruits all topped with blue berries and I easily ate 3 rounds of desserts in different combos.

Our overall experience with the food was great although we had the toughest crowd on our table. Thanks to the great food and desserts and yes the beautiful rabab playing in the background.