Bilal Siddique serves traditional Pakistani cuisine at Dickson’s new restaurant Zaiqah. Photo: Tenele Conway.
The Eat Street precinct in Dickson has a new restaurant – Zaiqah – serving up traditional Pakistani food that’s bold and unafraid to deliver all the spices.
Located in a mid-sized corner tenancy adjacent to De Doughnuts, Zaiqah has taken the place of Papa J’s Filipino restaurant.
I was personally sad to see Papa J’s go. They took a gamble on the Eat Street precinct in 2020, and with very few other restaurants in the area until 2024, they were left marooned in a space that languished while the industry was still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The environment that Zaiqah now opens is considerably better, with several other restaurants arriving in the food precinct. If the bustling Friday night that I dined there was anything to go by, they won’t be suffering the same fate.
Heading to Zaiqah just after sunset, we’re greeted with a beautifully lit restaurant, the wafting aromas beckoning us through the door.
Zaiqah is the newest tenant in the Eat Street precinct of Dickson. Photo: Tenele Conway.
Our server for the night, Bilal, is a breath of fresh air. He didn’t only recommend dishes; he could also tell us which dishes were hard to find, how to eat them, and what had been the most popular since they opened.
Each time he came by the table, he dropped in with another layer to the story of Zaiqah, and Pakistani food in general, and I wasn’t surprised to find out at the end of the meal that he is one of the owners of the restaurant.
The menu is quite extensive, but with good descriptions, and the help of Bilal, we primarily ordered from the BBQ section and signature dishes.
We kicked off the meal with chapli kebab from the signature menu. This lamb dish has been shaped by the nomadic Pashtun culinary traditions, which favour meat-heavy dishes. Presenting like two large hamburger patties, this dish was a real surprise. Pan-fried at high heat, the kebabs have a crispy exterior that gives way to the soft interior of heavily spiced minced lamb.
I should clarify here, when I say spiced, I don’t mean spicy. None of the dishes were overly spicy, but they were packed full of coriander seeds, cumin, garam masala, cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon and cloves that were clearly dished out with a confident and experienced hand.
We accompanied the kebab with the Zafarani Malai Boti from the BBQ menu. These boneless chicken thighs are marinated in a richly spiced, saffron-infused yoghurt sauce, and boy, did it leave an impression. My dining partner exclaimed halfway through that it was the best BBQ chicken he’d had, and this is coming from a man with a fairly pricey Traeger smoker.
We also had the paneer tikka from the BBQ menu, which was a touch dry for my preference, but nice and smoky, and had a BBQ-style dipping sauce that paired well with the flavours from the BBQ.
The BBQ and signature menus are the perfect place to start when ordering at Zaiqah. Photo: Tenele Conway.
For mains, on Bilal’s recommendations, we had the charsi goat karahi with roghni naan, a type of naan that Bilal is fairly confident they are the only restaurant in Canberra serving.
The goat dish had the meatiest chunks of goat on the bone I have ever come across and had previously assumed the shrivelled bits of goat found in many curries were all that was out there; I now know better, and they may have just ruined me for all goat dishes.
To top it all off, we had a side of zafarani plain rice, the name of which is a total misnomer – there was nothing plain about this rice. The basmati is infused with saffron and lightly spiced with cumin and possibly a little butter, maybe a touch of ghee, and at the end of the meal, when I was totally stuffed, I kept digging into this, eating it off the serving spoon in a manner I shouldn’t but have a penchant for doing.
On the drinks front, there are no alcoholic beverages, but a solid menu of mocktails is available. We opted for mango lassis, which again proved a masterful blend of spices in a beautifully spiced yoghurt-based drink.
Throughout the night, the restaurant bustled with families, couples, and friends in impressive numbers for a new establishment. Being a little tucked away, the word must be out already.
With the confident hand of Bilal at the fore and spice masters in the kitchen who aren’t shy about flavour, Zaiqah has already set itself apart in my eyes, but my gut says it is the BBQ menu where these guys will likely make their mark.
Zaiqah is located at 21 Challis Street, Dickson and is open seven days a week from 5 pm until 10 pm.
Original Article published by Tenele Conway on Region Canberra.
