About two weeks ago I organized a dinner at Peeru's Cafe, which is situated about an hour outside of my hometown Lahore. Peeru's Cafe is owned by the Peer family, who pioneered the puppetry festival in Pakistan and even contructed the first Puppet Museum in Lahore. They also organize festivals in Lahore, which included Turkish and European performers (I missed the whirling dervishes last year!). It is in the same rein in which Peeru's Cafe was created: a cafe with an artistic flair. Saturday night is always Jazz Night, and jazz music isn't very popular on the cultural scene here, and so Peeru's cafe is really the only place which has live jazz music.
Driving for an hour in two cars, all of us were quite excited, for no one has heard of jazz music in Lahore, so it was a first for all. Situated in an housing estate, the jazz music could be heard from as far as the parking lot. Ah! I can make out the saxophone and the drums. Walking into the complex, we passed by the musicians who were playing in the open air auditorium. Because the weather was hot, we opted to sit inside.The cafe is planned out on three split levels, and we were on the middle level. The walls were adorned with puppet masks, and lots of paintings covered the rest of the area. With dim lighting, and candles lighting up our tables, and the jazz music coming from outside, the atmosphere was definitely cozy and home-ly. For a while I didn't even feel like I was in Lahore, but in some cafe in Venice.
I ordered the Arabic mezze- again something new for Lahore- which ended up being totally awesome (although not as good as the authentic thing in Saudi!). Some ordered steaks, other ordered chicken. I ordered Turkish kebabs with cheese bread. So totally awesome. More than the food it was the conversation around the table that made it a fun and exciting time for all of us. We sat for almost 2 extra hours after we had finished our meals.I would highly recommend going to this cafe. Saturday night is Jazz night, and Tuesday night is Sufi night, which I plan on attending soon.
Mansur
6 comments:
Mansur,
You look awesome in that snap.
Ramadhan Kareem from Nash.
Aww thanks Nash! Ramadan mabrook to you! So good to hear from you! :-)
Mansur
Hey man! I came across your blog after so long...more like 2 yrs! I second nash's comment..you look so awesome man! :^) So when you getting married? lol!
Sherry
thx sherry! no plans of getting married anytime soon, but when I do, you will hear it from me here on my blog!! :-)
hey mansur i saw something on geo or ptv about a new coffee joint in pakistan called "u and me cafe". it looked really nice, will you go there and check it out for us?
hmm, havent heard of this cafe u mentioned. Will see if I can find it, and whether its even in Lahore or not. Maybe it's in Karachi.
Mansur
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