ChI Eats
Restaurants – where to lunch, where to dine

Dhaka has a surprisingly wide variety of restaurants, and you can eat in a different one nightly without getting bored!  The ones below are some of ChI’s favourites, but feel free to recommend your own!

All restaurants are BYOB (“bring your own bottle”), though be warned – the Radisson asks a ridiculous corking charge.  (Bangladesh is of course officially technically dry, so anything goes!)

For Western or oriental/western fusion cuisine:

•      Radisson Water Garden Hotel.  Best dishes: both the lunch and dinner buffet at their ‘lunch room’ lobby restaurant are great (high quality, exquisite salads, great deserts, ok on hot dishes). Best atmosphere at Radisson is their Friday evening BBQ by the pool side.

•      Westin Hotel, opened mid 2007 near Gulshan-2 circle, with an Australian chef and food and beverage management. Best dishes ar the sushi, sashimi, salad buffet, pasta station, Japanese soup station, and a good selection of oriental hot dishes. Décor-wise, it is a somewhat remarkable mix of modern and 70-ies furniture.

•      Saltz/Spitfire, Gulshan Avenue, Gulshan-2: combo arrangement with on ground floor meat (grill/BBQ) restaurant and top floor seafood. Garden seating is nice, top floor terrace overlooking the garden is also nice. Food quality is ok, best dishes: imported seafish.

For Japanese/Korean food:

•      restaurant Samdado, in Gulshan-2, offers a relaxed atmosphere, casual chic, with decent, clean food.  One particularly nice touch is that the guest is offered miso-soup and 4-5 other tid-bits as starters, on the house, regardless of what food you order. Best dishes are the sushi/sashimi combo. Fantastic: their warmed sake. Beer is also available in-house.

•      restaurant Sura (Korean). On Road 90, Gulshan-2 (close to the Dutch Embassy). Terrific bento boxes for a take out lunch!

For Bangladeshi/South Asian dining:

•      Khazana (off Gulshan Avenue, Gulshan-2). Best dishes are North Indian specialities, seafood or meat kebabs, tandoori, BBQ, curries.  Pretty good masala dhosas. Nice, sophisticated atom with dim lighting.

•      Kasturi (Gulshan-1), celebrates 30 years of self-proclaimed leader of best Bengali food. Good enough.

•      Sajna especially for South Indian food, at Rd. 11, Hse. 14, block H in Banani

•      Or the classic North Indian, Santoor on Rd. 11 (New), Hse. 2, Mirpur Rd in Dhanmondi

•      Heritage (Gulshan-1). Nicely renovated house with antique-style decorations (wooden doors, wood carvings), started up by the celebrity chef and entrepreneur, Tommy Miah, who owns the famous “Raj” restaurant in Edinburgh.  Signature dishes – Bangladeshi-fusion food; anything on the menu and particularly the “specials” list (ask the waiters), with very high quality food quality.  In pre- and post-summer periods, there is very pleasant garden seating.

•      The (nameless) floating restaurant on a boat, moored just outside of Dhaka. Very popular with locals.

For Thai/Vietnamese:

•      Le Saigon, Gulshan Avenue, Gulshan-1. Pleasant but unexceptional food but nice jazz + food arrangements on weekends

•      Oriental Cuisine, Gulshan Avenue, next to Le Saigon. Best dishes include som tam (papaya salad), and other excellent Thai food. Prepared by Thai ladies. A pleasant, but unexceptional atmosphere.