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How Pakistan fell in love with sushi by Sonam Meher, read by Amin Azir.

When the 17-story Avari towers opened in Karachi in April 1985, it was the tallest hotel in the city. It felt otherworldly, said one chef who worked there as a teenager.

It was there that I saw a swimming pool for the first time, he remembered, and swim suits. By December 1986,

this $32 million building had another novelty to offer, Fujiama, a Japanese restaurant at its

summit. There had been no advertisements for Fujiyama, and for its first six weeks, the only

way to get in was with an invitation. These began to land in the homes and offices of the

city's bankers, businessmen, doctors, and other members of Karachi's elite. By the new year, the restaurant was so busy it had waiting lists.

There were now two kinds of people in the city of six million,

those who had tried sushi and those who had not.

In the late 80s, a Japanese restaurant like Fujiyama was an expensive proposition.

Foreign chefs had to be hired, staff trained, and ingredients from wasabi to rice constantly imported.

Sushi, raw fish, in a country where dal rorty is a staple, and vegetables are often cooked down until they lose their

crunch. Who would take such a risk? And yet, somehow, it paid off. Fujiyama was the first place

to serve Japanese cuisine in Pakistan, and it was where many Pakistanis encountered sushi for the first time.

Today you can finish your day off fasting during Ramadan at a sushi buffet or host a wedding

reception for a small, by Pakistani standards, gathering of a hundred or more, at a Japanese

restaurant. When restaurants closed during the pandemic,

waiters zipped across the city on motorbikes to deliver sushi. In May 22, the cash-strap

government attempted to impose a ban on the import of luxury items to Pakistan, including Norwegian salmon and nori from Dubai.

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