Quetta eats well. The dish to ask for is sajji — a whole leg of lamb rubbed with salt, skewered on a stake and slow-roasted beside an open wood fire until the skin crackles and the meat falls apart. It is served with the local flatbread and a sharp green chutney, and is one of the great Pakistani roasts. The mutton raised in the surrounding mountains is famous across the country and turns up in the pulao at almost every kebab house in town.
Pashtun specialities you will see on menus include landhi (a whole lamb dried in the shade and saved for winter) and khaddi kebab (a whole sliced lamb roasted upright around a fire). Long-running kebab houses such as Lal Kebab, Tabaq, Cafe Farah and Cafe Baldia line the bazaars off Jinnah Road; Cafe China is the city's old-school Chinese, going since the 1960s. In the old bazaars the small tea shops are the local clubs — order green tea and doodh patti and stay for a while.
Don't leave without a stop at the dry-fruit and fresh-fruit stalls. Quetta is the fruit basket of Pakistan and the markets carry pomegranates, apricots, peaches, plums, apples and the local garma and sarda melons in season, alongside pistachios, almonds and pine nuts from the surrounding hills.
Lehri Sajji House
The classic stop for sajji on Jinnah Road in the town centre — a whole leg of lamb roasted by the fire, served with bread and chutney.