An affordable street food hub for all

Dhaka has recently seen a surge in many new street food places with various food items. The places serve foods that were otherwise unimaginable even a year ago as street food. They have been contributing to the creation of new hubs for socialisation as well as hangouts with friends. One such place is Paribag, which is at the crossroads of some of the major hubs of South Dhaka and has immediately become a fan favourite due to its serving of food of multiple types and the vibrant social culture there.

From pizzas, burgers, and momos, some of the most common street food items, to waffles, fried fish, and juices of multiple fruits, everything can be found on Paribag. There are also food carts selling chap and soup, the tastes of which rival those of some of the most notable ones in Dhaka.

The most convenient thing about Paribag is its price. Most of the food items in Paribag can be found at quite a low price compared to Dhaka's other street food hubs. This is because Paribag, as a food hub, has not been around for a long time.

The most notable among the food items sold in Paribag has to be pizza. There are quite a few pizza shops in Paribag that sell pizzas of many different shapes at a price that is quite convenient to the buyers. The variety of the pizzas matches those of the posh pizza places in Dhaka.

There are three pizza places with the same name, 'Live Pizza,' in Paribag, where, despite the same name, there are some subtle differences, starting from the colour of the menu cards to the variety of items provided. However, the pizzas of all these places taste more or less the same, and the variations in the pizza places are not that different either. These places exclusively sell pizza and are some of the most visited food carts in Paribag, as they get a lot of customers compared to all the other food carts selling a multitude of other food items.

The number of chap places varies, but they mostly remain between 2 and 3, with their tastes not varying much either. However, the difference between the pizza and the chap places is that the chap places have yet to garner a large fan following. For chap, most people still prefer Mohammadpur and Baily Road instead of Paribag. The variety of sauces the vendors provide makes these chaps even more flavourful, a feature quite distinctive to the Paribag chap and missing from the Bailey Road and Mohammadpur chaps.

Many food carts sell momos where the naga momos are quite popular due to their unique preparation, and other less popular food carts that sell burgers, sub sandwiches, and whatnot. There are some waffle places among the sweet items, but they are temporary and cannot always be found. There are also some designated food carts selling shakes of different types and fruit juice, some of which are highly regarded due to their uniqueness and taste.

The street food hub of Paribag opens after the afternoon, gets vibrant, attracts many visitors and potential customers during the evening, and remains more or less busy till quite late at night. For students and middle-income families, Paribag has turned out to be a great place to savour foods that are out of the ordinary at affordable prices.

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