Chargha in Ajman: What It Is, What It Costs, and How to Order It

Chargha is the dish most people in the UAE have seen on a menu and never ordered, usually because nobody explained it. It is worth explaining, because it is also one of the best value things on any Pakistani menu.

A half is AED 18 here. A full bird is AED 35 and feeds three. That is less per head than almost anything else that puts a whole shared dish on the table.

What it actually is

A whole chicken, marinated in spice, steamed until it is cooked through, then deep fried to order.

Both steps matter and most of the ones you will be disappointed by have skipped one. The steaming does the cooking: an hour of it, which is what makes the meat come away from the bone without being dry. The frying does nothing to cook the bird and everything to the skin, which is where the dish lives.

A chargha that was only fried is dry inside. A chargha that was only steamed is pale and flabby. The whole point is the contrast between the two.

How to tell a good one

Ask when it was fried, not when it was cooked. The steaming is always done ahead, and that is fine. The frying should happen after you order it, which is why it takes fifteen to twenty minutes. If it arrives in three, it has been sitting under a lamp and the skin has gone soft.

Look at the colour. It should be deep reddish brown and uneven, darker at the wing tips and the edges. Uniform golden means a batter, and chargha does not have a batter.

Press the skin. It should crackle. If it gives, it was fried too early.

Check what it comes with. Onion, lemon and a chatni, and nothing else. A chargha arriving on a bed of chips is a chargha that is being padded.

What to order with it

Chargha is dry by design, so it needs something wet beside it rather than more dry things.

With a full chargha (AED 35)	AED	Total
Four butter naan	8	43
Half Zafran chicken karahi	15	50
Salty lassi, two	10	45
Matka falooda to finish, two	20	55

For three people: the full bird, four naan and a half karahi comes to AED 58 and nobody leaves hungry. For two: the half at AED 18 with two naan and a lassi is AED 27.

The thing not to do is order chargha and seekh kabab together. Both are dry, both come off heat, and the table ends up with nothing to mop. Order a karahi or a handi alongside instead.

Why it is worth ordering in the Sanaiya specifically

Chargha is a dish that punishes a kitchen for being slow. The bird has to be steamed in batches through the day and fried the moment it is ordered, which only works if the place is busy enough to keep turning them over. A quiet restaurant either runs out or serves you one that has been waiting.

Ajman Industrial Area 2 is busy from half past seven in the morning until midnight, which is exactly the trade that makes a chargha programme work. We fry ours to order and we will tell you if we are out rather than hand you one that is not right.

Ordering

A chargha is worth a message ahead. Send 050 720 8707 on WhatsApp with whether you want a half or a full and roughly when you are coming, and it goes in the fryer to meet you rather than after you sit down.

It travels reasonably well for twenty minutes or so, but the skin is at its best immediately, so this is one of the dishes genuinely better collected than delivered. We deliver across the Sanaiya, Al Nuaimiya and the rest of Ajman if collecting is not practical.

Amman Street, Ajman Industrial Area 2, near Nesto Hypermarket. Open every day, 7:30 am to midnight. The full menu has the rest of the charcoal list.