Eating Well in Ajman for Under AED 20: Real Orders, Real Prices

Cheap food in the Sanaiya is easy to find. Cheap food that is actually cooked that morning is a different search, and the price difference between the two is smaller than most people assume.

Here is the shortest answer: daal mash at AED 5 with a tandoori roti at AED 1 is a hot, freshly cooked meal for AED 6. Everything below is a fuller version of that arithmetic.

Nine meals under AED 20

Order	Total
Daal mash, small + roti	AED 6
Lahori chana + tawa paratha	AED 6
Anda chana + paratha + karak chai	AED 11
Chicken biryani, small	AED 10
Beef pulao, small	AED 10
Mutton paya + 2 roti	AED 12
Beef nihari + 2 roti	AED 12
Chicken tikka + butter naan	AED 12
Aloo gosht, small + 2 roti	AED 10
Chicken kabab masala + roti	AED 19

Bread is the thing that keeps these numbers low. Tandoori roti is AED 1 and butter naan is AED 2. A restaurant charging four or five dirhams for bread turns every one of the orders above into a different proposition.

Feeding two people for under AED 25

This is the one worth memorising if you eat out with someone regularly.

A half Zafran chicken karahi is AED 15. It genuinely feeds two with bread. Four tandoori roti at AED 1 each brings it to AED 19. Two karak chai at AED 1 each makes it AED 21 for two people, hot food, cooked after you ordered it.

The same logic scales. A half mutton Shinwari karahi at AED 34 with six roti is AED 40 and feeds three. A full chargha at AED 35 with four naan is AED 43 and feeds three or four.

The weekly menu is the cheapest thing we cook

Alongside the karahi and the BBQ there is a pot of home style salan on every day of the week, cooked in the morning and served until it runs out. Small portions start at AED 5 and large at AED 8.

Day	Cheapest plate
Monday	Daal mash, AED 5
Tuesday	Lobia or aloo ghobi, AED 5
Wednesday	Karela or mix veg, AED 5
Thursday	Daal chana, AED 5
Friday	Curry pakora or daal mash, AED 5
Saturday	Daal tarka, AED 5
Sunday	Aloo palak, AED 5

The whole week with both sizes is on the weekly menu page. The catch, and it is a real one: these are cooked once each morning in one batch. Come late and the choice is thinner. That is the trade for them being cooked fresh rather than held.

If you eat here most days, stop paying by the plate

Eating one plate a day off the weekly menu at AED 8 comes to roughly AED 240 a month. The monthly mess is AED 200 for one meal a day and it includes breakfast. Two meals a day is AED 350, which is about AED 5.80 a meal. Three is AED 450, or five dirhams a plate.

The honest version: if you eat with us three or four times a week rather than most days, paying by the plate is cheaper and you should do that instead.

Where cheap goes wrong

Two things to watch for anywhere, not just here.

Rice as filler. A plate that is four fifths rice and one fifth salan is cheap because there is very little in it. Look at the ratio before you judge the price.

Reheating. The cheapest way to run a kitchen is to cook once and warm through for three days. It is also why so much cheap food tastes tired. Ask what time the pot went on.

We are on Amman Street, Ajman Industrial Area 2, near Nesto Hypermarket, open 7:30 am to midnight every day. WhatsApp 050 720 8707, and the price you are quoted is the price at the table, because there is no aggregator app in the middle taking a cut.