Pasadena, California
Zabihah halal
Open flame, on site
Smoke, spice,
and a driveway
full of people.
Imran cooks bone-in ribeye, dry-rubbed plate beef ribs, lamb chops, lobster and salt-covered whole fish on a pellet smoker and a post-oak offset, then finishes everything over live coals with the spice box his family brought from Lahore. He brings the fire to your address and cooks in front of your guests.
What he cooks on
- Pellet smoker, overnight hopper
- Offset stick-burner, post oak + pecan
- Live-coal skewer trough
- 22-inch karahi over propane jet
11 hrs
on the offset for plate ribs
4 a.m.
the fire gets lit on event day
212
guests at the largest cook so far
35 mi
travel included from Pasadena
The dishes people call about
Nine things,
done completely right.
He does not run a forty-item catering list — no breads course, no dessert trolley, no filler. This is the whole repertoire, and every item on it has been cooked for a paying table more than a dozen times.
- 01
From the Smoker
Reverse-Seared Ribeye, Bone In
38 oz prime ribeye smoked at 225°F to 118°F internal, rested, then dropped onto coals for 90 seconds a side.
Rubbed with black cardamom, coarse pepper, garlic ash. Sliced to order at the station.
- 02
From the Smoker
Beef Ribs, Plate Cut
Three-bone plate short ribs in a dry rub of coarse pepper, Kashmiri chili and toasted cumin, 11 hours over post oak until the bark goes almost black.
Served whole on the bone. One rib feeds two guests comfortably.
- 03
From the Smoker
Lamb Chops, Frenched
New Zealand loin chops in a yogurt-and-green-papaya marinade for 8 hours, kissed with pecan smoke, seared hard.
Finished with charred lemon and a dusting of chaat masala.
- 04
From the Sea
Salt-Covered Seabass
Whole branzino packed in a two-inch shell of egg-white and sea salt with fennel fronds, roasted until the crust rings hollow.
Cracked open at the table with the back of a knife. The most photographed dish on the menu, and the reason a lot of hosts call.
- 05
From the Sea
Split Lobster Tails
Cold-water tails split lengthwise, brushed with ajwain butter, three minutes shell-down over coals.
Priced by market. Two tails per guest on the Ember tier.
- 06
Coals & Skewers
Beef Tikka Boti
Boneless tenderloin cubes in raw papaya, mustard oil and roasted cumin, threaded with onion petals and charred fast.
Twelve-hour marinade. The papaya does the tenderising, not a mallet.
- 07
Coals & Skewers
Chicken Tikka Skewers
Boneless thigh meat, hung yogurt marinade with Kashmiri chili and ginger, blistered until the edges go black.
The crowd-pleaser. Kids eat it, so do the grandparents.
- 08
Karahi & Handi
Karahi Beef
Bone-in shank and short rib, tomato, ginger julienne and green chili, reduced hard until the oil separates and rises.
Roughly 40 minutes in the pan, finished with crushed kasuri methi.
- 09
Karahi & Handi
Karahi Chicken
Small-cut bone-in chicken, tomatoes and butter, black pepper heavy, cooked in under 25 minutes at full flame.
Ask for it white — no chili, extra ginger — if the table runs mild.
Two traditions, one fire
American smoke.
Pakistani spice.
The technique is Texan — long cooks, wood not gas, temperature probes in everything. The seasoning is entirely his mother's. A brisket rub with black cardamom in it should not work as well as it does.
The wood does the first half
Post oak for beef, pecan for lamb, alder for anything from the water. The pellet smoker holds 225°F overnight while the offset gets fed by hand every forty minutes for the cuts that need a harder smoke.
The coals do the second
Nothing goes to a guest straight out of a smoker. Every protein hits open coals for its last ninety seconds, which is where the crust and the char on the skewers come from — and why the station has to be where your guests are standing.
Whole spice, toasted and ground the morning of your event. Nothing out of a jar that has been open since last summer.
Live event cooking
He does not
drop off trays.
The whole point is the cook happening in front of the people you invited. Skewers turning, the karahi going, a salt crust getting cracked open while forty phones come out. Chafing dishes are what happens after the show, not instead of it.
Upscale family events
Engagements, walimas, aqiqahs, milestone birthdays, graduations. Guest counts from 24 to just over 200.
One station or three
A single skewer trough for a backyard of thirty, or a full build-out with carving, karahi and seafood running at once.
Your venue or your home
Backyards, driveways, event lawns, hotel terraces. He handles fire permits and clearance requirements where the venue needs them.
Booked weeks, not days
Six to ten weeks for the larger tiers. Spring and early-autumn Saturdays go first every year.
We had forty-one people in the backyard and Imran cracked that salt-baked seabass open right in front of my mother-in-law. She has not stopped talking about it and she does not compliment anyone.
I booked him for my father's sixtieth expecting good barbecue. What showed up was a ribeye better than the steakhouse on Lake Avenue, and karahi that tasted like my grandmother's.
Six hours of cooking, three hours of eating, and nobody in a hurry to leave
Dates for 2026 are open
Tell him the date and
how many are coming.
Every enquiry gets a reply within a day, usually with a phone call. No deposit is taken until the menu is settled and you have tasted it.
Start an enquiry