Al Jazeera

You’d never think of this Yemeni restaurant as very promising. It’s around the back side of a strip mall, and it’s really a dive. But the worst dishes are not bad, and the best are striking, often combining roast meats with honey, cinnamon, and rice. Sweet dessert tea is a fine finish.

Attention web searchers! If you are looking for the Al Jazeera TV network, you want http://www.aljazeera.net. This is food-plan.org, a site for restaurant reviews.

Previously known to us as Al Gazeera. Yemeni, Ethiopian, Mediterranean and Italian. We didn’t try any Italian dishes.

English was a bit of a problem here, as was determining which items they were out of, but once we surmonted those hurdles, life was good.

The hummous was acceptable, the deep-fried triangle patties with spiced ground beef were delicious, and while people who are fond of mediterranean falafel might not like the interpretation here, I liked it a lot. All meals start off with a thick lentil soup which was quite delicious, and a salad which is ok. Pitchers of water are brought immediately to the table and promptly refilled.

After watching a table of cab drivers get and literally demolish their meal within two minutes, I pointed over and said ’I’ll have that’. That was roasted and curried chicken, with cinnamon and other spices, served with yemeni rice. It melted in my mouth. They were out of the Yemeni lamb dish, which was a disappointment, so the other members of the party got a lamb dish that bore a similarity to tibs. Tasty, but it didn’t have the depth of flavour the chicken did.

To finish, we shared a pot of tea that had honey and mint- quite sweet, but soothing and satisfying.

There is an upstairs with a bunch of hookah action going on, but I didn’t seem quite welcome up there. Still and all, I’ll be back.