Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
,
a decidedly acquired taste! There's also a small range of Italian dishes for those not into
acquired tastes.
Mysore Palace Restaurant$$$
INDIAN
OFFLINE MAP
( 426359; off Hadda St; mains YR500-1000; 11.30am-3.30pm & 6.30-11pm)
You know this is a real
deal Indian restaurant by the fact that the vast majority of the customers are expat Indians.
Its spicy variety makes for a delicious change after a repetitive Yemeni diet.
Al-Fakher Restaurant$$$
YEMENI
( 427999; Hadda St; mains YR800-2500)
The Yemeni food served at this upmarket restaurant
seems to have almost nothing in common with all that fatty meat and stringy chicken
that's been masquerading as Yemeni food elsewhere in the country. Put simply the food
here is divine and if the
Tihama Hanid lamb
(lamb wrapped in banana skins and slow
cooked in a beehive oven) doesn't make you drool then nothing will. Don't pass up a
dessert of
fatat maoz
(a stunning mix of banana, honey and custard).
El-Deewan Restaurant$$$
LEBANESE
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( 425528; off Hadda St; mains YR900-1800)
One of Sanaʻa's top restaurants, this is where well-
to-do Sanaʻa folk go for a splurge. The Lebanese food is without peer in Yemen and as
well as eating inside you have the option of tucking in outside in the shady garden.
Drinking
Various Turkish-style coffeehouses can be found around Bab al-Yaman, including the
cof-
feehouse
next to the wall, immediately to the left of the gate as you enter the old city (look
out for the awning). For a more sophisticated and cosmopolitan coffee check out one of
the new coffeeshops starting to spring up in the city. Probably the best known such place
whilst partaking in an Ethiopian coffee ceremony. It's popular with the city's Ethiopian
and Western expat communities and, maybe more interestingly, a tiny community of
middle-class Yemeni women who are happy to talk openly to strangers.
Excellent fruit-juice stalls are dotted around town; the best is
Al-Asdeqa
OFFLINE MAP
OFFLINE MAP
GOOGLE MAP
that stand on the corners of Hadda St and Az-Zubayri St. As
