Meal #05.1: Yemen, yet again

Because Yemen was such a rare cuisine, there was a lot of interest in trying it and so I did a second visit a week after. Armed with the firsthand experience from the previous visit, how did this second trip to Yemen fare?

This meal's food explorers: Marie, Josh, Lynette, Kim, Joan, Bep, Noel and Jim. Hailing from the US, Philippines, Thailand, Australia, the Netherlands and Singapore.

Having had trouble trying to get service from the private room, we sat at a long table in the middle of the second floor. Service was easier to get this time. Our waiter, the same Arab man from the last time recognised me - "You back for Yemen food?", he asked with a smirk. We sure were!

Ordering this time was much simpler. Two serves of fatah (a bread salad) one with chicken and one with vegetables. Unlike the previous week, lamb was off the menu, so all the mains were chicken only. Having learnt from the last time that the mains were huge and enough for two, we ordered four different mains: mandy (rice with roasted chicken), matbi (rice with grilled chicken), zorbean (rice with chicken baked inside it) and mahagoat (roast chicken on rice, but differently spiced than the mandy).

The fatah chicken (top) and fatah veg (bottom).

All the mains were some variation of rice and chicken. I think this might have been the zorbean.

Besides the mains and fatahs, some tabbouleh, hummus and bread to round us off.

Second meal was definitely an easier time - knowing what not to order certainly helped. Some foods such as the saltah were beyond our reach and I'm wondering now if that's because they only serve it on certain days, like on the weekend or whenever the Yemeni community goes for a taste of home.

Rat fund: we collected THB 140, bringing the total to THB 1,200.