AL MANSHIA is a restaurant — and even a museum if you want to call it that. It was recently established to provide a taste of traditional Hejazi food and to display traditional items and objects which are not as familiar today as they were in the past. The décor of the restaurant will also appeal to traditionalists. Everything harks back to the past.
The restaurant is named after a market in Makkah that was once next to the Holy Mosque near the Al-Safa Gate. “People used to go to there to buy their everyday needs such as the food they wanted to cook that day,” said Nasser, the restaurant owner.
The prices are affordable with a lunch for two consisting of a salad, a soup, an appetizer, and two main courses costing roughly SR100. The menu includes traditional Hejazi food as well as Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian offerings. The Hejaz is notable for having many kinds of food because the people who settled here came from all over the world. This has resulted in the region’s having not only a wide variety of food but also a range of different lifestyles.
Mutabal, a salad normally associated with Lebanese cuisine, is served in Almashya with olive oil to assure the mixture of cuisines that is common in the Hejaz. Mutabag, a kind of crepe filled with either a sweet or savory filling, is widely known in the western region and is served the traditional way with lemon and hot pepper. Mantu is a popular dish and is dough filled with meat. It is a traditional food cooked in a steamer.
Among the drinks are fresh juices, Taif tea, Arabic coffee with dates, Cappuccino and Turkish coffee. Desserts include Basbusa and Um Ali. The appetizers include humus, sambusak (dough filled with meat, chicken, or vegetables and fried), and farmouza (dough filled with meat and cooked in the oven).
The main courses include different kinds of rice — Bukari, Biryani, and Mandi — and Lebanese mashawi featuring meat or chicken grilled on coal with varying sauces. Egyptian and Syrian mahshi are also available: Mahshi is a general word referring to different vegetables that are stuffed with a mixture of rice, meat, dill, onion, garlic and tomato.
The breakfast menu includes ful and tamiz (Afghani bread), Mutabag, Kibda sandwich (liver slices mixed with onion, tomato, and green pepper and fried), and Masoub (a mixture of crushed bread, banana, honey and butter.)
By taking a walk around the premises, visitors will realize that they have not come simply to eat but in addition to look at what is old and traditional. A café is at the center of the restaurant; it is designed in the traditional way and has been built of stones from demolished buildings in Makkah. Along the sides of the café are the Zamzam jars which were used to store the sacred water. On a more modern note, old Coca-Cola bottles are also on display.
The restaurant is divided into rooms with each room named after an old district of Jeddah or Makkah — Al-Hindawia, Al-Sulaimania Al-Ruwais. In the old districts, men gathered to discuss different local issues and the representatives of the district used to meet with representatives from other ones. Patrons have three options as far as sitting is concerned — they can sit at tables inside, on the floor inside or outside.
There are a number of old objects going back 70 years or more. The windows are designed in the traditional way, with some having been brought from old destroyed buildings in Makkah. The doors are made of wood in the same old Hejazi style.
Islam Abdul Hamid the chef at the restaurant said that the restaurant employees come from different Arab countries — Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. Traditional foods from all those countries are offered as well as Hejazi dishes and delicacies.
There are two branches of the restaurant in Jeddah and two others in Makkah. They all present traditional food but do not offer the same traditional atmosphere. The restaurant is open from 7 a.m. until 1 a.m. and is located on Al-Tahlia street in Al-Tula Plaza in front of City Plaza. If you are fascinated by what is traditional, here is a place for you to visit. The phone number is 6607193.
