TRAVEL Amman SHORT Capital cuisine HAUL Most people visit Jordan The old man’s face is as wrinkled and leathery In Jordan, it seems, everything you eat to ogle at its historical sites as his desert truffles. Yusef stands there most or drink is an aid to vigour, well-being or days, watching over his side-street grocery social interaction. The hungry huddle each and float in the Dead Sea, stall as the glaring sun adds layers of character lunchtime outside Amman’s famous Reem stopping in Amman only for to his grin. “Eat the desert truffle like a Cafeteria (+962 4645725, 2nd Circle, Jebel a brief visit. But should you mushroom,” he says. “Squeeze the juice into Amman), the shawarmary hums with friendly your eyes. It’s good for your eyes.” chit-chat as they wait for the meat to be spend a little longer in the Round a corner, a clutch of sugar cane carved. This place is renowned across Jordan, capital city, there’s a host of juts from a tin bucket outside a drinks kiosk. not just for serving up some of the best culinary delights to discover A sign lists the health benefits of the juice: shawarmas in the Levant, but also for being a ‘preventing arteries stiffness, cleaning chest, favourite of King Abdullah himself. sexual supporter…’ A king eating a shawarma. It’s an image AUGUST 2011 WHAT’S ON 75 TRAVEL | JORDAN TRAVEL | JORDAN NEED TO KNOW HOW TO GET THERE FlyDubai has a daily service to Amman, from Dhs980. flydubai.com WHERE TO STAY Grand Hyatt Amman This huge top-end hotel complex is one of the plushest in the city. Lose yourself amongst its shops and pools, and stuff yourself at its many restaurants, from Arabic to Asian. Hussein Bin Ali Street, Jebel Amman. Tel: +962 64651234. hyatt.com Desert Wadi Rum Kebab Shawarma Palace Hotel A simple but clean budget option, right that encapsulates the spirit of food in Jordan. “In Jordan, previously the wine was not Weibdeh district of Amman, the initiative in the thick of the Amman action. The Nothing is considered too low rent; if it tastes “INDEPenDent of a high quality and I wanted to produce concentrates on the type of food that can’t rooms are of a pretty basic standard, but good enough, it’s fit for royalty. Even the FAMilY something that’s really Jordanian, that’s really be found in many of Jordan’s restaurants. the daily sightseeing tours to outside of humblest of Arabic street foods, the falafel, is got character and its own personality,” says “We originally started for tourists, but then Amman are excellent value. imbued with a sense of backstreet reverence at reStaurantS, LOveD Omar. “The problem I faced was that there we found that it’s really popular with locals Al-Malek Faisal Street, Downtown Amman. the legendary Hashem Restaurant (Al-Amir was nobody before me who planted grapes, so as well,” explains Maria. “Locals really enjoy Tel: +962 4624326. palacehotel.com.jo Mohammed St, Downtown Amman). The BY YOUNG AND OLD, I didn’t know what to plant or where.” homemade food. They really want to learn ‘dining room’ amounts to a cluster of plastic Through dogged trial and error, and how to make it because you can’t get it in DON’T MISS garden furniture in a bland alleyway, but its are ScattereD all using as many different grape varieties as restaurants. They’re often newlyweds who are Blue Fig Café golden brown falafel, velvety hummus and possible, Omar succeeded in creating a sick of takeaways, so they want to learn how Keep your dining heart-warming ful medames are nothing short acrOSS THIS citY natural product that has won plaudits from to make Arabic food.” options open at this of regal. OF NOOKS, HillS tasters around the world, not to mention 15 An evening session at Beit Sitti will teach laid-back café, with a Amman is full of institutions like Hashem. international medals. “What’s my secret? I you how to make four courses from scratch range of international Independent family restaurants, loved by young anD WanDerinG do nothing,” teases Omar. “When you do – a mezze, a salad, a main dish and a dessert. dishes and Arabic and old, are scattered all across this city of Baklava nothing, you allow nature to express itself, Guests are shown how to prepare and cook favourites. With a nooks, hills and wandering roads. Just across ROAds” and nature can give you much more than 34 aubergines on an open flame to make the multicultural vibe, it’s the the street from Hashem is Al Quds (+962 different flavours. Our strength is in how we smokiest moutabel dip imaginable. And for feel of the Blue Fig, as well as the food, 4630168, Al-Malek al-Hussein St), where some Another of Amman’s institutions is paprika sitting under loops of dried lemons grow the grapes. All of it is organic. We’ve the main course, spices are blended with that will keep you coming back. of the heartiest examples of traditional bedouin Zalatimo Sweets (Rivoli Plaza, Shmeisani, hung from the rafters. Mounds of fresh parsley never used any pesticides. We fertilise with layers of tomatoes and chicken to make an Jebel Amman. Tel: +962 5928800 cuisine can be found. The mansaf here is zalatimosweets.com), purveyors of luxury and coriander roll like green fields opposite different techniques. And every year our aromatic rice dish called maqlooba. famous throughout the city. The dish of lamb or Arabic pastries and baklava. The family bloody butcher’s shop displays. A shark’s head wine is better – not because we know how to A huge pan is stuffed to the brim and Habibah chicken and rice is doused with ‘jameed’, dried business was started in 1860 in Jerusalem by dangles on a hook outside a fishmonger’s, and make wine better, but because our roots are simmered slowly before being turned over For some of the city’s freshest, gooiest, yoghurt, which is mixed with hot water and the great, great grandfather of the current everywhere people are munching on fresh deeper and our soil is richer and more alive.” onto a vast platter – ‘maqlooba’ means ‘upside sweetest and best kunafe (soft-cheese made into a heavy, but delicious, sauce. general manager, Abdallah Zalatimo. It has green almonds, young, tart and sprinkled Roots go deep when it comes to food and down’ in Arabic. By the time you get around desserts) head to this famous sweet shop. Mansaf is what the bedouin have been expanded across Jordan to include European- with salt. drink in Jordan. Beit Sitti (+962 795 633 868, to dessert, you might also wish to learn the The warbat bil ashta, or pastries with offering guests and travellers for hundreds, if style cakes and chocolates, but the traditional For a country that’s 90 per cent desert, beitsittijo.com) is a restaurant and cookery phrase for “please, stop feeding me, I’m about clotted cream, are also sublime. not thousands, of years. Traditionally served baklava – around 45 varieties – never veers too Jordan’s produce is surprisingly diverse. “In school that is all about upholding traditional to explode”. Al-Malek al-Hussein St, Downtown Amman on a huge platter and eaten communally, far away from its roots. the coastal parts you have a lot of produce, homemade recipes and teaching them to a “As Arabs, we’re very hospitable and always with the right hand, it is a symbol of “A lot of the cuisine in Jordan has been vegetables, fruit from the orchards, oranges, generation of Jordanians who are losing touch portions are always huge,” says Maria. Zad el Khair humanity and hospitality in an inhospitable influenced by the close ties with Palestine. It’s cherries, grapes and grape leaves,” Abdallah with their heritage. She tells a story about a journey King A fine Iraqi restaurant serving one of environment. Tourists passing through the almost like one country,” says Abdallah. “But explains. “The art is being lost,” says owner Maria Abdullah and Prince Hassan once made on the delights of Middle Eastern cuisine – beautiful, arid sandscapes of Wadi Rum can both countries were very much developed Madaba is where some of the best organic Hadad. “It’s not being handed down from camelback in the desert. They came upon a masquf. The delicious fresh-water fish is enjoy alfresco feasts with bedouin hosts under by the Ottomans. Their empire was vast and vineyards in the Middle East can be found, generation to generation, because women bedouin tent, and were invited in for a large sliced open, flattened out and roasted the stars. But there are countless tales of culturally diverse. We were influenced by the but you don’t have to leave the capital to have aren’t getting the chance to teach these recipes lunch. around an open charcoal fire in the independent travellers being taken in and fed gifts brought for the Sultan. He’d say to his a taste. The Winemaker (Wadi Saqra, zumot- to their kids. So we’re trying to bring it back. “When they were leaving, the King found traditional way, before begin served with by kind strangers without any tourist dinars head chef, I have a new spice, give it a go. That’s wines.com) has up to 34 varieties of award- It’s funny because you see women who are out that the man had killed his only camel to plenty of lemon juice, salad and freshly changing hands.