Traditional Friday Lunch: Laham Mandi
Our main complaint about the otherwise wonderful Mandi World (which seems like it's a chain, in the best possible way, but actually isn't) is the poor lighting. Not Instagram friendly at all. Although maybe this is because Jeddah really seems like a Snapchat town, and perhaps hostage lighting is all the rage on Snapchat these days....
Traditional Arabian lunch after Friday prayers: Laham Mandi, ie slow-cooked lamb/mutton served on a giant pile of flavourful rice and various accoutrements. Some random thoughts:
streets are empty and everything (really everything) is closed from 10-13 on Fridays,
if you fancy lunch at/from a restaurant, it's best to wait an hour or so for the post-prayers rush to subside,
eating on the floor in a modern restaurant is a great experience,
eating with your hands is great in principle, but some foods are more suited for it (very hot meat and very unsticky rice not so much),
if everyone is eating with their hands, restaurants could learn from Malaysia and have more conveniently placed sinks, rather than making people go all the way to the WC to wash up,
lamb tastes much better in the Middle East than in Europe or the US,
portions are huge here,
Yemeni cuisine is really, really good, and seems to be the origin of most common dishes in the region,\
there are loads of places in Jeddah that feel like they're massive chains/franchises, but actually aren't (Mandi World being one of them)
for some reason, cringey signs with hackneyed quotes on them don't seem so cringey or hackneyed when unexpectedly found in a restaurant in Saudi Arabia (the tiles probably also help).
