Restaurant: Arabica Bar and Kitchen on 3 Rochester House, Borough market, SE1 9AF.
Jordan is in western Asia and is bordered by Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Israel and Palestine. Its capital city is Amman.
Jordanian cuisine is known for the large amount of herbs and spices used; ranging from extremely spicy to very mild. In Jordan they treat every meal like a celebration, often inviting others around and preparing a mezze (a large assortment of small dishes that fill the table). There is nearly always hummus and flatbread in any mezze due to the large amount of olives grown in Jordan which are turned into olive oil. The most traditional dish of Jordan is mansaf (a large dish of lamb cooked in dried yoghurt and served with either rice or bulgar), but unfortunately they didn't have it on the menu. If you know a restaurant that serves it please leave a comment!
We did our very best to find a Jordanian restaurant and in the end we found Arabica. Arabica is a new restaurant which only opened on July 1st 2014 but is not totally Jordanian, it's Lebanese. There are, however, a few Jordanian dishes on offer, an example being Sayadieh Royale which tastes fantastic.
Our orders:
Starters: Hummus - Made with chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon and olive oil. Served with flatbread.
Armenian-Style Lahmacun - Flatbread with spiced lamb, tomato, onion, peppers and pine kernels which looked like a pizza.
Mains: Chicken and Pistachio Taouk - Charcoaled chicken on skewers marinated in cardamom, honey and green chilli.
Lamb Meshwi - Charcoaled lamb on skewers with walnut harissa and onion and sumac salad.
Sayadieh Royale - Pan fried pollack with rice, tahini salsa and toasted pine kernels. This is a traditional Jordanian dish.
Tabouleh - A salad with parsley, cucumber, tomato, spring onion, mint, cracked west, olive oil and lemon.
Desserts: Mouhalabieh - Milk pudding with mastic, fruits and toasted hazelnuts.
Knafeh - Warm Levantine cheese pastry with orange blossom honey and crushed pistachios.
Original Beans Chocolate Pot - With candied Anatolian clementine, olive oil and chilli salt.
Baklawa - Crisp, buttery layers of filo pastry with nuts and honey syrup.
Ice cream - Dark chocolate.
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
The food and restaurant were absolutely amazing, we would go back there any time. There was attention for detail in every dish and lots of delicious spices added. The only problem that we had was that they had run out of two or three dishes on the menu; we did come a bit later than most would though.
Best Dishes: Armenian-Style Lahmacun, Sayadieh Royale, Lamb Meshwi.
Could have been better: Mouhalabieh - Personally I didn't like it very much as I found it a bit watery, but that may just be me.
I would definitely recommend this restaurant for anyone willing to go Lebanese, Middle Eastern or be adventurous and go Jordanian.
