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THERE’S a hidden Arabic jewel glistening at the Bahrain Zallaq Thalassa Sea & Spa waiting to be uncovered by the weekend crowd and lovers of fine cuisine.
The Pashawat Restaurant is located on the first floor with a separate entrance adjacent to the main Sofitel lobby. I totally missed it and set off in the direction of the stairs leading to the hotel’s main eating out area and was fortunately pointed in the right direction by a helpful member of staff.
The venue lives up to the growing hype and allows diners to indulge in a truly ‘1001 Arabian nights’ experience in comfortable sofas and chairs, impressive lighting, opulent décor with live traditional music. A belly dancer will be joining the troupe in a few days time.
It has a dedicated lounge-bar area seating 22 and the restaurant itself seats 76. It feels like a house party as soon as the duo strike up a tune and the strings of their fez hats start twirling.
The Thursday evening crowd last week included a pleasant mixture of young and old, a Bahraini family celebrating a birthday, a mature couple from Canada in deep conversation in French to our right, and in the far corner a dating couple looking deeply into each other’s eyes and I was half expecting an engagement ring to pop out of a pocket at any moment.
As soon as the drinks were ordered a tray of nibbles and pickles alongside fresh bread arrived on the table in true Arabic-style and the good lady wife Kathryn and I picked up our felt-covered menus to choose a starter from the cold and hot mezzeh selection.
Arabic food is becoming increasingly popular in the west. In fact only last week the Daily Mail, middle England’s favourite newspaper, was singing the praises of hommus.
Britain now gets through an astonishing 12,000 tonnes of the stuff every year. UK supermarket giant Tesco alone – which didn’t even stock it until the late 90s – sells more than 30 million pots annually. That’s the equivalent to 82,000 pots a day.
Pashawat’s perfect puree of freshly-boiled chickpeas with tahina provided a heavenly dip alongside the platter of fresh vegetables.
It was very tasty and appeared extremely healthy which gave me an ideal excuse to order pan-fried chicken livers – a dish I first tasted in Manama souq on the suggestion of expat old-timer, Lindsay Cook. Kathryn turned her nose up but she doesn’t know what she’s missing. Melt-in-your-mouth meat drizzled with a pomegranate sauce. Absolutely sensational!
The mezzeh range is vast and is astonishingly good value for money with dishes mostly ranging from BD2.500 to under BD4. However, be aware of the restaurant’s minimum charge of BD15 per person.
The main courses offer the traditional favourites from the kitchen’s charcoal grill such as lamb chops, shawarma, baby chickens and kebabs and Chef de Cuisine Alaa Al Samran particularly shows his star quality with the fish and seafood selection.
The grilled whole fasker was fantastic. There is no better word to describe this dish. It looked and smelt so good I was forced to indulge in a few mouthfuls before I took a photograph of it for this review. I apologise, readers, you know what it’s like, one mouthful leads to another and before you know it there’s only a forkful left.
It will be the best BD7.200 you’ll ever spend on the island, I promise. I snapped the image quickly ... nothing was going to keep me from the last flakes of the Arabic-spiced grilled sea bream with tahina sauce for long!
The Australian white from an extensive range of beverages provided an excellent choice of accompaniment.
A full plate of fresh fruit slices to share followed before I stepped on the naughty but nice route again for a bowl of Ros bil Halib (creamy rice pudding). A cup of Moroccan tea concluded the evening.
We must return to check out the belly dancer. The fish dish has me hooked too.
