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SITUATED down Budaiya highway is a rustic restaurant that has been attracting diners from across the kingdom craving a taste of home and traditional Bahraini fare.
The benches on the outside patio area are always full of folks chatting away and dining. By 8am, the place is jumping and there is rarely an empty seat in the house. But what makes this quaint establishment so special? Is it the food, the service or the atmosphere?
The GulfWeekly family decided to put its food to the test and find out its recipe for success. After convincing our cereal-eating reporter Kristian Harrison (poor northern Brit unaccustomed to the finer things in life) to join us at 9am for a hearty breakfast, the team was off on its culinary adventure.
The two-storey venue, which can seat 80 comfortably, was already bustling with diners inside and out. While we found a table upstairs, we opted to wait for a bench outside to become vacant because there is nothing like enjoying a spot of Chai Karak on a beautiful summery day, despite the traffic queues on Budaiya Highway.
As we took to our seats, servers were buzzing around taking orders, making sure cups of tea were filled to the brim and tables were cleared to accommodate even more customers ready to chow down on some tasty treats.
Meanwhile, we couldn’t decide what to try as everything on the breakfast menu looked good. There were a variety of eggs to choose from including scrambled eggs with tomato or potato, omelettes and sunny side up which they refer to on the menu as ‘eyes eggs’, an Arabic turn of phrase.
One egg dish caught the attention of our slim and trim Nawaar Farooq aka ‘Prawn Ball’ which included an ingredient very near and dear to her heart, coriander. According to Golden Chef owner, Nabeel Mohamed, the coriander eggs are the most popular morning dish.
The 52-year-old former Gulf Hotel executive chef, who is still cooking up a storm in the kitchen alongside his loving wife, said: “What makes our eggs so special is the use of coriander. We also get a lot of requests for our traditional Bahraini dish balaleet (vermicelli noodles topped with saffron omelette).
“I didn’t intend to make this a traditional restaurant. Originally, I was open for lunch and dinner and I was thinking of serving international cuisine which I specialise in.
“But being from this neighbourhood and seeing what the community wants, I realised, they love Bahraini food so why not give the people what they want, and that includes the expats living in the area. Our main concept never changed though, it was for people to come in and enjoy home-cooked hearty food.”
The restaurant’s uncluttered; no-fuss décor lets the flavourful food shine. Mr Mohamed opened the venue in 2012, ready to win over customers with a simple lunch menu featuring sandwiches and other simple and delicious fare as well as meaty grilled dinners, juicy and tender to the bone.
Business boomed even more when he added Bahraini breakfast to the mix. He said: “I didn’t have anything to do in the mornings and I thought to myself, in this day and age, people are often too busy to make proper breakfast in the morning, even if it’s just a simple meal. Why not make sure people are getting their proper fill as breakfast is the most important meal of the day?”
We couldn’t agree more and soon enough our table was full with an assortment of savoury eggs including egg and tomato, coriander chilli omelette, chicken liver, pizza egg, eggs sunny side up, minced beef known as keema and my favourite falafel.
Every bite tasted like home. It’s no wonder banks and institutes from Budaiya to Manama are ordering large quantities of their morning breaks. Mr Mohamed said: “We want people to come to Golden Chef and let the food speak for itself. We cook from the heart and our prices are reasonable too.”
You can say that again, our party of eight polished off plates and plates and still got change from BD15, with many of the dishes costing a mere one dinar, or less.
Just when we thought we could not eat any more, Mr Mohamed’s wife, who often joins the team in the kitchen with two of his children during the weekends, made us her famous gamat, sweet doughy dumplings and two other desserts, asida, a dish including a cooked wheat flour lump of dough, usually with added butter or honey and sago pudding.
It was an amazing breakfast and a great way to start the day.
