mikahaziq: Middle Eastern Restaurant: Hadhramawt

*Dear Readers, Hadramawt @Chulan Square has relocated to The Curve Shopping Centre; Mutiara Damansara*

There seems to be quite a number of middle east restaurants in Kuala Lumpur, probably due to the huge number of middle east tourist or holiday makers arriving in Kuala Lumpur every year. In our two years of living in Kuala Lumpur though, I would have to say that we must have eaten at a middle east restaurant only 5 times. Probably because we were quite disappointed with the first few that we tried (most notably disappointing was Bosphorus at Pavillion) that we just wrote middle east restaurants off our "to dine-in" list.

But, I have been meaning to try out the very popular Hadhramawt Restaurant at Chulan Square, so last Sunday, we decided to give it a go.

The restaurant has two levels, the second level is larger than the first. Decor was simple but pleasant and the restaurant was clean. We were attended to quite fast. We ordered the lamb mandi rice, hadhramawt mixed grill, tabouleh and bread. I asked whether they serve mint tea and the waiter said that the Arab tea is mint tea, so I ordered a pot and hubby ordered Mango Juice.

Lamb Mandi Rice

The Dalcha that came with the Lamb Mandi

Chili that came with the Lamb Mandi

Lamb Mandi came first, portion is small for a middle east restaurant, rice was just nice for one person. Which is quite rare since hubby and I can always share a plate of rice in a middle east restaurant and still feel full but not here. Lamb Mandi came with potato and carrot dalcha and chili, I like the rice and dalcha but would have preferred tomato chutney over the chili that the gave though hubby prefers the Lamb Mandi rice at Saba' Restaurant (Setiawangsa) over the Lamb Mandi rice here. He did agree that the dalca at Hadhramawt restaurant is nicer.

Hadhramawt Mixed Grill

Next came the Hadhramawt Mixed Grill, it came with lamb kebabs, shish tawook, grilled fish and grilled prawns (very small). This was quite a damper I would say as :

No 1 : The waiter forgot about my tabouleh, so it arrived after hubby finished off the Mixed Grill (I had wanted to eat the dish with bread and tabouleh).

No 2: Lamb kebab and shish tawook seemed devoid of spices and grilled fish was bland. The only nice one was the prawn.

Hadhramawt's Arab Bread

Next came the bread, one look and I wasn't really expecting much. The bread came in a plastic bag and was not even warm. Enough said.

Tabouleh

Tabouleh came after everything has finished. It tasted average and I could have chopped the mint and parsley finer than the cook. (Roughly chopped parsley and mint just ruin tabouleh in my opinion).

Arab tea was arab tea.. not mint tea, I can't seem to taste the mint -if there was any- in the very strong and somewhat bitter Arab tea. Waiter forgot to give us the sugar too, had to ask for it and not all waiters understand you well. Needless to say, I can't finish the whole pot.

Mango juice was nice, sweet and didn't taste like it comes out of a bottle as is the case in some middle east restaurants.

So, is it just us, or does this restaurant fail to live up to its claim of serving the best Yemeni and Middle East food? Maybe we ordered the wrong dishes? The restaurants seems very popular though, there were a lot of Arab patrons and also local Malay patrons. We are not in a hurry to go back though, will just stick with Tarbush Express and Naab Iranian Restaurant at this moment.