Haider Toha  › Finds 

food adventures

by Haider Toha  ·

food is how i understand a city. these are the places that have shaped meals into memories.

london (home)

  • tayyabs - a whitechapel institution and the lamb chops that got me through my exams at imperial. you queue in the cold and it's always worth it, no reservations and no pretense.
  • gymkhana - where i go when something's gone right and the kid goat methi keema is absurd. it's michelin-starred without ever feeling like it.
  • mangal 2 - a dalston ocakbasi where the charcoal smoke stays in your clothes for days and the lamb şiş is the benchmark every other kebab gets measured against.
  • maroush - shawarma on edgware road at 2am, after a long week.
  • regency cafe - a proper english breakfast in a westminster room that hasn't changed in decades, brutalist architecture outside and fried eggs in.

new york

  • hyderabadi zaiqa - in curry hill, with a dum biryani that reminded me of dhaka. i found it jet-lagged at 11pm and went back three times that week.
  • the halal guys - the cart on 53rd and 6th at 1am, for the white sauce. you know the one.
  • joe's pizza - in greenwich village, where i once stood outside in the rain eating a slice, which is the only correct way to do it.

seattle

  • mama sambusa kitchen - a somali kitchen down in brighton where every dish on the menu is named after a relative and the sambusas are folded by hand that morning. it stays open until 4am and i ended up there twice in one week.
  • sabah - east african on rainier avenue, ten years in the same room. goat over bariis, the spiced rice, with sabaayad to tear into it and a glass of shah after.
  • aladdin charburger - all halal, in the u-district, open until half one in the morning. the fries come buried under fried chicken. nobody should be eating that at that hour and i did anyway.
  • jack's fish spot - wild pacific salmon on the grill at the back of pike place, past the crowd filming the fish throwers. salt, pepper, butter, lemon and nothing else. fish is one of the few things i never have to ask about.

san francisco

  • old mandarin islamic restaurant - halal chinese that shouldn't exist but does. the hot pot felt like a well-kept secret.
  • reem's california - arab bakery. the mana'eesh with za'atar hit different when you're far from home.
  • z zoul cafe - the only sudanese kitchen in the bay, run by one family in the tenderloin. the chef cooks the dishes his grandmother used to make and the shawarma with a bowl of thick lentil soup is what you want.
  • old jerusalem - a palestinian place in the mission that's been going since 2005. every table gets pickled beets and olives before you've even ordered and the musakhan, sumac chicken and caramelised onions over taboon bread, is the thing to get.

los angeles

  • nomad asian bistro - halal chinese in long beach that's been going since 1980, with the quiet confidence of a place that's had forty years to get it right. order the cumin lamb, the scallion pancakes and the hand-pulled noodles.
  • fatima's grill - a downey spot doing lebanese-mexican fusion that sounds completely wrong and turns out exactly right. the shawarma fries and the birria tacos are all halal.
  • al-noor - a pakistani room in lawndale that's been there since '98, with goat biryani and a crowd of regulars who've been coming since the day it opened.

dallas

  • musume - contemporary asian in the hall arts district and the best meal i've had anywhere in north america, and i did not see that coming from a plate of lamb lollipops. shoyu gari and a thai basil reduction on the lamb, then the chicken, which i'm still thinking about hours later. i only ate there today, so ask me again in a month.
  • ricky's hot chicken - halal nashville hot chicken out of a richardson strip mall. ricky started in his garage giving samples away and the heat ladder now runs up through habanero, ghost, scorpion and reaper. i stopped a long way short of the top.
  • bilad bakery - iraqi, on south greenville in richardson, with bread coming out of the oven all day. shawarma in iraqi bread with amba and their pickles runs about five dollars and nothing on the plate is trying to impress you.
  • afrah - the main street place in richardson everyone in dfw defaults to, and they're right to. saj bread rolled and baked in front of you while you wait.

miami

  • makla halal - a one-man counter tucked inside a shop on 71st street in north beach, open twenty-four hours, everything cooked to order by sam. you go for the lamb and beef shawarma. i went back for the halal philly cheesesteak.
  • shahs of kabob - persian on sunset drive in south miami. the first thing i check in a persian kitchen is the rice and theirs is right, basmati steamed with butter and saffron with the crisp golden tahdig lifted off the bottom of the pot. the koobideh after that is a formality.
  • el palacio de los jugos - the flagler street one, red and yellow awnings, going since 1977. most of what's behind the glass is off-limits to me so i get a mamey batido and drink it standing at the counter. that was most of the point.

paris

  • l'as du fallafel - in the marais, eaten standing in a cobblestone alley with the sauce dripping down my hand. perfect.
  • mosquée de paris - mint tea and pastries in the courtyard after friday prayers.

munich

  • tengri tagh - uyghur food, which you almost never find in germany, with big-plate chicken and hand-pulled belt noodles. no alcohol and a small prayer corner at the back.
  • sultanahmet köftecisi - the munich branch of an istanbul köfte house that's been going since 1920. they do one thing perfectly, grilled meatballs with bean salad, pickles and a bowl of lentil soup.

dubai

  • al ustad special kabab - iranian kebabs in old dubai since 1978. the whole city has transformed around it while it stayed exactly the same.
  • 3 fils - on the waterfront at night, watching the dhows, with a japanese-middle eastern fusion that made me rethink what food can be.

dhaka

  • star kabab - the seekh kebabs my dad used to take me to as a kid, the thing my taste buds were trained on and everything else has been a comparison ever since.
  • kacchi bhai - if you want to understand what biryani is supposed to taste like, you start here, with the potatoes at the bottom, caramelised and spiced.

kuala lumpur

  • nasi lemak wanjo - a kampung baru institution since the sixties, with a dark, sweet sambal over coconut rice that pulls a queue at breakfast and another one all over again at supper.
  • line clear - penang's legendary nasi kandar, transplanted to kl. you point at what you want and they flood the rice with a mix of gravies and it's still the most authentic version in the city.
  • ikan bakar jalan bellamy - a row of open flames near the istana, grilling fish to order. get the stingray in sambal with a pile of ulam on the side.

penang

  • deen maju - the nasi kandar locals will actually queue around the block for, across from the sikh temple. ask for kuah campur so all the gravies run together over the rice and take the spice-fried chicken on top.
  • bangkok lane mee goreng - a mamak stall in pulau tikus that's been frying the same plate of mee goreng for ninety years. order it with extra squid.
  • bee hwa cafe - one of the very few places doing halal char koay teow, a dish that barely exists in halal form because the real thing is fried in pork lard. this one still comes with all the smoke and wok hei.
  • roti canai transfer road - a forty-year-old roadside griddle that drowns its roti in so much curry the locals call it kuah banjir or flooded. get there early, before it's all gone.

singapore

  • green chilli chicken rice - one stall doing one dish since '99, a fried chicken thigh over pandan coconut rice under a rough green chilli sambal. they shut the moment it runs out, usually some time in the early afternoon.
  • selera rasa - the nasi lemak at adam road that singaporeans will genuinely argue is the best in the country, with fragrant rice, crisp ikan bilis and a serious sambal.
  • haji kadir - a golden mile institution doing sup tulang merah, marrow bones in a fierce red gravy that you suck straight out through a straw. messy and completely worth it.

ulaanbaatar

  • bes halal food - a kazakh counter on the bottom floor of hunnu mall out in yarmag. a food court in a shopping centre, and i ate there more than anywhere else in the city.
  • hurrem sultan - turkish, off chinggis khan avenue, and the kitchen and the floor staff are turkish top to bottom so you can stop asking. lahmacun and a proper pide.
  • naturel doner kepap - certified halal doner on tokyo street in bayanzurkh, on the walk between the wrestling palace and the chinggis khaan hotel. get the iskender.

bayan-ölgii

  • beshbarmak, in a ger - the west of the country is kazakh and muslim, minarets among the gers, so for the first time in mongolia i stopped reading labels. boiled mutton over flat hand-cut noodles eaten with your hands. the name means five fingers.
  • ölgii bazaar - baursak still hot out of the oil, samsa, whole stalls selling nothing but aaruul, the dried milk curds. the western aaruul is less sour than the eastern and it's the one i could finish.
  • kuurdak - mutton, offal and potato fried down together in one pan. what gets cooked when a family has the time and the fat to spare.

general rule

i trust hole-in-the-wall places with bad lighting and no english menu over anywhere with "curated" in the description. food should be a little inconvenient.