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Food Amman's Street Food

Sat,26Sep2015

Amman's Street Food

Written by Matthew Teller

With a capital city full of fine restaurants to choose from, Matthew Teller spurns the lot, and heads downtown for some honest Jordanian street food.

Tracking Amman’s street food leads you on a path through the city’s unsung urban heritage – exclusively 20th-century, since Amman was little more than a village when chosen as capital in 1921, but no less compelling for that.

Visitors to Jordan (and many Ammanis, too) often end up isolated in wealthy, uptown West Amman, with its fast-food outlets and doughnut stores, its hotels, malls and office towers. Should you find yourself roaming Jabal Amman, strolling between art galleries on Jabal Al-Lweibdeh, or taking a tour of the ancient Citadel on Jabal Al-Qal’a, look for a set of stairs, any stairs, and walk down them.

As Roba al-Assi, an Ammani who blogs at andfaraway.net, has written:

My love for her is unreasonable; she has neither the history of Damascus nor the culture of Baghdad, she has not the mosques of Cairo nor the skyscrapers of Riyadh.
What she does have is a million steps, squiggling endlessly from mountain to mountain.
Amman, the city of stairs. How I love her.


Wherever you start, if you keep on downstairs you’ll come to the valley where Amman began, wedged between steep hills, “a rabbit warren of alleyways and shortcuts,” wrote Edward Stallard, an English émigré, at 7iber.com, “peppered with shopkeepers and traffic, and salted by the smells of street food stands.”

At one corner is a juice stand, offering not cola but glasses of sweet carob, tart tamarind and a bitter liquid squeezed from liquorice root. At another, street-side ovens turn out bite-sized savouries. A balcony overheads marks the Rashid Courts (“since 1924”) – the perfect spot to puff on a sweet-tasting argileh, high above the bustle.

Yet this is foreign territory for many Ammanis – one character quips that you need a passport these days to travel between East and West Amman.

This is not a city that has inspired much poetry: it is too modern, too plain. But everybody needs to eat – and Ammanis find a lyricism in plain food and plain surroundings that is often elusive to outsiders. Amman may lack the immediate charm of its neighbours, but it also lacks their airs and graces. It is a straightforward place, best appreciated with a straightforward meal.

Travel writer Matthew Teller is the author of the 'Rough Guide to Jordan' guide book. He blogs at www.quitealone.com.

1
Hummus at Hashem
Prince Muhammad Street, Downtown (+962 6 463 6440)

Amman's oldest and best-loved restaurant, founded in the 1920s in the heart of downtown by one Hashem al-Turk and now staffed round the clock by a team of Egyptian waiters. Tables are set out all down the shaded alley, and there are just two dishes to choose from – fuul (hot beans), in various styles, or some of the richest and tastiest hummus you’re likely ever to experience. Bread, chopped onion and a sprig of mint are free; this modest place gets through a staggering 50kg of onions a day. A stand opposite sells bags of cheap falafel balls as a side-dish, and tea-waiters periodically stride around – grab a glass off the tray.

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2
Kaak at Salah ed-Din
King Hussein Street, near Abdali (+962 6 463 8850)

Kaak are distinctive oval-shaped rings of bread, the crust sprinkled with sesame seeds. Every taxi driver in Amman – and your own taste-buds – will confirm that this shabby little bakery, on the road leading downtown from Abdali, makes the best kaak in the city. Visit in the dead hours of the night, when it is the only beacon of life for miles around, taxis triple-parked at the door, the scent of fresh bread drifting in the air. Three fillings are offered: cheese triangles, hard-boiled eggs and/or the thyme-flavoured spice mix zaatar. Fine dining it ain't – but what they do, they do very well indeed.

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3
Falafel at Kafeteria al-Kouds
Rainbow Street, 1st Circle (+962 6 465 2243)

Not to be confused with a famous downtown restaurant also named Al-Quds, this is a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint, near the British Council, that for more than 40 years has served what is universally acclaimed as the best falafel in Amman. Catch them at a busy time when all the falafel is fresh-fried and crispy hot – and you’ll never look back.

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4
Shawarma at Reem
2nd Circle (+962 6 464 5725)

This street-side shawarma stall not only boasts the largest shawarma spit I've ever seen (four feet high and thick as a tree-trunk), but is also single-handedly responsible for causing major traffic jams around the 2nd Circle roundabout day and night. Head over here after midnight, grab yourself a shawarma and watch the parade of taxis, Mercs and BMWs clog up the roadway as drivers dash out to collect family-sized orders for late-night munchies.

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5
Knafeh at Habiba
King Faisal Street, Downtown (+962 6 462 1333)

Habiba, a big chain devoted to halawiyyat (Arabic sweets), has a couple of outlets in downtown Amman – but the one to aim for is hidden down an alleyway beside the Arab Bank building. This tiny place is famous for its knafeh – a Palestinian dessert from Nablus made of shredded filo pastry and goat's cheese, served hot, drenched in syrup. Night and day there's a line of people outside, leaning against the wall, forking fresh-made knafeh off paper plates – the atmosphere is one of shared, sugar-happy endeavour. Unmissable.

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