Wādī Şafrā’

After our walking 🚶‍♂️ tour ended, we made our way back up the hill to our hotel for a much-needed rest before our evening food tour.

We left the hotel again at 4.25 pm for our 5pm meeting with our guide, Jumana. Google Maps said the walk should take 25 minutes but they hadn't factored in that we had to make our way down the steep slopes and steps to downtown and then climb the 1 in 3 hill up to Rainbow Street 🌈 ! We just made it - albeit a bit hot and breathless!!

Jumana turned out to be a brilliant guide, not only describing all the amazing foods we were trying, but also filling in interesting background information about Amman itself.

Our first stop was a Lebanese pastry shop on Rainbow 🌈 Street itself. This street is full of restaurants, bars, and cafés representing many different cuisines and is the place to go to eat out.

We stopped to try manaqish, a flatbread topped with a zaatar spice blend of sumac, thyme, roasted sesame seeds, lemon salt, and oregano mixed to a paste with olive oil. It was a new taste for both of us and we really enjoyed it. The café itself was very quirky. The walls were decorated with pictures of characters and quotes from a cult Syrian TV show of the 70s and 80s. Jumana explained the entire plot to us 😀

Our next stop was at a tiny hole in the wall place for falafel. It's called Al Quds and locals say it's the best falafel in town! (The most famous falafel restaurant is Hashem in downtown. It's renowned because King Hussein went there a couple of times, but Jumana insisted that this place serves better tasting falafel!) Al Quds had been in business since 1966. They have been consistently successful but have never expanded beyond the one branch. We had a small sandwich each and I can confirm they were delicious 😋.

From Rainbow Street 🌈, we made our way down many steep slopes and steps and eventually emerged across the road from the Grand Husseini Mosque. We then went through the fruit and veg market. It was different from this morning as Jumana was giving us samples from different stalls - dried figs, dates, nuts, fresh herbs 🌿, confectionery, etc. - and she was doing a bit of shopping for her Mum at the same time! I bought some amazing Jordanian dates - 500g for just 1.25 JOD (about £1.50).

Mark enjoyed trying a selection of Jordanian olives 🫒.

After the market, we went to a juice bar. These are on almost every street corner in Amman, but Jumana took us to one that specialises in lemon 🍋 and mint juice. It was amazing!!

Our next stop was at a local restaurant where we had ara’yes, two layers of pitta bread filled with minced lamb, onions, parsley, and allspice, brushed with olive oil and grilled over hot charcoal so that it turns golden brown and crispy on the outside, and kofta bi tahini, a dish that includes a bottom base layer of minced kebab meat, flattened out into a patty, topped with thin slices of potato, smothered in a thick tahini sauce, and then baked. I loved the ara'yes, especially when topped with freshly squeezed lemon 🍋 juice. Mark preferred the tahini kofta.

By the time we had eaten all this, I was pretty much done! Mark was getting full, too. But we weren't finished! Jumana took us to yet another restaurant to try mansaf, the national dish of Jordan 🇯🇴. There are three main components to mansaf - rice, lamb, and jameed, a hard dried out and fermented goats milk yoghurt re-hydrated into a gravy, and used to pour over the rice and lamb. The dish is traditionally eaten with the hands communally from a large shared platter. The jameed, which has a sour and salty taste, and an undeniable goat flavour is what makes mansard so special and do highly prized. I tried it but found it to be too rich for me on top of everything else we had eaten. Mark manfully managed a fair portion! 😀

Our next stop was supposed to be for kunefi, the rich cheese and sugar concoction we tried this morning. Neither of us had room for it so we asked Jumana if we could skip it and go straight to the final stop - a Syrian ice cream 🍦 parlour. She agreed. The ice cream had a thicker texture than normal ice cream but it wasn't heavy and proved to be the perfect end to our food tour. Mark had a scoop of chocolate and I had vanilla, both of which came coated in crushed pistachios.

Our tour ended at around 8.45 pm and we staggered back up the hill to the hotel 🏨 😀.Read more