I decided to use my morning and afternoon to explore Ajyad street. As you start making your way down to the Grand Mosque you will see a lot of shops on the right hand side with a small sort of galley for people to sit or stand. Most of the shops are small souvenir shops which sell cheap stuff. I don’t say that in any form of criticism or tackiness but I just mean that they sell low value items that you can find in any corner shop/newsagent. There are often food places/restaurants.
This was one of the surprising things about my trip. I had expected the eateries around the grand mosque to be a little upmarket that sell decent food and meals. However, and this is just my experience, all of the “restaurants” I went to around the grand mosque area were basically takeaways/fast-food. The food itself, ok yeah it’s edible and will keep you fed, but they’re very dry takeaway type food and a lot of it I reckon is junk food anyway.
To be fair this makes a lot more sense commercially and practically. The amount of visitors in that location means that the practicality and efficiency of selling proper dining meals is quite limited. You’ve just got to manage it so that you can take an order, serve it, and then the next customer. It needs to be a really quick turnaround given the amount of people there.
If you want more of a dining experience, the best bet is probably to go further out. Maybe even the residential areas and check there. In the Haram area, it is quite difficult. So if you want proper Arabian cuisine, I would suggest going a bit further out.
Another challenge is that vegetarian options for meals are quite limited. Now I don’t usually eat meat but I have done previously. On this trip I made the decision to eat meat if there was no real other viable option. It was served everywhere and sometimes it just became unavoidable if you needed to eat something.
I remember close to the Emaar Hotel about a 12 minute walk towards the Grand Mosque there is a “restaurant” called ZamZam restaurant. I finally walked into here having passed it everyday I had so far been in Makkah. The restaurant was busy and there were no seats.
Immediately it was quite clear that they were operating like a fast food joint. You place your order at the counter, you pay and the food is given to you in a carrier bag. I can’t exactly remember the name of what I ordered but it was 2 chicken tandoori pieces with 2 roti’s. Literally before they took payment the food had already been served and was ready.
I went back to my hotel to eat a little. Bearing in mind my sugar levels I didn’t eat the full meal but just half of a roti. I don’t mean to sound critical but everything was just so dry and bland. It didn’t really taste of anything. The chicken was hot but dry and to my disappointment so was the roti. It just felt really dry and not fresh. There was some garlic sauce that was included which in my opinion became quite necessary.
I very rarely throw away food so I packed up the meal in the given bag to maybe try to finish later. Unfortunately I did come to dispose of it later as it was no longer decent enough to eat. I decided to make my way back towards the grand mosque and to again enter the clock tower’s shopping complex.
Leave a Reply