Yemeni Meals Is Lastly Coming to the Seattle Space

Tawfik Maudah says that for years, individuals have been asking him, “When are we gonna open a Yemeni restaurant? When are we gonna open a Yemeni restaurant?”

Effectively, the reply is subsequent month.

That’s when Maudah, an entrepreneur from Yemen, is planning to open his newest enterprise, a full-service restaurant known as Marhaba (Arabic for “welcome”) in a former Pizza Hut on Sundown Boulevard in Renton. It will likely be the second Yemeni restaurant within the Seattle metro space to open this yr following a Kent enterprise known as Style of Yemen, which claims to be the primary Yemeni restaurant in Washington State.

Maudah says this lack of locations to get Yemeni meals was a evident want in Western Washington. It’s a delicacies discovered all around the U.S., together with in metro areas like Dallas, Chicago, and Detroit, the place Maudah labored in eating places for a few years. It’s in style not simply amongst individuals from Maudah’s residence nation, he says, however amongst individuals from throughout East Africa and South and Southeast Asia.

“There’s a massive neighborhood that grew up consuming Yemeni meals,” he says. “Ethiopians, Kenyans, Somalis… like Pakistanis, Indians, they love Yemeni meals. Malaysians, Indonesians — there’s a massive presence of Yemeni meals in these international locations. So all these communities are right here in Seattle, and they’re eager for Yemeni meals.”

Marhaba

Yemeni delicacies, Maudah says, is centered round meat, which might be cooked in underground ovens or on rocks and is commonly served with sahawiq, which has cilantro and garlic and which he likens to salsa however with extra greens and tomatoes. Marhaba’s menu will embrace objects like zurbian, quite a lot of biryani, and a lamb stew known as fahsa. Marhaba will bake its personal flatbread — Maudah hopes to have the ability to get a brick oven for that objective finally, however the area gained’t accommodate it proper now. Marhaba will even serve breakfast together with lunch and dinner. Shakshuka will probably be on the breakfast menu together with bean dishes referred to as fouul and fasoulia.

All the meat served at Marhaba will probably be halal and natural, sourced from a farm in Oregon, Maudah provides. Some portion of the proceeds will probably be donated to individuals in Yemen, which has been embroiled in civil conflict for over a decade.

Maudah is anticipating that the restaurant in a nondescript a part of the Eastside will turn out to be a vacation spot for East Africans and others who’ve been eager for Yemeni meals; lots of them dwell in Bellevue or Kent or Redmond, he says. He desires to rent landscapers to show a bit patch of vegetation on the property right into a backyard, “so it will turn out to be a website that individuals will come to take footage at and go to and revel in.”

“It will likely be a really distinctive expertise,” he provides. “Like, ‘Oh, we’re going to that restaurant with the gorgeous backyard exterior,’ or, ‘Oh, I just like the flowers of this restaurant.’ One thing that sticks of their minds.”

Marhaba will open at 2705 Sundown Boulevard in Renton someday in April. Observe it on Instagram for updates.