Finding a restaurant with a typical Arabic menu is difficult in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, Indonesia. Perhaps, traditionally, this type of Acehnese cuisine is rich in spices, similar to typical Arabic dishes such as biryani, kabuli, kebabs, curries, and many other types.
In the last few months, in Lhokseumawe, there has been a home restaurant called Elmanaa's Arabian House which is located on Jalan Malikussaleh, Lhokseumawe. To make it easier to remind people, people often call him next to Doctor Nahrawi, a gynecologist who is "quite famous" in Lhokseumawe and its surroundings.
The word "well-known enough" should be quoted — of course. Famous for one group, not necessarily known by other groups. For young people, perhaps they are not familiar with obstetricians.
As the name implies, Elmanaa's Arabian House utilizes the terrace of the house to serve guests. And that is uniqueness as well as a shortage of the restaurant. Uniquely, when eating at Elmanaa's Arabian House, the atmosphere feels like eating at home. We like holding a Thanksgiving party, even though the place used is the front, not the back.
However, because the terrace is not too wide, the number of visitors it can accommodate is also very limited. If there are visitors from certain companies who enjoy dinner there and attend in large numbers, for example, more than 30 people, then the remaining space is very narrow.
Therefore, on certain days it is better to call before eating there to make sure there is still a table, if you are going to eat in large numbers. Calling before ordering a meal is also important to anticipate the end of certain types of food and drink.
I and my family experienced it when we were about to order biryani rice with mutton, but it was gone. "Only one portion left, that is with chicken," said the waiter there kindly. I saw there were many Indonesian Post Office employees eating.
What can we do, in the end, we only bought one portion of biryani rice with chicken to take home. Instead, I ordered a super kebab with a taste that's hard to forget. Elmanaa's Arabian House uses quality meat so that the taste of the kebabs is different from the kebabs sold on the roadside of Lhokseumawe City.
Elmanaa's Arabian House kebab was soft and the meat tasted fresh. The texture of the meat is also overtime and nice to chew.
Apart from kebabs, Elmanaa's Arabian House also provides various types of food with Middle Eastern nuances. For example, there are mandhi rice, lamb kabsa, fish mosli, Tunisian mlawi with mutton or chicken, Arabic bread, Arabic goat curry, to Tunisian squid curry.
Unlike biryani and mandhi rice elsewhere that use regular rice, Elmanaa's Arabian House uses basmati rice which is longer and has more nutritional content and is more fragrant.
Reportedly, basmati rice is King Salman's favorite rice. This type of rice is widely available in India and Pakistan. Maybe because of that, the price of rice in addition to kebabs, Elmanaa's Arabian House is rather pricey compared to other restaurants.
There is a taste, there is a price. Maybe fisolifi is suitable for enjoying food and drinks at Elmanaa's Arabian House. A visitor there, Kurniawati, admitted that she ordered additional side dishes because of the very thick aroma of spices. "The choice of drinks is also very diverse and there is no other place in Lhokseumawe," said Kurniawati, who once enjoyed Middle Eastern food while studying abroad.
Our family also loves the cuisine at Elmanaa's Arabian House. When I ate there for the first time, I immediately told the owner; "Not inferior to the taste at the Plaza Festival and Citywalk."
In both places in Jakarta, there are Arabic restaurants and we often eat there at a much higher price than in Lhokseumawe.
If you eat there, you will be served in a friendly manner. One of them is Muhammad who is originally from Tunisia. So, it's no wonder that there are so many Tunisian specialties at Elmanaa's Arabian House.[]
