When you enter the glass doors of THAT Cafe in Riyadh, one word comes to mind: serenity. If you’re looking for a new place to have intimate discussions with friends, work remotely or even spend some alone time with a good book, this is your spot.
THAT Cafe, which opened in January of this year, is a specialty-driven coffee shop offering a diverse selection of drinks inspired by both Saudi and Japanese culture, ranging from traditional Saudi coffee to Bom Ji lattes.
You’re met with an endless array of local and international drinks and a full menu of drip coffee — your choice of single-sourced or limited yield — that you can top off with any plant-based or dairy milk.
The iced Saudi coffee is an option you won’t easily find anywhere else, as is the iced Hojicha latte, a type of Japanese green tea.
On the Zen garden-style upper floor, the ambiance is set by the melodic sounds of oud playing in the background.
The sleek coffee shop design and workspace tables make it perfect for any purpose, whether that’s work or pleasure.
THAT Cafe’s dessert menu makes it difficult to choose just one option. A must-try is their muhalabiya cheesecake — a piece of Middle Eastern heaven bursting with the flavor of sweet rose water.
As you leave, you’re welcome to take a small packet of fresh coffee to try later — all you have to do is add water, and you can enjoy the taste of THAT Cafe from the comfort of your own home.
TORONTO: For 33-year-old Tala Bashmi — chef patronne at Fusions by Tala in the Gulf Hotel, Manama — modernizing Bahraini and Khaleeji cuisine feels like a “responsibility.”
Bashmi grew up in Bahrain, and actually began her career at the Gulf Hotel, before heading to Switzerland to train at Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois and the Michelin-starred Prisma.
She returned to Bahrain in 2014 and worked her way up through the ranks at the Gulf Hotel to eventually head Fusions by Tala, where she’s determined to reinvent Gulf cuisine. She was recently named Best Female Chef in the Middle East and North Africa by 50 Best.
“I always saw a gap for a different version of Middle Eastern and Khaleeji cuisine,” Bashmi tells Arab News. “I want to compete on a global scale by elevating our cuisine technically, visually, and flavor-wise,” she says.
Here, Bashmi offers some advice and a delicious fish recipe to try at home.
What’s your top tip for amateur cooks? Don’t rush things. For the first two years of my career, I wasn’t even allowed to cook. It was purely preparation. I believe all young chefs should start that way and not jump the gun. When you rush things, you end up burning something. You (eventually) want to combine perfection and speed, but speed alone is not beneficial.
Also, there’s nothing more dangerous than a dull knife. A dull knife will slip and, most likely, cause injury. So, invest in a good quality knife and keep it sharp.
What's one ingredient that can instantly improve any dish? I can think of a few. There’s olive oil. And invest in good salt — not iodized table salt! Whenever I travel, I always get salt that’s local to the region. I’m a firm believer in the fact that the simplest local ingredients can elevate or transform a dish.
What is your favorite cuisine? Currently, it's Korean. The entire experience of making your own Korean barbeque is fun. With its fermented and pickled elements, it relies heavily on the traditional umami taste, which I enjoy a lot.
What is your favorite dish to cook? I really enjoy cooking seafood, especially when it's fresh from the market. I love clams. I make a type of curry that has clams and local crabs in it, which you leave to simmer on the stove. When you cook all day, every day, you want to make your meals quick and tasty.
What’s the most difficult dish you prepare? Desserts at the restaurant have a lot of elements and are relatively time-consuming. There is the cooking, chilling, setting, assembling, and layering. I’d say my lavender dessert — lavender sponge, blueberry jelly, white-chocolate mousse, and lemon crème brûlée — is the most difficult to prepare.
What are you like in the kitchen? Are you a disciplinary or are you more laid-back? I was lucky enough to work under a second chef who showed me that you can be kind, gentle, and forgiving in this environment, without being disrespected. So, I follow his example. I don’t like to put people down because everyone learns differently. I want my team to feel happy, comfortable, and confident when they come into the kitchen. Patience and learning to deal with different personalities are important.
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RECIPE: Chef Tala’s pan-seared faskar with vine leaf risotto
90g Faskar fillet; salt; pepper; 30g butter; 3g thyme; turmeric (optional); 150g of Arborio rice; 20g onion (finely chopped); 70g vine leaves; 10g lime juice; 10g parmesan cheese; cooking oil; vegetable stock or water
Pat your fillets to dry them. Season with salt, pepper, and turmeric (optional).
Heat a non-stick pan to almost smoking point. Add 2 tbsp of oil per fillet.
Place the fillet (skin side) with a weight on top.
Cook for one minute, until skin is golden-brown.
Turn the heat to low, add thyme and 10g of butter.
The residual heat will finish cooking the fish (time depends on thickness of fillets)
On low-medium heat, melt 10g butter in a pan, add onion, sauté until translucent.
Stir rice into the mix.
And one ladle of veg stock (or water) at a time, making sure broth is fully absorbed.
Meanwhile, blanch the vine leaves in hot water for one minute or until softened. Finely chop.
Cook risotto for 20 minutes, stirring regularly. It should be al dente, but creamy.
Add remaining butter, cheese, vine leaves, salt, and lime juice.
Having good, uninterrupted, and peaceful sleep is essential for proper health because that is when the body is in recovery mode, a good sleep, or lack of it, directly affects the immune system.
A lack of good sleep has become a common problem with the overuse of mobile phones and poor lifestyle choices.
I found an app that improved my quality of sleep so much. Loóna introduces calming activities to keep and hold your focus long enough to slow down your racing thoughts. It takes you to sleepscape visuals with the theme of your choice: Oriental garden, fairytale castle, legendary temple, serene glade, a secluded harbor at night, or tranquil suburbs.
The sleepscape sounds are divided into five categories: Nature (campfire, rustling leaves, nighttime), water (rain, waves, river), wildlife (chirps, cicadas, whales), urban (coffee shop, humming downtown), and ASMR (vinyl crackle, cat purring, raindrops). You can choose your narrative style: Realistic, fairytale, sentimental, mysterious, nostalgic, and adventure.
After choosing the preferred themes and sounds for the customized sleepscape, you set your sleep schedule, your bedtime, and when you wake up. It counts your sleep duration and starts powering down for bed around your desired bedtime.
So, if you choose to have your bedtime at 10:30 p.m. Loóna will gradually relax your mind around 9:30 p.m. through a wind-down zone. At 10:30 p.m., you leave your phone, stay away from bright lights, and fall asleep to the sleepscape stories. When you wake up at 8:00 a.m., you gently transition from being asleep to being awake. I enjoyed the interactive and calming activity the first time I used it. It was a 15-minute dive into Chinese myths and legends where I focused on coloring paper lanterns, origami birds, the shrine, and the dragon. It quietened my mind.
I played a calming story afterward and dozed off to sleep.
Bubble tea is my favorite drink whatever the season, and Chatime is one of the most popular bubble tea shops in Jeddah, with a branch in Jeddah International Market in Al-Rawdah district, and another in Corniche Center in Al-Balad.
Chatime offers a variety of milk teas, fresh teas, espresso, fruit teas, tea lattes, smoothies and juices, using real tea leaves.
The milk tea flavors include Chatime milk tea, pearl milk tea (with brown sugar as an option), taro milk tea, taro red bean milk tea, superior cocoa, grass jelly milk tea, jasmine green milk tea, winter melon milk tea, QQ milk tea, hazelnut milk tea, and cocoa hazelnut milk tea.
They also offer mousse in jasmine green tea, black tea, matcha, and chocolate.
Their fresh teas and refreshing juices include jasmine green tea, black tea, lemon juice, winter melon dew, and winter lemon juice.
Chatime also offers smoothies in different flavors, such as mango, passionfruit, coffee, matcha red bean, chocolate, banana and chocolate, peach, strawberry, and mango with banana.
They offer interesting fruit-mixes in their teas too, such as mango, grapefruit, lemon, and peach passionfruit to go with green and black tea.
Chatime also offers fruity, chewy toppings, including Taiwan mango, passionfruit, grapefruit, lemon, peach, grass jelly with milk, and winter melon with milk.
Their coffee options include superior blended coffee, americano, lattes, cappuccinos, and mochas.
My favorite drink at Chatime is the taro milk tea with tapioca pearls, because taro has such a unique, balanced flavor — not too sweet but not at all bitter. The tapioca pearls are satisfyingly chewy, and add so much to the experience.
Breakfast is one of the most popular meals of the day for bringing families together, and Siblings Restaurant and Cafe in Jeddah is a well-known meeting place for brekkies, and brunch.
Established in 2019 by siblings Tarek, Ibrahim, Farah, Haneen, and Talal Naaman, the eatery offers a varied menu to suit most palates.
Located on Al-Imam Malik Road in the Red Sea port city’s Al-Rawdah district, the premises provide a relaxed environment to gather with friends and family, with white walls, wooden floors, tables, chairs, and mirror frames, and decorative pieces. Coffee and food are served by friendly staff using pink and blue mugs and plates.
My sister and I enjoyed a breakfast of black truffle toast; a brioche with scrambled eggs infused with truffle oil and a mix of mozzarella and parmesan cheese topped with fresh black truffle and black grape juice.
We shared the restaurant’s popular vanilla French toast for dessert, with a top-notch cappuccino.
The outlet is open daily from 8:15 a.m. to 12 a.m., and until 1 a.m. on Thursdays and Fridays.
DUBAI: A new Arabic word has entered the 2023 edition of the well-known French dictionary, "Le Petit Robert," established by lexicographer Paul Robert in the 1960s. The word is “labne” or “labneh.”
Derived from the Arabic word “laban” (yogurt), it is a creamy yoghurt cheese that is a staple of a typical Levantine breakfast.
“I am happy and proud to have parts of our products, dishes and traditions recognized internationally, and especially in France,” the French-Lebanese chef Karim Haidar told Arab News. “Adding a new kind of cheese to the country of cheese is amazing.”
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The Paris-based chef said that the decision did not come as a surprise as over the years his French clients and friends have come to love labne, found in countless restaurants and delis in the French capital. Not only does it taste good but it has health benefits as it is high in protein and calcium, he said. According to Haidar, labne is traditionally made with goat’s milk. It has great acidity, prepared in terracotta, rolled into small balls, and later preserved in olive oil. Labne can also be made with sheep and cow’s milk. While labne can usually be found in any Middle Eastern supermarket, preparing labne at home is easy — it requires adding salt to yogurt and straining it in a cloth overnight.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Karim Haidar (@karimhaidarchef) It can be eaten in a number of ways. Whether consumed in a sandwich-to-go or as a dip, it is drizzled with olive oil and often topped with either zaatar, mint or sumac. In recent years, international chefs have incorporated labne into dessert dishes. The introduction of labne into "Le Petit Robert" comes at a time when Lebanese immigration to France has increased in the past few years due to the economic crisis hitting Lebanon. But Haidar believes that French interest in this yogurt goes back a few decades. “I don’t think the last Lebanese emigration episode had an effect,” he said. “Labne arrived on French tables since the 1975 emigration. We are witnessing for years now the love of French people for labne, and French food culture opened itself to foreign food cultures in the last 30 years. Just like mozzarella or parmigiano, you can find labne on the shelves of some big supermarket chains now.”
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