26
Oct
I don’t order take away very often but when I do, I have two great options: delicious Vietnamese from Cay Tre or sensational Gujarati specialities fromย Mrs Patel, my lovely newsagent. And now I have a third option although it is very far from London, the woman in the picture above who sells her home-cooked food from a stall in souk al-Wakif in Doha. Her smartly presented selection includes balaleet, h’riss, ‘assida andย mashbuss to name a few and she seems to be very popular amongst the locals as most of the people I have watched buying from her are Qataris like the lovely couple in the picture trying to make up their mind about what to get for their dinner.
Across the street from her is another woman, Umm Abdul Aziz, who also sells home-cooked food but in a large cafe where people sit on high benches enjoying her dishes.
And round the corner from them is a warren of narrow streets lined with sweet-makers who make Omani halva which they spoon into large containers for take-away or into small cups for people to buy and eat on the spot.
And because it was Diwali, when I was there, some of the Indian sweet-makers had also made the scrumptious and totally addictive Bombay mix which Mrs Patel also makes although I have to say hers is by far superior to the one below!
Tagged : 'assida, balaleet, diwali, doha, h'riss, home-cooked take away, mashbuss, omani halva, souk al-wakif, umm abdul aziz 
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There is 6 comments on this post
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October 26, 2011 at 3:24 pm
This is great, like a snippet of news, culture and food knowledge in one post. That Bombay mix looks so tempting!
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February 28, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Hi Anissa! I was just in Doha yesterday, and found the food scene at Souq Waqif so wonderful! Thanks for alerting me.
There were some women selling, along with all the savory dinner goodies, sweet soupy-eggy stuff flavored with saffron called hisw (with a strong H, aka 7)–any idea what the ingredient is? It’s some kind of seed that’s been boiled till it’s all jellied. So good! Of course I asked what the seed was, and they all shrugged and said ‘hisw seed!’ Hmm…
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February 28, 2012 at 4:26 pm
BTW, this was a whole cluster of other women, on the other side of the souq from Umm Ahmed. There were also a bunch of women doing the warqa-style crepe-y things that I think you posted about elsewhere in your Gulf food coverage.
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February 28, 2012 at 5:38 pm
will have to ask ๐
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February 28, 2012 at 5:39 pm
they must have been making regag…
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February 29, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Sounds right–can’t keep the names of the breads and things straight! One version involved cracking an egg on top, like a crepe complete, and then at the end smearing on some mayo! If I hadn’t just eaten all the rib-sticking hisw, I would’ve been down with it…