In Bahrain, a restaurant serves up nostalgia
Ameen restaurant hangs on despite demographic, architectural changes
Wedged in between tall buildings on Zubara Road in downtown Manama, Ameen Restaurant is not just a small outlet that serves food late into the night.
It is also one of the most visible portraits of increasingly rare landmark buildings in an area where developers have replaced old buildings with taller, often character-less structures.
Ameen is so tiny that it cannot accommodate more than a dozen people together, but it is no accident that it has survived on a road where old shops are being inexorably taken over. Even the premises of the famous Al Ahli Sports Club had been turned into shops and apartments.
Ameen restaurant opened in 1948 and steadily gained a reputation as one of the best restaurants, serving kebabs, grilled meat, tikka and meat cutlets, cooked on skewers over a fire.
Best kebab, tikka in town
The area of Gudhaibiya is well known for its plethora of restaurants from various countries, serving all kinds of food. But when it comes to kebabs and tikka, ask any person in Bahrain familiar with restaurants and they will without the slightest hesitation mention Ameen.
For many, the restaurant is not just about food, no matter how tasty it is. It is closely associated with their early memories of growing up in the vibrant neighbourhoods of Manama.
“Popular restaurants are among the first steps we took into public life and a place that taught us how to acquire social skills, and for us, Ameen restaurant was synonymous with reaching adulthood,” Saeed Al Hamad, a radio talk show host and a columnist, said. “We were still in school, but going to this restaurant meant that we were no longer dependent on our parents to take us out and enjoying the freedom to choose where to go to have a bite.”
Abdul Rahman, one of the restaurant’s waiters, loomed larger than life in the mind of young Saeed.
“He was an expert in carrying mountains of plates loaded with kebabs and salads, alongside the oven-hot traditional bread. One day, we were so curious to know how many plates he could carry at once, and we stopped him. We counted 21 plates, and you can imagine how awed we were with the prowess of this thin-looking man.”
The restaurant started with mainly Iranian and Bahraini staff.
“The kebabs and tikka had a special flavour that people could easily recognise it as Ameen’s,” Abdullah, the supervisor of the restaurant, said.
“They came from all parts of Bahrain and even today we still have people who place their orders while waiting inside their cars parked near the restaurant.”
Across the class barrier
Yusuf Hamdan, a towering literary figure in Bahrain, has fond memories of Ameen restaurant and other food outlets in Manama.
“They were hugely popular, of course, and for many of us, they are associated with growing up in a multicultural, pluralistic society where people from various countries came together to provide us with what was to us then the most exquisite food,” he said. “There was Ameen restaurant with its delicious tikka and kebabs and there was Alo Bashir with his Indian food. We had so many popular cafés.
“These places were what we considered then the most salient places that helped build characters and provided people with invaluable social skills. To me and to many like me who frequented them, it is nostalgia all the way.”
A sign of the time is the five men preparing, grilling and serving the tikka and the kebabs — They are all Bangladeshis who replaced the Bahrainis and Iranians who helped the restaurant build its reputation and thrive.
“Do I think the restaurant will survive long? Most certainly! ” Abdullah said.
Customers today include older people who drive kilometres and brave congestion to buy tikka or kebabs, he said.
A sign of the time is the five men grilling and serving the tikka and the kebabs — They are all Bangladeshis who replaced the Bahrainis and Iranians.