If Al-Diafah wowwed us with luxurious decorations - the photo & mirror frames were encrusted in gold paint, aladdin pots and tea pots and perhiasan lain semuanya nampak bling bling, Sahara Tent gives us a peep into what the bedoiuns life is like - living in a tent set up in the desert (sahara). Hence we choose to be sitted under a small tent kononnya nak rasa aura arab badwi sambil menikmati hidangan. Fahmi wants to sit under a larger tent tapi tak boleh lah sebab tent besar tu untuk big group. The patrons at Sahara is rather quite compared to Al-Diafah. Yes, when we were there tak ramai pelanggan. Walaupun ada large group tapi tak bising. While at Al-Diafah tempohari sungguhpun tak ramai orang tapi bising yang amat. We can hear what the large group (a malay family) at the other end talking, they were loud. And the arabs next to us pun speaks so loud macam diaorang je ada suara. I guess that's the way the arabs speak, they speak loud.
Fahmi mulanya tak berkenan nak pergi restoran arab lagi, tapi bila saya kata ada nasi kabsah terus dia OK. So we had 2 chicken kabsah - one for me to be shared with Fahmi and one for kakak to be shared with Yaya and hubby had lamb beriyani. Oh saya mencemburui hubby, his lamb was so tender the meat fall off and melt in the mouth! Our past experience with arabs food reminds us that the food always come in large portion, pasal tu kami order 2 pinggan je nasi kabsah untuk dikongsi with the kids. Tapi kami silap. Sahara Tent punya food comes in small portion (when I said small I mean really small but the chicken doubles the size of the rice) sesuai dengan perut malaysian yang kecil, jadi bila hidangan sampai saya cepat-cepat tambah order chicken biryani. Seperkara lagi yang buat kami rasa makan di Sahara Tent is another culinary adventure is walaupun jenis food yang ditawarkan hampir sama, tapi cara ia dihidang berlainan. While other arab restaurant served their rice with blended tomatoes+chili dip, Sahara Tent surprised us with tomato soup. The soup was delicious, with assortments of finely diced vegetables - eggplant, capsicum, celery stick. Rasa seakan-akan dalca but without the dhall.
>
Dua orang budak ni malu-malu nak joget Arab. Saya dah cakap awal-awal orang Arab lepas makan kena joget untuk burn balik the calories tapi diaorang tak percaya.
Tapi lepas perut kenyang tanpa disuruh-suruh kedua-duanya meliuk lentuk sakan. Tulah saya dah cakap, ayam dalam pinggan tu yang buat kita nak berdondang, sekarang baru diaorang percaya. Harharhar... dapat mama kepala gila-gila macam saya, nasib koranglah.The only let down was that the service was very slow. We had hummus for entree tapi after the 5 of us habiskan hummus in a blink of an eye, our main dishes tak sampai-sampai. Lucunya hummus tu datang with only sekeping roti (arabic naan) yang sangat nipis which were shared by 5 hungry bears. While the other family depan kami ordered like 3-4sets of hummus but never got around to finish them because their hummus arrived at the same time of the main dishes. Kesian tengok roti diaorang terbiar, alangkah bagusnya kalau pass kat kitaorang... huk olohhhh takde hidung ke kamu ni? Akhirnya kami colek hummus dengan jari je sebab roti dah tinggal serdak. Again, had I know theirs comes in very petit portion I would have ordered the
I wouldn't leave the place without sampling their dessert. So I ordered Kunafa @Kunafeh. I had no idea what it was, but me being me, maintain my composure (berlagak macam tahu!) and confidently asked for a plate of Kunafa. I know incik hubby disebelah terkebil-kebil bila saya selamba order Kunafa. Dia ada tanya saya apa benda tu, saya kata dessert lah. Saya fikir how bad kan a dessert be, it is for sure going to be manis which i loike, so it can't be a disaster. Which turns out not a disaster at all macam a plate of baklava berharga RM30 yang kami makan kat Al-Diafah. Tapi it is a bit pelik for our palate pada mulanya.
Pic courtesy cik google. Kunafa boast the smell of minyak sapi dan susu which prompts me to guess that the dessert is made of cheese. Tambahan pulak bila nak potong Kunafa tu macam liat sikit. It must be keju jenis mozzarella lah kot. Rasanya manis. Tapi bagi yang tak tahan bau hamis susu tak payahlah cuba. Yaya terpaksa luahkan semula sebab dia rasa geli. While me, hubby and kakak were like people high on alcohol asyik ketawa tak habis-habis buat lawak pasal baklava 'hapak' di Al-Diafah. Pendek kata, lebih baik makan kunafa yang pada mulanya rasa pelik to us tapi harga baru RM6.50 daripada baklava hapak RM30!
All in all, we enjoy being at Sahara Tent, the food boleh tahan sedap dan harga pun murah. Bak kata hubby jus kat sini lebih murah. I think the food are more decently priced. Tapi we all agreed that nasi kabsah kat Al-Diafah adalah terbaik - cukup rempah, cukup rasa, cukup moist. Kabsa kat Sahara agak kering dan kurang rasa, tapi accompanied by tomato soup, buat nasi lebih sedap lagi.
