6.191 Taste Test : For Peace in the Middle East

6.191

15 (Wed) July 2015

For Peace in the Middle East

2.1

from Red Sea and Jerusalem [delivery]

in my new apartment

-Malate, Manila-

with RK, TL, and various colleagues

Located next door to each other on MH Del Pilar Street (corner of Soldado)…

…Red Sea (as a Ramadan promotion, the restaurant was hosting a closed-door free halal dinner for Muslims; they let me in because I was ordering delivery)…

…and Jerusalem (at first glance, “Jerusalem” might seem a curious name for a halal restaurant, as the city is currently occupied by Israel, but the city is still regarded as holy by Muslims, as well as Jews and Christians).

Continuing my on-going exploration of Arabic cuisine (see most recently 6.134 Half-Grilled Chicken…), I decided to try out two restaurants at once — both closer to my new apartment — and invited friends over to share the experience. I ordered the exact same dishes from both and had them deliver at the same time, so we could conduct a side-by-side comparison.

RED SEA

Potato Salona with Chicken (2.5) — okay.

JERUSALEM

Jerusalem, the clear winner by unanimous consensus. Nothing was particularly that great, except the light-fluffy-chewy bread, but everything was respectable across the board.

Though really, the outcome was more Red Sea’s defeat (1.7 average rating) than Jerusalem’s victory (2.5).