The four-plus-mile stretch of Havana Street between Dartmouth and Sixth Avenue in Aurora is home to the most diverse array of international cuisine available in the metro area. From restaurants and markets to take-and-go shops and stands, food lovers of nearly any ethnicity or interest can find a place that will remind them of home or open new culinary doors. In Eat Up Havana, Antony Bruno will visit them all, one by one, week by week.
Previous stops:
- Old Town Hot Pot
- Leezakaya
- Chutney Indian Cuisine
- El Tequileno
- Milkroll
- Shin Myung Gwan Korean BBQ
- Watan Restaurant & Bakery
- Las Fajitas
- Mr. Tang
- Nana’s Dim Sum & Dumplings
Next up: Yemen Grill
Walking into Yemen Grill, the first thing you notice is the massive photograph of what looks like a Middle Eastern city,complete with minarets, arched windows and arabic script decorating the stone walls, taking up the entire right wall of the restaurant.
It’s a cityscape of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, and its prominent placement is no accident.
“When people think of Yemen, they think of war or poverty, or that there’s nothing there because it’s a desert,” says Benin Rahma, daughter of owner Huessien Rahma. “So we wanted to put something up so people could see the beauty of it. It’s still very beautiful. Let’s show the architecture and the richness of the culture.”
That mission extends to the food as well. This is obvious once you turn your gaze from the photo to the counter, where glass-covered hotel pans full of Middle Eastern staples like hummus, rice and cucumber salad are on display next to sheet trays of baklava. Behind are the tools of the trade: kabab grill, flat-top grill.
But what’s less obvious to the untrained eye is that this is no generic “Middle Eastern” or "Mediterranean" restaurant slinging the same old kebabs and fries (although you absolutely can get kabobs and fries here). A quick look at the menu reveals less-common dishes in the “Royal Yemeni” section, including oqda chicken, rasha and salta: all traditional Yemeni dishes that Rahma fell in love with despite hailing from Iraq.
What’s the difference? Let’s back up a bit.
Rahma fled the famine and poverty that marked life after the war in Iraq, taking his family to Jordan. After six years there, applying for refugee status to any country that would accept them, he finally received permission to bring his family to the U.S. in 2006.
Despite having only a few hundred dollars to his name, he managed to start a small grocery store, which he sold to get into the restaurant business. After a short-lived first effort, he found success with Afia Grill, an Iraqi restaurant located where Yemen Grill stands today.
Rahma sold Afia Grill to new owners, who then turned it into Yemen Grill. But after a short break, he felt he needed to return to the restaurant business and bought it back, retaining the Yemen-focused menu that he came to love.
Since the uninitiated often view Middle Eastern cuisine as slightly different shades of the same foods — tabbouleh, fattoush, baba ghanouj — switching from an Iraqi menu to Yemeni could be seen as a matter of semantics. Not so.
“It’s completely different,” says Benin. “I like to tell people that from region to region, they speak different dialects, and just as the language is different, so is the food. For instance, Yemen rice is very fragrant, like saffron and different spices. Iraq rice is just turmeric rice and white rice. To outsiders, they may think they’re similar because ‘Oh, it’s just lamb and rice’ … but the flavor is completely different.”
The nuances may seem small on paper, but they're noticeable on the plate. Particularly the rice. Too often, rice is an underappreciated component despite being such a staple part of so many cuisines. You may come to Yemen Grill for the meat, which is wonderfully spiced, moist and with just the right amount of char from the grill. But you’ll come back for the rice… a beautiful, multicolored melange of saffron, star anise, cinnamon and other spices with hues running from a dark orange to a light yellow that is as good to look at as it is to eat.
“My dad makes the rice every single morning,” Benin says. “He first cooks it in a huge pot with all the aromatics and spices. And then towards the end, when it’s almost done, he adds the saffron and basically makes streaks on top of the rice. That gives it the variety in color, so it doesn’t bleed to the rest of the rice.”
This rice is a perfect complement to nearly every option on the menu. The stew-like oqda chicken — with its achingly tender braised chicken that falls off the bone into a stew of sweet peppers, okra, eggplant, zucchini, onions, carrot, tomato puree and potatoes — just begs for a bed of such rice to soak up all the flavors. But it’s equally delicious with any of the many grilled meat options as well, including lamb and chicken offered both ground and in chunks, whole or half chickens, and the popular mandi: lamb or chicken slow-cooked over rice, traditionally in a pit or oven.
Paired with pita bread and creamy hummus, there’s little not to love on this menu — and every dish is well-executed. After nearly a decade, Yemen Grill has proved so popular that Rahma just opened up its first expansion location near the University of Denver, called Yemen Grill and Cafe, with the “cafe” addition to highlight the teas, juices and coffees that accompany the same menu as at the original.
And the rice, of course.
“Rice is like his number one thing,” Benin says of her father. “It needs to be fluffy. The grains need to be long and separated. He cannot go a day without having his meal with rice. So he puts a lot of care into it.”
Yemen Grill is located at 2353 South Havana Street in Aurora; it's open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. For more information, visit yemengrilldenver.com.
