Soriana Restaurant

🇸🇦 SAUDI ARABIA / FREE FRIDAY FAVORITES: After a change in name and location, all the Arabian specials are as mouth-watering as ever.

🇸🇦 SAUDI ARABIA
📍 512 E. Washington Avenue,
South Central, South Los Angeles.
🅿️ Ample parking in plaza
🥤 No Alcohol

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was originally written about the previous incarnation of this business, which was named Aldewaniah and located at Grand and Adams a few blocks away.

FREE FRIDAY FAVORITES is a series of articles that revisit choice restaurants featured on eattheworldla.com over the years. These will never be behind the paywall, but will update information as necessary and always be about meals that are worth returning for again.
📆 Original Article 18 December 2018

On the corner of Adams and Grand just west of the 110 (please see new information above), Aldewaniah doubles as a casual hookah bar and serves some of the most delicious Arabic cuisine north of Anaheim. The spacious dining room fills up with men smoking and dining solo and in groups, as well as families with children and other lovers of the food.

Open until 23:00-23:30 nightly, the place seems to be swinging into full gear after 21:00 or so. Show up earlier than that, and the place is bound to be more full when you leave than when you arrived.

Orders of different dishes are sometimes combined on one plate so that everything can be eaten communally as tradition would insist. This beautiful spread is a combination of chicken kabsa (above) and lamb mandi (below).

Chicken kabsa is a dish named for the rice and spices and served throughout the region, but its origins are in Saudi Arabia, where it is considered the national dish. The rice is infused with plenty of cumin and even pine nuts for a slight crunchiness that is excellent. They serve the dish with chicken here, a full half bird. The spices used are also superlative heavy, and the skin comes crisp. The only problem is getting pieces of that skin in every bite, but even without the meat of the bird is somehow so moist throughout. A really amazing dish.

Mandi is a dish enjoyed in all nations of the Arabian Peninsula but originated in Yemen. The name of the dish actually derives from the appropriate juiciness of the meat, and you can tell they do it just right here by looking at the photo of the lamb.

With such a central location, Aldewaniah can be a part of a monthly routine from just about anywhere around town.

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