If You're Ever In ... Amman

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Any decent correspondent on the road tries to get as close as possible to the local experience. When I'm reporting from the Middle East, for instance, I find that the best barometers of public opinion are tea houses and street-corner restaurants, where complex political discussions rage at every table. An added bonus: they let me get as close as possible to the local cuisine.

My all-time-favorite canteen is Ajyad, a no-frills joint in Amman's Jabal Hussein district patronized by working-class Palestinians. With its wrought-iron furniture, plastic flowers and chipped crockery, Ajyad won't win any awards for decor, but nobody cares. During the war in Iraq, patrons would gather around a TV set tuned to al-Jazeera and hurl appalling insults every time President George W. Bush was onscreen. (When Jordan's King Abdullah came on, the cursing continued, but in muffled undertones.)

Ajyad serves up outstanding meals at ridiculously low prices—I've never paid more than $5. The menu is all Arab and Bedouin comfort food, heavy on calories and cholesterol, so terrible for the heart and the gut—but a treat for the tastebuds. The house speciality is mansaf, an ambrosial lamb stew made with yogurt and cardamom, and ladled onto a heaping pyramid of saffron rice. The combination is topped with toasted almond flakes and pine nuts, which add a crunchy texture to the tender lamb and soft rice. With a flavor that brings to mind my mother's Bengali-style lamb curries, Ajyad's mansaf is, as the Arabs say, mumtaz—excellent.