Chicken mendi @ Mendii
116 Aigburth Road, Aigburth, Liverpool, L17 7BP
You can’t imagine the thrill I felt when I saw that Mendii had opened around the corner from me. No longer would I have to make the – admittedly less than arduous – trek to L8 to eat Yemeni food.
I just had to hope it was as good as Lodge Lane stalwarts Middle Eastern Restuarant and Al Boufia AKA Anam’s Kitchen. Fortunately, it absolutely is.
Mendii is a very small restaurant, just a single shopfront (a former newsagent) with maybe five or six tables in total. Of an evening it’s buzzy – friends catching up over glass mugs of sweet milk tea; families sharing huge platters of slow-cooked lamb; people arriving to collect takeaway orders and sneaking in pieces of basboosa (honey semolina cake) before they head home.
The menu here is short and led by variations on the restaurant’s namesake; a dish of spiced meat (lamb shank, half or whole chicken) and rice baked over charcoal.
Whichever meat you choose arrives meltingly soft and deliciously flavoured. The chicken in particular is excellent, and amazing value at £10 for the plate.
Served alongside the mendi is a chopped shepherd’s salad of tomato, cucumber and pomegranate seeds and chilli sauce two ways — one fresh and fiery, one sour and sharp (from being mixed with white cheese).
Before any of this arrives though, you’ll be brought a small, complimentary bowl of soup. A clear and clean lamb broth, spiked with black pepper. Squeeze in the wedge of lemon served alongside it, the acid cutting through the sweet fattiness. Incredible stuff.
