Villa Mama's- Revealing culture through food.

All my faithful readers would already know my top 5 restaurants in Bahrain but just as a refresher, Villa Mama’s made it to my list back in June (here) last year where I couldn't help my self but blog about the delicious food.

Roaya Saleh, the chef and founder of Villa Mamas, is a Bahraini woman, who is driven by her endless passion of wanting to reveal our culture through food. Her dream was always to cook and serve Bahraini food using locally sourced organic ingredients in an inviting environment. This finally became a reality after opening her own restaurant, Villa Mamas, in Late 2011.

Today, Villa Mamas serves over 7500 visitors a month, and is known to be one of the most popular destinations to enjoy Bahraini food.  Villa Mamas is a restaurant where locals, GCC nationals, and expats can sit together and eat some of the very best food Bahrain has on offer.

Roaya, has over 30k followers on her instagram account @villamamas, and has recently been interviewed and referred to in Caterer Middle East as, “Carrying the flag of the local cuisine high, with ambitious plans to expand across the world.”

One of Roaya’s recent projects has been a collaboration with Executive Producer Julia Klein who with more than 20 years experience in international broadcast television agreed that it was time to take Villa mamas and Bahrain to the world.  Together,their goal was to create the first Bahraini lifestyle reality show on a global broadcast platform and then using international online platforms, to introduce Bahraini Food to the world.   

Julia used her extensive contacts with international broadcasters to make this happen and finally this project has been realized. With all the contracts and agreements now signed, Roaya is officially the first chef from the GCC to be featured on the foodchannel.com.  With a reach of between 12 – 15 million people throughout the world, Roaya has already taken the online channel by storm being promoted within one week to a headline banner, and reportedly increasing overall traffic to The Food Channel site by up to 18% in only 2 weeks. You can visit www.foodchannel.com, to view some of her video recipes. I have even shared the link to Roaya’s delicious sticky date cake on my facebook page.

And now, in addition to The Food Channel, an agreement for a reality show has been signed with ifood.tv, which is part of the Future Today Corporation. However, this is the first time they have reached out to a culturally insightful show like Villa Mamas doing authentic Arab cuisine.

The Villa mamas reality TV show, which initiated all this international interest has now wrapped shooting and has begun the long post production process, but now with proven popularity online, Scripps Network has agreed to broadcast a first run on their Food Network towards the end of this year.  The show is a behind the scenes look at the passion, the frustration, the tears and the laughter that go into running a successful restaurant business with the day to day running of the kitchen, the dining room and the current construction of the Villa mamas Deli. This will prove to be an unforgettable series.

Villa Mamas has put the spotlight on Bahrain, and has opened up the opportunity to introduce Bahrain to the media platform of worldwide viewers. With commitments from one of the largest International Television Networks and two of the most popular online platforms, that are now officially contracted to work with Julia Klein in the GCC, any business, no matter how large or small will now have the opportunity to bring their brand, service or product to the global market .

So what are you waiting for? I suggest you hurry to Villa Mama’s and try out what they have to offer. I highly recommend the cheese crispies glazed in honey for starters,the machboos as main and the red velvet cake( which according to me is THE best in Bahrain) to finish. The rice dishes in particular, are simply delicious, and will leave you craving more. I visit the place often for photoshoots or when I’m in the mood to eat, and by eat, I mean really eat.

Sara, Anita, Roaya, Myself and Dunia

Villa Mama's is located in Saar, opposite Saar Cineplex. For further information please follow @villamamas on instagram.

Vapiano: Obsessed with Freshness!

 I've always loved Vapiano and the entire concept of the restaurant. If you haven't been there yet, you're missing out on a great deal as I find that they have the freshest food and the ambiance of being in a restaurant with a completely open kitchen and watching the food being made, is quite something else! What's even better is that they grow their own herbs that are used in the food.
Another reason for you to visit Vapiano, is the new menu. I absolutely love the strawberry spinach salad with roasted pine nuts. I usually don't finish entire portions, but surprisingly, I finished a salad and an entire pizza!
So the next time you're in the mall and have finished shopping for your seasonal wardrobe, pop into Vapiano and eat fresh and healthy . And don't forget to try the strawberry- spinach salad! :)