Reaching our destination : ” Am hsin عم حسين “
Finding food in Tunis center is so accessible by bike and that’s why we try to promote discovering different restaurants using our bicycles. I created many tours called “Bike & food” to promote culinary experiences to downtown Tunis. İt takes only 20 minutes to reach city center from Nomadic bike cafe in Bardo.
This time, I decided to ride with Alyssa to try the ” kafteji كفتاجي” plate. İt’s a mixture of fried veggies like pumpkin, tomato, pepper and potatoes. They add also a boiled egg and olive oil and cut it in small pieces. The final paste is called “tastira تستيرة”. The cook usually uses two big knives to cut the veggies. At the end they add more harissa (usually a spoonful), more olive oil, some fresh onion and parsely. The ” kafteji ” is served with your choice of a fresh baguette or “tabouna طابونة” (a traditional round Tunisian bread that was mostly famous to be baked in the countryside where there are no modern bakeries selling baguettes) plus an extra plate fresh fries, olives, and fried pepper.
Alyssa and I rode to one of the oldest kafteji places in Tunisia, it’s called ” Am hsin عم حسين “، like isthe entrance. They started serving kafteji in 1958, two years after the independence of Tunisia from rench colonialism. Half way from Bardo,we met, by coincidence, our friend Malek and invited him for lunch. The place is also close to the big metro station ” Republic station ” most people also call it ” station passage “.
We were lucky that the shop was not that crowded! We ordered 3 Kafteji plates, I(Selim) ordered an extra egg and we shared baguettes and a “Tabouna طابونة”. Alyssa tried manyafteri plates in different places And I think that was one of her favorites. İf you are visiting Tunisia don’t hesitate to try this experience.
