Past the new subdivisions of Findlay Creek, where Bank Street thins into a commercial strip on the city's southern edge, there's a little house-shaped building with a restaurant inside. It sits between a seemingly shuttered nightspot and a weary-looking motel, which is exactly the kind of setting this blog keeps sending me to. We almost drove past it. Inside, there's plenty of seating, the room is well lit and spotless, and photos of Yemen hang on the walls. Several families from the Middle East were already eating, which is always the best sign you can get at the door.

The second-best sign is the smell. Cardamom and cinnamon hung in the air before we'd even sat down. I'll admit up front that my love for Yemeni food runs deep. The cooking carries traces of a shared maritime history with India, which makes it familiar enough to feel approachable and different enough to feel exciting.

I came with my partner and Eat the Strip co-founder, Danielle, and our friend Elisabeth, who was visiting from New Brunswick. It was Halloween night, around 8 p.m., when a server waved us to a large round table. We ordered a lot: lamb haneeth, mandi, mulawah and fahsa.

The restaurant's name goes back a long way. Saba is the ancient kingdom in what is now Yemen, centred on the city of Marib, and it grew rich over the first millennium BCE by controlling the camel caravans that carried frankincense and myrrh north along the Arabian Peninsula. You may know it by its Biblical name, Sheba, as in the Queen of Sheba. It's an old, proud name to hang over a restaurant on Bank Street.

The man who put it there is Anwar, who owns Saba Palace and was happy to talk once the food hit the table. He's from an area between Sanaa and Hadhramut and grew up in a family business. He has worked in food for more than 15 years. His path to Ottawa went through Malaysia and the United States before he landed in Canada in 2018, first in Montreal, then Toronto, then here.

Saba Palace began as catering. When he started landing large jobs, the people he fed kept asking him to open a restaurant. About a year ago he found this space, which is big, and he took it. On busy nights, he told me, family members pitch in and wait on tables. He wanted the room to feel Yemeni all the way through, and he worked to bring natural sights and smells into the decor, not only the walls.

The food backed him up. The haneeth is the dish I'd send you for first: lamb that falls off the bone, its fat and juices melting in the mouth. It comes over rice that is so well spiced, topped with almonds and fried fruit, that the plate turns into a rich tapestry of flavour. Elisabeth called the lamb tender, juicy and full of spice, and said the whole thing felt warm and comforting. She isn't wrong. It does.

The fahsa is a different animal, a slow-cooked stew simmered in a rich broth with garlic, tomatoes and herbs. It came with hot mulawah, a flaky flatbread that sits somewhere between a naan and a malabar paratha, scattered with sesame seeds. I could have eaten a stack of it by itself.

Most dishes run around $15 to $20, and the three of us ate handsomely for about $70, with leftovers to take home. We washed it all down with kadak chai.

Anwar says the community has welcomed him. Yemeni customers come, but so do other Arab families, Indian customers and some Canadians, and he says they are very helpful. First-timers, he says, tend to order the lamb haneeth or the fahsa, and they love it. He also pushes people toward breakfast, which includes fried lamb and liver, and he's eager to see more newcomers try it. Nothing makes him happier, he told me, than when someone from a non-Arab background tries his food and compliments it.

He has bigger plans. "I would like to see my business go a step higher to open other branches to other cities," he said.

I've been on a rice kick lately and I've come to believe that a kitchen that does rice well takes care with everything else. Saba Palace passes that test. Despite the motel next door and the traffic on Bank Street, I felt transported to the Middle East. The place has a family atmosphere, and Anwar is gregarious and kind, with bright eyes and an easy smile that make the outing feel warm. I heartily recommend eating here, and I can't wait to go back for breakfast.