Stories

Yummy Yummy Knafeh

Across the Table
Interviews with Welcome Merchant food vendors at Powerhouse Lane. Words by Ann Ding and Shivika Gupta
Mohammed Zarqa, Yummy Yummy Knafeh – Powerhouse Lane, Parramatta, 2024. Image: Ethan Smart

Powerhouse Lane was a celebration of the culinary and musical landscape of Western Sydney presented across four flavoursome nights on George Street at Parramatta Lanes in late October 2024.

As part of the festival, Powerhouse commissioned fbi.radio’s Snack Time team, led by presenters and food enthusiasts Ann Ding and Shivika Gupta, to conduct an interview series with Marjorie Tenchavez, founder of award-winning social enterprise Welcome Merchant, alongside four renowned local food vendors. Presented here is Across the Table: Yummy Yummy Knafeh.

Powerhouse Lane is proudly funded by the NSW Government in association with City of Parramatta Council and Powerhouse.

‘I used to travel from Saudi Arabia to Jordan just to have knafeh.’
Mohammed Zarqa, Yummy Yummy Knafeh, 2024
A smiling vendor in a patterned headscarf pulls golden strands from a large pot at a food stall, with colourful signage in the background that reads ‘Knafeh’.
Two people share food from a container at a table, with one using a spoon to serve while the other holds a portion; a colourful backdrop adds to the atmosphere.
View looking down onto a large container filled with thin and shredded pale-coloured strands, sifted through by two black-gloved hands with black sleeves.
A cardboard box labelled ‘Australian Pistachio’ sits on a white plastic chair, underneath a large round metal tray filled with a smooth pale substance.

‘Come see me and come see my smile,’ says Mohammed Zarqa, and naturally he is smiling.

Zarqa’s Yummy Yummy Knafeh is a multisensory affair. You might first smell the heady fragrance of ghee, golden kataifi and syrup wafting from his stall, or hear Zarqa’s trademark ‘yummy, yummy’ call ringing out. Then you’ll see his beaming face, framed by a keffiyeh. And finally, you’ll experience his Palestinian Nabulsi knafeh, full of molten Australian-made Akkawi cheese and topped with pistachios.

Zarqa believes strongly in the power of food to unite us. Fuelled by a deep-rooted love of food that started with the nourishing, hearty Palestinian dishes his mother raised him on such as maqluba, he sees food as a way to bring friends, family and loves together.

At Powerhouse Lane, lines of fans snaked through the crowds, eagerly awaiting an opportunity to purchase knafeh and Palestinian coffee brewed on hot sand from Zarqa and his daughters.