Cutting through the centre of Grangetown, Clare Road is full of little surprises.
From independent coffee shops to colourful, community-minded toy stores, there are a host of businesses on the road that cater to your every need, and all just a few minutes walk from the city centre.
Stores and restaurants in the Cardiff suburb also celebrate the diversity and multiculturalism of the area, with Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East all represented on Clare Road alone.
Read more: 15 of the best independent businesses in Cardiff's Grangetown
Of course, there is also a wide range of cuisines on offer, with Polish pastries, Chinese dim sum and award-winning Indian curries all yards from each other.
However, halfway down the road, at the corner of Dorset Street, there is a small, unassuming restaurant that delivers far more than what initially meets the eye.
Bab Al-Yemen, which has been on Clare Road for over 10 years, serves up some of the best traditional Yemeni food in Cardiff, with customers leaving glowing online reviews and urging others to pay the restaurant a visit - so that's exactly what we did.
From the outside, it is difficult to know what to expect from the restaurant, which is propped up at the end of a terraced row by a bookstore and hairdresser. With grey paintwork and faded pictures of food in the windows, it is certainly modest, even non-descript.
Inside is largely the same story, although the dining area is brightened up by authentic Middle Eastern decorations and pottery.
But what we're here for, of course, is the food - and owner Mohmud, smiled with delight from behind the counter when I told him that this was my first time trying Yemeni cuisine.
Choosing from an extensive menu, full of traditional warming dishes such as Haneed lamb, Mandi chicken and Tandoor fish, I opted for the national dish of Yemen, saltah, a lamb stew that originated during the Ottoman Empire.
With this, I chose Salad Harah - or 'Hot Arabic salad' - as well as Zabadi Bill Khiyar (yoghurt with cucumber) and Yemeni naan bread, before deciding I had room for a dessert, in the form of Fattah Tammer, a bread pudding with dates and honey.
After a very short wait on Thursday lunchtime, Mohmud emerged from the kitchen with a huge tray full of food and steam rising in his face.
The saltah was served in a red-hot stone bowl, the contents of which refused to stop sizzling for a good few minutes after arriving at my table. While the temperature was initially off-putting, however, the flavour was faultless, with the minced lamb melting away in a rich, smoky broth jam-packed with vegetables and spice.
It was a really tasty, warming dish which carried a pleasant heat - but after a while, I was glad for the accompanying yoghurt, which helped to cool and balance the saltah perfectly.
Perhaps the most intriguing of my orders was the hot salad, made up of shredded lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber, which drew me in initially with its curiously sweet dressing, whose flavour I couldn't quite put my finger on.
But this near-artificial sweetness soon gave way to a burst of heat, which did enough to get my tastebuds tingling, without blowing the roof of my mouth off.
The Yemeni naan sprang no real surprises, but was soft, mild and had a good tear, providing a perfect vehicle for the saltah and yoghurt.
After seeing off a considerable amount of the generous portion of saltah that I was served, I almost had no room for dessert but tucked into a small bowl of the Fattah Tammer.
The thick pudding had been drowned in honey, and was loaded with sticky dates, which provided quite a lot of resistance when I dipped my spoon in. But while, on paper, the sweetness should have been overpowering, it wasn't - and combined with the chewiness, the dessert proved to be a moreish closer to what had been a very enjoyable meal.
In total, it came to £17.50 including a drink, which, especially when you consider the generous portion sizes, is a reasonable price to pay for an extremely filling lunch.
Despite its unassuming exterior, there is plenty to enjoy about Bab Al-Yemen, with its delicious, authentic Middle Eastern dishes and attentive customer service making it another of Grangetown's hidden gems.
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