The newest venture from State College restaurateur Hitham Hiyajneh is an international experience featuring tastes of Mediterranean, Asian and American cuisine.
Fatoum Bistro opened its doors on Thursday at 532 Westerly Parkway, next door to Hiyajneh’s other recently opened restaurant, Cluck and Catch.
Hiyajneh had originally planned to open the new eatery in January as Silk Road and feature dishes from Silk Road countries, but felt it would be too limiting to what he and partner Carlos Avia wanted to do with the menu.
“Our menu technically is a Mediterranean with a South Asian influence,” Hiyajneh said. “We have more international cuisine. We have a lot of Mediterranean, Egyptian, Lebanese, Indian food, plus our breakfast is a lot of American with a Middle Eastern influence.”
Fatoum is currently open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, with breakfast served from 7 to 11 a.m. and lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., but Hiyajneh expects to extend the hours to 9 p.m. starting in April.
The menu is all about variety. For breakfast, there’s traditional waffles and pancakes, but also three kinds of French toast made with shokupan, a Japanese milk bread that’s a staple at Hiyajneh’s downtown breakfast cart of the same name. The “Mama Style” is filled with vanilla cream and topped with blueberry compote, while the Lotus Be Free is stuffed with biscoff cream and topped with caramelized bananas and the Strawberry Cream is filled with chocolate cream and has fresh strawberries on top.
A variety of shokupan egg sandwiches are also available, including egg and cheese, BLT, avocado and the Royal Meat, with turkey ham, bacon, sausage cheese and a house sauce.
The Middle Eastern breakfast menu includes ful madammas, arnabeet, labneh, hummus and sweet eggs, among other offerings. Shakshuka, meanwhile, comes in red and green varieties with either tomatoes or smoked green tomatillos and onions, garlic, spices and poached eggs.
Crepes come in three varieties of sweet (blueberry, strawberry Nutellas and banana) and savory (chorizo, veggie and western). The five kinds of omelettes range from the more traditional western to the chili scrambled, featuring marinated prawns, chili oil, sriracha mayo and shallots.
Among the seven choices of eggs Benedict are the Fungus Amungus, with mixed field mushrooms, pesto, spinach, marinated feta and a creamy mushroom sauce on sourdough with tempura enoki mushrooms and manchego snow, and the Smachin’ AVO, with smashed avocado, cherry tomatoes, feta, roasted pepper humus, lemon and a balsamic reduction.
“We’re trying to have a blended experience,” Hiyajneh said. He added that in the first two days, the Mama Style French toast and the shakshuka have been the most popular sellers on the breakfast menu.
The lunch menu features soups such as lentil, mushroom and seafood chowder, and salads, including Lebanese fattoush, tabbouleh, chili lime prawn, falafel crunch, harvest and grilled cheese — which has arugula, romaine, cucumbers and a sumac dressing topped with grilled farmer’s cheese, pomegranate seeds, roasted walnuts and a drizzle of pomegranate molasses.
Appetizers include samosa, grape leaves, batata harra, muhammara hummus and a mezza platter.
A diverse array of entrees are featured, such as chicken and waffles, chicken liver, a peri peri fried chicken thigh sandwich, sakalans (an Egyptian style sandwich with sweet tahini, clotted cream and drizzled honey), arayes (a Lebanese pita dish with ground beef and lamb mixture) and a choice of three street food sandwiches.
Indian dishes include butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, chicken or lamb curry, korma and kadai, chicken jalfrezi and chicken, fish, shrimp or lamb vindaloo.
Hiyajneh credits Avia, owner of Masala Palace in State College, for the early popularity of the Indian offerings at Fatoum.
“Carlos is the chef behind the whole thing. For the Indian food, he’s the guy,” Hiyajneh said. “Plus we actually make fresh naan. We have a naan oven, we have a tandoor oven. Everything comes with fresh pita.”
Hiyajneh’s late mother was also fond of Indian cooking, in addition to Middle Eastern fare, and it’s her nickname that adorns the new restaurant.
“Her name is Fatima and her nickname was Fatoum,” Hiyajneh said. “She passed away and this is a way to always remember her because all the cooking I learned came from her.”
Fatoum is the latest in Hiyajneh’s stable of State College restaurants that include Cluck & Catch, the Shokupan cart, Pita Cabana, Underground Burger, Dulce Luca — which provides deserts at the new property — two downtown Yallah Taco locations and Yallah Chicken and Taco on North Atherton Street.
But the newest entry is different than the others in that it’s more of a sit-down eatery than fast casual.
“Come and experience the food, and just be patient with us because it’s a new experience for us,” Hiyajneh said. “We usually have fast-casual, but this is sit-down, and everybody is actually doing a great job I think so far.”
