October 2, 2015, by International students

Tips for finding Halal food in Nottingham

Beginning a journey in a place that you are not familiar with is a tough challenge. I come from Indonesia which is quite far from UK, 14-hours long flight and several hours of road trip to Nottingham are not a big issue considering the obstacles that you have to face one year ahead in a MSc programme. Well, I thought “might as well enjoy the journey” in order to get motivated anytime and be grateful for everything, because not everybody can have the opportunity to study abroad.

Even though there are many obstacles that I have faced, one thing that is really significant is FOOD. As Muslims, we have our special diet which is Halal food. We can eat any vegetables, seafood, fish, but we need a special treatment for chicken, lamb, mutton, beef (or anything that lives on the land), and there are also some restrictions such as we cannot eat pork and drink alcohol. I was really worried about this before I came to Nottingham, a lot of questions appearing in my mind. “Where to find Halal food?” or “Is there no Halal food?” I was about to prepare myself to be a vegetarian in UK (even though I am not really a big fan of veggies).

But fortunately, when I arrived, there is so much Halal food available in Nottingham, and it is available on the campus too! I was so relieved. So I will tell you some places that provide Halal Food and how to find them in The University of Nottingham campus and around the city:

Item 7 in Portland Building Food Court which serves African rice.

• Portland Building on University Park: Love Chicken Joes and item7 show the Halal sign which indicates they serves Halal food. And there are many vegan choices if you want to grab a lunch-to-go at the Students’ Union shop or Boots.

Love Chicken Joes in Portland building Food Court, offers range of wraps and fries.

• Nottingham City Centre: you can see some of restaurants provide Halal food there, such as Halal fried chicken, roast chicken, burgers, pizza, kebabs, curry and many more, but some of them also do not show the Halal sign even though they provide Halal food. If there is no sign, you can search on the internet if the restaurant is Halal or not, or you can ask directly to the restaurant if they provides Halal food or not. I am sure that the restaurant staff will gladly help you :). Here are some photos of Halal restaurants in Nottingham:

Halal Subway in the city

Chopstix Noodle Bar (Halal) near Victoria Centre

Chutney Indian restaurant on Maid Marian Way

• Hyson Green: I like to cook so I often go to Hyson Green where many Halal stores such as Sharif & Sons, Medina etc are selling fresh Halal meat, and they are relatively cheaper than ones in the big stores.

I hope this information will help Muslim students with special diet preferences (Halal food) to rest assured because food is no longer a difficult obstacle for us in Nottingham. I admit that The University of Nottingham is the best city to study and Nottingham is just the place to be!

Marizsa Herlina, an international student from Indonesia studying MSc Economics and Econometrics at The University of Nottingham.

Read more about being a Muslim in Nottingham

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