Lebanese/Mediterranean cuisine is my most favorite cuisine and I am always in search of it. The last Lebanese meal I had was in February when I went to Mumbai for restaurant reviews. I was invited by Souk, a fine dining Mediterranean restaurant in Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai. That place has everything authentic and exceptionally good. I have not been able to find any good place where I can get amazing shawarma. I don’t expect Lebanese food here. But whatever roll in the name of shawarma I get to eat, it tastes like Mexican wrap. I have almost given up, my search for decent middle eastern food in delhi.
Last week I saw the launch pics of Zizo, a Lebanese restaurant opening in CP, owned by Fouad Abdel Malak, Lebanon and Danny Elsoury, excecutive chef promised to give us the real and authentic Lebanese food in delhi. Lebanese cuisine is all about fresh vegetables, whole grains, fruits,fresh sea foods and fresh ingredients. The focus is more on flavor and try to make it as simple as they can. They use lot of meat, though chicken is the primary ingredient, however they also use lamb and goat meat.
I decided to have lunch here with my family. My wife also loves fresh pita bread,humus and shawarmas. A small two floor cozy café and the interiors give you the feel of middle eastern region. I liked the ambience and we preferred to sit upstairs.I felt that that low lying sofa was little uncomfortable and tables placed in between had less space to get in. Anyways we looked at the menu, and honestly I was little disappointed as I didn’t find popular dishes like kibbeh, grilled meats (Shish Taouk)and my favorite tabbouleh( famous parsley salad). We ordered fattoush salad, chicken shawarma roll, humus chicken ras asfour and mulberry juice, baklava for desert and then Turkish coffee.
Mullberry juice we found little sweet to our taste. Fattoush salad was very disappointing. Probably the most simple salad in the world to make, but people generally make mistake while making simple stuffs. Using too much of sumac actually makes the salad extra tangy which is difficult to eat sometimes and then use of regular tomato instead of cherry tomato was unexpected. Chicken shawarma roll was again very average, though they make their own pita bread which we tried and was very nice, but they grilled it to make a roll and it became little chewy. I expected huge filling of chicken and green salad. Humus chicken ras asfour had more sumac and it was very tangy. Chicken which was cooked in pomegranate juice was undercooked and very sweet. Turkish coffee was really good and I loved it. Assorted baklava which was imported was really good in taste and it’s an extremely heavy dessert.
Their hospitality was great. Our total bill was around 1750(we also gave them tips of rs 400) and they gave us 15% discount on the bill, saying we are just a week old and then a box of baklava which we happily accepted. Their swipe machine was not working, though we were lucky that we had some cash.I had long chat with Chef Danny and we discussed a lot about food and about my experiences, they have promised me to call me back again and try other dishes as well. I wish them best of luck and hope they will be able to sort out these minor things pretty soon.
I would love to come back there again and would love to see more meat dishes in their menu J
