arz lebanon

arz lebanon
college road, F-7 markaz, islamabad
tel: 0333 3333170

what was consumed: hummous, dolmas, taboulelh, falafel, artichoke salad, grilled halloumi, etc. we basically looked at the photos in the menu and started pointing at things ... and we had great success. 

i spent two years living in kuwait. i ate a lot of "general" middle eastern cuisine and loved it all. like really really loved it. so when i get a chance to enjoy delish middle eastern cuisine, i'm all for it. friend j told me her favorite was lebanese at arz and i couldn't resist.

so, friends and i got together for one of j's last meals in town. we head to arz at a pretty late (for me - 8ish) and arz was already starting to pick up (they have both indoor and outdoor seating. sadly, we had to sit inside. and while we waited for the rest of our party to arrive, we ordered some hummous to enjoy with their warm (and delish) lebanese bread and some grape leaves.

where is the rest of our group!? ugh. so hungry.

as folks started to arrive, we kept adding to our order. some of my favorites (like falafel, taboulleh, grilled chicken) and some of others' favorites (that salad with artichokes was amazing!) and then multiples of other dishes (i mean, is there ever such thing as too much grilled halloumi? the correct answer is no). arz has a large menu; there will be new things to try and the old favorites will always be there.

i understand that arz lebanon doesn't deliver. sad day! but that won't stop me from enjoying their fare. let's go to there!!!

online: http://www.arzlebanon.pk/

lebnani

lebnani
in sha'ab, off gulf road

what was consumed: lebanese food! including hummus, tabbouleh, kibbeh, liver, potatoes, grills ... YUM

one of the many great things about eating in kuwait is the availability of some delicious middle eastern cuisine, especially lebanese. i could eat lebanese cuisine all day, every day (i did eat A LOT of it).

and so, in conversation, friends mentioned that lebnani had some amazing fare, so i of course had to try! and i was not disappointed. the creamy hummous, the crispy kibbeh (love kibbeh, especially potato kibbeh!), the fresh tabbouleh ... geez louise, my stomach is growling just thinking about lebnani's cuisine.

the only thing about lebnani is that i'm not sure i would be able to find it again. but that's mostly because the kuwaiti roads and i will never get along. but i would get a little lost if i am able to eventually make it there - so delicious. thank god for gps and google maps - hehehehe.

leila

leila
phase 1 @the avenues


wow. it's been some time since i've posted about my eating adventures. that isn't to say that i haven't been eating because that would be grossly incorrect.  i've been busy, but mostly lazy - thank you, b, for the reminder and push!

so ... here goes!

i can't seem to break the very american attitude regarding restaurants in malls. that is, if a restaurant is in a mall, in my mind, there is no way it will be good. that's what i thought until i came to kuwait. i'm slowly, but surely, coming around. much of this is due to the way life runs here in this desert town. especially in the summer (of course), when it's so gosh darn hot, malls become mini city centers. people go to malls to spend their days. it's also convenient because the 2 favorite kuwaiti pastimes are eating and shopping. hahaha ... and so, some really good places to check out are in malls, shopping centers, hotels, etc. the eateries in malls are far from the food court spaces i'd grown accustomed to (yes, there are food courts as well); rather, they are just like more typical restaurants and just happen to be attached to (and have entrances into) the larger mall/shopping areas.

as a result, when i have guests from the states, the last place i want to take them to eat is to the mall. there are lots of really great places to eat in kuwait, why go to the mall? i even "yelled" at one of my local colleagues (it was more like insisting, though it sounded like yelling in my head) about not taking guests to eat at the mall. sigh. it's taken me almost a year to "get over" the stereotypes of eateries at malls; i can't imagine taking "foodies" to a restaurant at the mall (unless, of course, i could go through my entire explanation as to why i would opt to take them to eat at the mall).

and so, when c&j visited me here in Q8, where i did get the chance to explain to them the whole mall situation and because we were at the mall to run a few errands, i was less hesitant about going to lunch at leila (wow, that was a huge huge huge introduction to my lunch here).

the aforementioned colleague told me that there was a good restaurant at the avenues serving lebanese food. i couldn't get that out of my head. so, when i got the chance, i wanted to check it out.

seeing that we were early for lunch (or for any meal according to local standards), we were quickly seated and our servers were immediately attentive (as is the way with lots of places here). we made a selection of a variety of lebanese dishes, all to be consumed family style. there were the standard favorites - hummous, fattoush, etc. and then some of my favorites, including chicken liver (yay iron!). there isn't a whole lot of culinary creativity or "art" that went into the dishes, but each one was solid and definitely satiated our appetites for local (as local as you can get in kuwait, anyway) cuisine. and besides it being in a mall, leila gave a sort of "home cooking" feel, something we all seem to look for. even the "pita" served out of plastic bags sort of reminded me of funny things moms often do (and the rolls, not served in plastic bags, were delicious). all of that aside, i will likely visit leila again and put it on my list of recommendable restaurants.

note: if you look closely at the first photo, there's a young lady, in pink, totally giggling. that's because she had photo-bombed my photo of the leila store front - my new favorite person! my camera was too slow to catch her in the act, but i'm all for it. photo-bombing ftw!