I was planning to give a treat to my friends in a decent quality restaurant. Since everybody knows I am a fan of Syrian cuisines, Al Bait Al Shami Restaurant in Garhoud was suggested to me. The delicious memory of iftar buffet in Al Bait...Al Shami was in my mind with variety of foods and appetizers. Not sure still the buffet is available or not. I tried the net to see whether buffet is there and I ended up with the menu without any mention of buffet however I noticed that meals in the menu are bit pricy and made me to think again about the place I am going to invite my friend. I gave a try and called the restaurant making sure about buffet. The outcome of the call was relieving. They told me no buffet but they have a set menu for 4 people which includes 4 daily meal of your choice with full set of hot and cold appetizer and deserts which costs 220 AED and available only on Fridays from 13 to 17. It sounded great. I called the friends and fixed the date.
The Friday arrived and we gathered at Beit Shami Restaurant in Gharhoud; They welcomed us and provided two potions for the seating area: smoking and non-smoking. We chose non-smoking area and were guided to upper floor. The seats and tables were arranged respecting social distancing. They read us the list of today’s daily meals. We chose kharoof mahshi, shakiria, dajaj and mix grill. After short time the appetizers were arrived. Appetizers were consisted of homos (chick peas paste), Tabbouleh (fine chopped parsley, tomato, …dressed with pomegranate), motabal (mashed roasted eggplant and tahini), baba ghanouj (mashed roasted eggplant and tahini and variety of herbs) , fazolia (), kinbbah (meat ball), fatoush salad and roasted potato. Although all of the appetizers were outstanding but my favorite was the homos.
Believe me or not the appetizers were so yummy and rich you may ignore the main dishes but we didn’t. As we were enjoying the appetizers the main courses arrived waiting to find empty spot on the table to sit. As an advice: ask the servant to give you a little more time allow you enjoying the appetizer and avoid rushing to main course. From one side we were removing the empty appetizer plates and from other side the main courses were queueing up. I started with kharoof mahshi with green pea rice. It was a delicious light full meal provide you good amount of quality protein. Moved on to shakeriya with noodle rice, which was a good competitor of kharoof mahshi. Although I am known as gourmand foodie but here, I raised my hand and gave up, couldn’t go for the other two meals and hold back watching friends devouring the meals. Once the main courses are over the desert arrived: a selection of Arabic sweets. We ordered tea (which wasn’t included in the set menu) to be served with sweet. The tea was served in the form of tea bag which was disappointing. It was around 16 and we were planning to take off so asked for the bill. The bill came and made me shocked; it supposed to be around 220 AED but they had charged 64 AED for 4 shoddy cups of tea and 11 AED for a bottle of water and total jumped up to 295 AED. Honestly, I was ready to pay happily 50% more for their pleasant food but not for the cheap tea. Having said that I should thank them for their quality tasty cuisine and look forward to another round in a couple of weeks.More