Baladi, 709 North Bridge Road

Baladi at North Bridge Road (across the road from the mosque at Arab Street) purports to serve authentic Lebanese food. This was my first time having Lebanese. Noticed that that parallels can be drawn with Persian food. I'm not sure what were the differences between the food of the two cultures though. There's grilled meats, flat bread, hummus, rice, more vegetable dips and arrays of spiced teas.

artichoke hearts

hummus & moutabbalstuffed grape leaves

We didn't start off well with the appetizers. The hummus didn't taste like what I'm used to. The moutabbal was delicious but was also not like any eggplant dip I've had. And the artichokes was acidic that I felt needle prick sensations on my tongue. Stuffed grape leaves had rice that didn't taste properly cooked and the leaves were too fibrous.

Didn't not enjoy them much.

beef sharwarma

beef kafta kebab

Grilled meats on the other hand fared a lot better. The amusing thing about the presentation here was that they tried to look sophisticated with the powdered paprika stencilling and the smudge of herbed yoghurt on the side. Both dishes are served on rectangular "crockery" which weren't plates but were actually tiles. The beef sharwarma came with nicely browned chunks of spiced beef on brown rice. I don't know what went into the rice but it was good.

I doubt I'll be back to anytime soon. Probably will not return at all. There're a couple of other interesting places around the corner near Baghdad Street which I've noticed so those might be next. Meanwhile, I'll take Banoo anytime!