Most people don’t like dining in an empty restaurant. I love it. I love the desolate atmosphere of an empty dining room and I love the undivided attention I get from both waiters and chefs, at least in places like Qal’at al-Rumiyeh, my favourite restaurant in the Lebanese mountains, near where my mother lives. Fortunately, the restaurant is not always empty. Only when I tend to go for midweek lunch when there isn’t a single soul there apart from the family that owns the restaurant, seated at their regular table by the door and my mother and I (I always insist we go there as soon as I arrive in Lebanon), not counting the waiters milling about with nothing to do. I don’t particularly like the place which is huge and pretty charmless, but I love the dramatic views over a deep valley and the Mediterranean in the distance and of course the excellent food.
I always order far too much, to my mother’s consternation — she is very anti wasting food and has only recently accepted my suggestion that she should take whatever is leftover back home with her; it is not considered chic to do this in Lebanon. Still, she likes the food there as much as I do and after her initial protestations, is pleased when our dishes start arriving. But even before I order, we are served a bowl of almonds on ice (the almonds are soaked until they are completely rehydrated and taste like fresh ones), half a large tomato each, sprinkled with sumac and a small bowl of the most ethereal garlic dip to eat with the tomato. A perfect start to a perfect meal.
Then the waiters start bringing our order which is mainly raw meat dishes — they rear their own sheep and butcher them in-house; as a result, the meat is always supremely fresh regardless of whether the restaurant is full or not. My favourite is a very smooth tartare of lamb that is hardly seasoned and comes garnished with a mound of fresh mint, which I eat with the same garlic dip as that served with the fresh tomato.
I also love their kibbeh nayeh which I order with a side plate of the stuffing used to fill the kibbeh balls or kibbeh bil-saniyeh (the one shaped as a pie). I pile the cooked stuffing on the raw meat to eat them together. A wonderful combination of hot and cold, and soft, chewy and crunchy.
I also order regular mezze staples such as goat labneh (strained yoghurt) which is more like a fresh goat cheese than labneh, baba ghannuge (theirs is particularly smoky and delicious) and fresh thyme salad. And I love their French fries which are hand-cut and fried to order in fresh oil (unlike the fries at brgr, a newish hamburger joint in Beirut where the fries were appaling).
And of course, you cannot have a Lebanese meal without bread but what is nice there is that they are happy to toast the bread specially for you, as against serving days old toasted bread like in some restaurants. Also, even though there is good pita bread in London, it is never as thin as that baked in Lebanon or Syria which is miraculously thin.
And despite the restaurant being completely empty, the waiter immediately lit the fireplace for us using pieces of broken furniture to make the most wonderful fire which kept our corner nice and warm.
It was unusually cold last week and I wouldn’t have been there normally if it wasn’t for being invited as a guest judge on the Arab version of top chef. I will post a link when LBC airs the episode!
