My 'Abdel-Wahab' Experience

Joined by our dear mothers, my cousins & I went to Abdel-Wahab's the Lebanese restaurant last Wednesday night. It was our first time there, & in general the experience was pretty good, yet there were some not-so-nice moments here & there. This is a review of my experience there.

We went pretty late (10:00 PM), as if we're subconsciously preparing ourselves to the late nights in the soon to come Ramadan, (as we went there just 2 nights ahead).

The weather was pretty humid (but not as humid as the following day, omg, it was TOO HUMID!!), but we didn’t mind that since we were to sit inside (I don’t know if there are tables outside).

It was our first time visiting this Lebanese restaurant, & our judgment is, pretty nice. In general.

The menu for an “only Lebanese” food is pretty good. It had plenty of the famous Lebanese dishes (that I'm aware of), & the taste was “delicious” for some dishes I had & “really good” for others.

There weren’t many options on the drinks, but that's okay I guess, since it's not an international restaurant. But I wished there were many juices, as The Sham is known for its delicious fruits & juices. I ordered an orange juice which was really delicious; I liked it, except that it wasn't really that cool, now that I remember. Or maybe I didn't drink it right away & it cooled down…

Mom thought the prices were pretty high, but I think it's reasonable since the location of the restaurant is on the beach, so it ought to be a little pricey.

But there was one thing that really caught my attention in the menu. There was NO dessert section! I was like checking & re-checking the menu over & over, thinking I may have missed it or something, but no, there wasn't any! LOL I thought it might be on a separate menu like some restaurants do, so I just let it go till it was time to have dessert & then if we weren't offered a dessert menu then I'd ask about it.

Warag Anab

The starter & soup took a considerate time to show up, while the main dishes took more time, but still considerate since they do take time to get done, (but if we were in a more popular restaurant, the food wouldn’t take so much time to get done, even for main dishes since they constantly make the most popular dishes even before customers order them).

We had several dishes that we loved to try & enjoyed most of them, if not all. My ultimate most delicious dish was the 3arayes. Omg, I wish I had taken a pic of it, but I just had one piece, & omg, it was sooo yummy! My least fave was the Warag 3anab, (I forgot what they call it in English; see picture above). It was good, don’t get me wrong, but it was a little sour to my taste. I don’t like sour food.

But then, after we were done with dinner, they brought us this lovely & sweet dish!

Mahalbia

I was like, oh, wow! Is that why they didn’t have add a desserts section in the menu? Do they always give away free Mahalbia or is it just because of Ramadan? I didn't ask, but I'm pretty sure it's a celebration to the holy month's arrival :)

So was it good? Mmm, yeah! it was really sweet, all of us managed to eat at least halves of our plates; it was really good. I'm not really a big fan of this dish to tell you the truth, but I don't hate it. (Aunty, if you're reading this, yours is still number one :P - Oooops! I hope mom does not read this! -_-' :P im kidding, she knows I love my aunt's Mahalbia the most - even though it has changed a bit, but still, I like it! lol).

So, all in all, the experience was pretty good, only there were some points we didn't like about the restaurant. The place is pretty small; some of the tables were set really close to each others, so there's not always a perfect sitting place available. But on the bright side, the chairs were comfy.

The staff were okay. The waiters we had were friendly, but the janitor at the door did not leap to his feet & greet us by opening the door to us only after we were really close at the door & I gave him the impression that I wanted the door to be opened to us! I didn't like that at all, as it's his job to open the door for us, not the customers. Esp, that he was just there! Not doing anything! I don't know what he was thinking, not coming right away to us. Poor mom, had to try to open the door herself! I was like no, let him open it for us! It was by then he had reached to the door to open it. Thanks a lot! We couldn't have done without you! Just a split of a second & we would've been in ourselves! (esp, if the door wasn't a bit heavy then I'm pretty sure mom would've got to push it even before that man reached it!). So, that was the worst part. Talk about a first impression!

Also another thing, when we were about to leave, nobody said goodbye to us, or asked us to ‘come again’ in a friendly way. I’m not even sure they even saw us leaving!

But lucky for them, the food wasn't a big dissapointment, I could let the door mishap go. (But I will make sure to be treated with more respect).

Will I go there again? No, I rather try a new restaurant. But I wont mind having some for take away.

But would I recommend it? Yeah, its worth trying, esp if you love Lebanese food. But don’t expect to be treated like a king.

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* The first & last pictures are taken form the restaurant's facebook group

Link:

• Facebook Group