Lezzet is a hidden gem. My friends and I stumbled upon it on one of our international cuisine nights, but I stupidly left my camera at home that night so a few of us went back again just recently. Since then, there has been a massive renovation and the place is more stunning than ever. Lots of mood lighting and middle eastern ornaments, it really makes you feel "at home".

Unfortunately, one member of our party who has no sense of direction (sorry Andy, I still love you!) was running extremely late, and because we were booked in for 7pm, we were told we would have to leave by 8.15pm as there was a second sitting. This did leave a bit of a sour taste but we ordered and soon our misguided friend arrived and ordered too.

It's easy to see why they have 2 sittings though, the food is amazing. I remember upon my first visit, I the most amazing garlic prawns on a bed of rice. I was keen to try something different, and after lots of umming and ahhing over the many delicious sounding dishes, I opted for the open kofta pizza after seeing George from Masterchef's version. It absolutely did not disappoint. It's been about a month since I went and I'm still drooling just thinking about it.

David had the "giant cous cous" from the specials board. As you can see from the picture, the cous cous is giant! David said it was a very tasty dish, and a massive serving.


Rob also had a pizza, and Rob being Rob went for something that said "traditional". I traded a slice with him, and it was very nice! But I still preferred my kofta pizza.


Andy had the calamari, and he said it was just delicious!

So I suggest, if you are looking at going, book in for the 2nd sitting at 8:30pm, that way you won't be rushed out of the place. There is a good variety of food to suit everyone, including a very good selection of drinks. Desserts sound delicious too, but we ended up going to San Churro in St Kilda since our time was running low and we wanted to have a nice long chat. Stay tuned for that post!

Can anyone reccomend any other good Lebanese places in Melbourne?

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I've been hearing good things about the Moroccan Soup Bar for quite some time now. It is also rated 2nd best restaurant in Melbourne on Urbanspoon, so that must mean something! But just because it might be the 2nd most popular restaurant doesn't mean it's going to be overpriced and in a pretentious environment. Writing this now I realised I forgot to take pictures of the actual restaurant, but you can find some here.

I made a booking 2 weeks in advance, and the only time they could fit in a table of six was at 8:30pm. So I took it, no questions asked! We arrived to find our table with a napkin detailing it was booked for Michele @ 8.30pm, for 6pm. A cute idea we all thought.

Warm minted syrupy water was delivered by our waitress and we were then told there was no menu, it was a spoken menu. She explained it was all vegetarian and we could have the banquet for $20 each which consisted of some dips, mains and sweets. We all agreed this was the way to go and didn't bother to hear the rest of the menu. She confirmed if there were any allergies then went off to grab our entree of dips.

The dips were lovely, with carrots, potatoes, capsicum, broccoli and eggplant as well. Such a nice spread to get the night going.

We were soon ploughing our way through 6 dishes.
We didn't ask what they were, and our waitress didn't explain what they were either, but it didn't matter because it was all really really good.

This was by far the group favorite. Looks like a mess but it was so interesting and amazing. Chickpeas, broken up toasted flat bread, something like a tzatiki kind of dip, all mixed together. It had a rather smokey flavour, but the dip was rather refreshing. So many interesting flavours, all working well together. I'd love to try and recreate this one at home one day.

This one had a yoghurt type sauce with eggplant and a lovely rice. Also very refreshing and delicious.

This one was rice with beans, as you can see! It was also nice, not so much refreshing but very tasty and filling.

This one was rice with vegetables in a humus type sauce. Also really good, seriously there was nothing that wasn't good!

Finally 2 bowls of vegetables with cous cous, soooo nice.

Then it was time for sweets. We received what must have been like a Moroccan coffee, poured freshly at our table by a waitress. We also finished up with a biscuit with pistachio pieces and a date filling. They went really well together, the sweetness of the biscuit and the bitterness of the coffee.

So much food for what seemed like so little money. I would go back in a heartbeat. I didn't miss meat at all, but I was wondering if we were going to be trying soup at the Moroccan Soup Bar.
Lots of people walk in with empty tupperware containers and walk out with full tupperware containers. A nice little idea for takeaway. Definitely looking forward to going back soon!

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David enjoyed these vegetarian pastries. I had the meat version of these which you can see below. The vegetarian version is crunchy pastry, where as the meat version is more of a steamed dumpling. We both agreed that the yoghurt and tomato sauce was just an amazing, refreshing combination.

I'm really looking forward to having these again sometime soon!


No complaints from Tristan with this meal. I believe the sauce supplied went nicely with the kebabs. The meat was juicy and not dry.

Everything was delicious. Service was good, our waiters were great. The ambiance is a little flat. I was getting very sick of the Afghan music playing in the background very quickly, but good friends and conversation helped to drown it out! I can't wait to go back for those dumplings!

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I'm going to apologise now, as this is going to be a bit of a vague review because I can't find the menu online to give you the proper names for each dish! So hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves.

My dear friend Iron Chef David had his birthday at an Indian vegetarian restaurant in Carlton last weekend. Since he is vegetarian and half the group is also vegetarian, us meat eaters happily gave up meat for this special dinner. But to be honest, I didn't even notice the absence of meat as all the dishes were so packed with flavour.


The best thing by far was these dumplings. We still talk about them a week on. We got 2 plates of these as they were only an entree size and we all wanted dumplings. The balsamic syrup helped to compliment the most amazing filling. I probably could have just dined on these all evening, but there were many other dishes we had to cram onto our table and try.

Avocado rolls, in a tempura batter (i think) with a lovely green sauce..... remember I said this was a vague review!
Very nice, crunchy in the right places, and soft in the right places.

These croquettes were delicious, with sweet potato and a nice sweetish sourish sauce. Served with tofu, kim-chi and a few vegetables. They look as good as they taste.

Vegetarian satay sticks. The vegies look like meat but it's all vegetables. The satay sauce was lovely. Served with pickled vegetables and rice.

This is quinoa. Probably my first experience with quinoa and I will say it's yum! Looks like cous cous, similar texture as cous cous, served with a lovely salad and tasted great with the satay.

Soba noodle curry. I love soba noodles, and with a curry soup it was an excellent combination. Packed with tofu, and vegetables, this one would definitely fill you up.

There were a couple more dishes that I didn't get a photo of because we were too busy making room on the table for all the dishes and we were all very hungry!

The restaurant is set in an old house, plenty of seating and the staff were extremely helpful. There is a few options here for vegans as well. I would say bookings are essential as there aren't many Indian vegetarian restaurants in town!

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As I've mentioned before, my friends and I get together every now and then for an "International Cuisine Night".

We originally planned to go Lebanese, but the place we wanted to try had a $50 minimum per person on a Saturday night. With most of us on a budget we said "screw you!" and looked for a much cheaper option.

Korean was the cuisine of choice, and a quick scour of The Age website and we decided to try a place called Goshen.
I was quite excited at the chance to try Korean food again, as I had tried it when I was over in Perth. Possibly even try Korean BBQ if anyone else wanted to try it with me.


We arrived and were greeted pleasantly by a waiter and were promptly shown our table.
First impressions were good, the atmosphere was nice, the place was clean and filled with lots of people eating away.
We received complimentary water and received our menus. The menu didn't have much variety though. It was practically the same dish but with a different type of meat, weather it be chicken, beef, prawns, etc. We even had trouble differentiating between half the stuff on the menu.

I was quite eager to try "Bibimbap" after seeing Food Safari.
Wikipedia defines Bibimbap as: is a popular Korean dish. The word literally means "stirred/mixed rice" or "stirred/mixed meal." For a full description go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibimbap

However, when we received it, it was nothing like what I was expecting. It was more simplified for the Australian pallet it would seem. It was tasty, but I was expecting more vegetables and the egg on top.


The other dish which was chicken in a hot pot with vegetables was rather tasty. Not sure if was traditional Korean but it was good. The only difference between this and the Bibimbap was this didn't have rice.


The vegetarians however we extremely impressed with their tofu-salad. The presentation was even a work of art.


The Kimchi pankcake seemed to be the only thing that had Kimchi in it, despite Kimchi being the most popular side dish in Korea. Some people can't even eat a meal without having Kimchi to accompany it.
This was brought to the table and cut like a Margarita pizza in front of us. It apparently was pretty bland, and non spicy.

If you are looking for authentic Korean, I doubt you are going to find it here. They don't even have Korean BBQ which I thought was standard in Korean restaurants. Prices are reasonable, service is about average. We had to chase up 1 dish that seemed to have gotten lost.

Bookings however I assume are essential. Probably good for people who want to ease their way into Korean cuisine.

Goshen
189 Smith St, Fitzroy
9419-6750

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