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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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I don't know about the rest of you, but Melbourne has suddenly been hit with cold, miserable weather. The type where all you want to do is stay in bed with the electric blanket on and watch dvds. However, it is also good weather for soup!

This mug may look normal size but I assure you it is massive.
This warm, tasty soup will be my lunch for the rest of the week with some nice grainy toasted bread. Just the thing I'll need when I'm at work, especially because I won't have to wonder down the street to find lunch in the freezing cold!

The spices used provide a nice middle eastern flavour, and the kick of chilli will definitely help to warm me up. I have a feeling I will be making this soup quite a few times this winter!

Moroccan Sweet Potato, Carrot & Chickpea Soup
Annette Forrest (www.taste.com.au)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large brown onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
600g orange sweet potato, peeled, diced
500g carrots, peeled, sliced
6 cups reduced-salt chicken stock
300g can chickpeas, drained, rinsed
1/2 small lemon, juiced
Turkish bread croutons (see note), to serve

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes. Stir in coriander, cumin and chilli powder. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add sweet potato and carrot. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes. Add stock. Cover. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes.

2. Add chickpeas to soup and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or until chickpeas are tender.

3. Blend soup, in batches, until smooth. Return to saucepan over medium-low heat. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Heat, stirring, until hot (do not boil). Ladle into bowls. Top with croutons. Sprinkle with pepper.

Serves 4.

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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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My friends and I have started a little tradition this year called "International Cuisine Night". We choose a cuisine other than your traditional Italian, Thai, Indian, etc and sample the delicacies.

This time around we went for tapas.
We originally wanted to try the award winning MoVida, but we settled on the idea of Mecca Bah in Melbourne's Docklands.
Unfortunately they don't take bookings, so we got there fairly early and found there was still a few seats available for us to dine.

The restaurant has a gorgeous atmosphere, with plently of tea light candles and lovely Moroccan inspired crockery. As the restaurant is sitted ontop of the water and shaped a bit like the front of a boat, you get the impression you are on a fairly large cruise ship, without the sea-sickness! (A real bonus for people like me).
Large boats with their fairy lights pass the restaurant, giving this place a very romantic feel.

We started off with some breads and dip, as well as these sweet potato felafels with tahini sauce. Both were very nice, excuse the not so good photography, it was rather dark in the restaurant!

Next up we decided to share a Turkish pizza: roast pumpkin, chilli, pomegranate jam & feta. This was really delicious, the pomegrante jam was blobbed over the pizza and gave it a really nice sweet taste, whilst the chilli added a nice kick to the taste buds.

We also decided to share a tagine as the table next to us had one and it looked so yum! We got the chicken with tomatoes, almond, sesame seeds & honey tagine with cous cous. I have never had cous cous cooked so nicely! (I had a bad experience on a school camp. You seriously could have built a house with our cous cous).
The chicken practically melted off the bone. Probably an excess of corriander in this dish for me, and some random nuts included which we are still un-decided if we like or not.

Service was pretty good, trying to do a few upsells when ordering but we had a lovely experience at Mecca Bah and will be back for more!

Full Menu Available at: http://www.meccabah.com/melb/index.html

Mecca Bah is also in Brisbane and Canberra.


After some cocktails in Fitzroy we ended up at Brunetti's yet again! I've been there way too many times lately, haven't taken photos of everything I've eaten but this mint chocolate mousse deserves it's own special mention.

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