Byblos Lebanese Cuisine

Category:

Restaurants Restaurants > Lebanese

Products and Services:

Still, there is plenty more to fill you, like fat discs of falafel ($7.95 for the combination platter), lighter and more cake-like than most renditions. Or chicken shawarma ($8.95 for the combination platter), which looks naked and unattractive shredded in a small pile, but tastes much better, especially when doused with toum, a pungent, creamy garlic sauce. Ordered as a combination platter, both meals arrived with ample baskets of thin pita and two salads, including a choice of hummus, minty tabbouleh, or fattoush, the latter which seemed more like an American version of salad than the traditional pita and vegetable combination.

Specialties:

Byblos' desserts, however, dissolve any disappointments in a pool of sweetness. I'm a sucker for baklava ($2.50), and here it is conventional, drenched in honey, packed full of nuts and cinnamon, just perfect. And unless you have a penchant for the impenetrable crust of maamoul cookies ($2), skip them in favor of a slice of nammoura ($2), an ultra-moist, coconut-rich semolina cake. Needless to say, a meal at Byblos is inexpensive. Four of us tallied up a bill of $44 and left the table more than satisfied. Because if I hadn't, I would have ordered a taste of the milder, tomato-soup red country-style hummus I'd somehow missed when ordering the first time. I'll get it next time though. That and a cheese pie.

Brands:

Orders of both moussaka ($5.95) and kibbeh ($6.95) also produced versions different from my other experiences of these dishes. Rather than being a hot combination of melting cheese, tomato sauce, and layered eggplant, Byblos' moussaka is a cold chunky salad of eggplant, chickpeas, tomatoes, and onion. It's tasty, but those with their heart set on the layered dish will be puzzled. Byblos serves both meat and vegetarian versions of kibbeh, and if you're more accustomed to a meat version with fragrant and savory spicing, you may find Byblos' kibbeh a little bland, as I did.