Extrovert Cafe

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner
Price: 5.5 BHD
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Buffet
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: Yes (shisha mainly)

It's been a long time!  I've been eating carnivore for the past several months, so my eating out has been limited.  I'm in Bahrain again for work for the next two weeks, so at last I can start reviewing restaurants again.

Unfortunately, it's Ramadan, which means my options are quite limited.  There's plenty of food after 6:30pm, but most everyone is running an Iftar buffet, and I'm not exactly a night owl.  Lunches will probably be quite dull, or if I'm lucky, leftovers.

I got in yesterday in the morning and we got to our hotel by late morning.  We ended up eating at the only restaurant in the hotel that is still open at that time, the "main" one where people who get free meals eat.  It's partitioned off with screens so we don't bother those keeping the fast.  Apparently the only restaurants allowed to be open during the day are like these that are sequestered within hotels.  Let's just say it wasn't really worth reviewing.

I'm staying at the Gulf Hotel, which has an insane amount of restaurants here normally.  I've actually reviewed the Italian place once before.  Many of these are simply shut down all month, and the rest only open in the evening for Iftar.

I managed to stay up until the evening, and since I knew of a decent shisha spot nearby, I figured I'd eat dinner there at Iftar as well.  I found the Extrovert cafe the last time I was here, while hunting for different shisha spots.  I guess I never ate there though, as there is no review up.  It was another buffet of course, but not a bad price at 5.5 BD.  We were allowed to start loading plates up around 6pm, but had to wait for the official announcement to start eating at 6:24pm (it changes slightly each day).

The food was just ok, nothing spectacular, as I usually find is the case with most buffets.  I've never really been as fond of them.  I may end up back here again to smoke shisha, but probably won't partake of the buffet again.

Arabella

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner
Price:  1000 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes:  2 chicken shishkabob
English Menu:Yes
Smoking:Yes

Arabella is the reincarnation of Bravo Yokosuka, owned by the same generous man, Mohammed.  Someone pointed out I hadn't reviewed it yet, so I remedied that last night.  The menus is similar to the old one, with shawarma, chicken shishkabob, and some burgers.  I still think the chicken sticks are some of the best around, and way bigger than anything you get at a yakitori place.  It does take a while to cook anything though, which is good as you always get that char-grilled flavor.  The vibe is more of a bar than Bravo was, and they are right on the honch.  Apparently they are doing shisha after midnight, but I'll never be up that late.

Operation Falafel

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch for 5
Price: 200 AED
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Falafel, falafel sandwiches, zatar pizza, beef shawarma plate, hommous and bread bowl
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

We just arrived in Dubai and ate for lunch near where our Airbnb is in Jumeriah Beach Residence.  We walked around eventually settled on Operation Falafel, a funky modern take on lebanese food.  It was delicious, and we all enjoyed it thoroughly.

Beef shawarma plate

Zatar pizza

Grilled haloumi cheese

Hommous bread bowl

Shawarma

Falafel sandwich

Al Mrzab

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch for 5
Price: 312 AED
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Hummous, mutabbel, kuwaiti style lamb, mixed grill, vegetables, arabic coffee
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

We are visiting my dad in Abu Dhabi at the moment and today we went to one of their favorite local restaurants called Al Mrzab.  Aside from the usual Gulf arabic food they also serve Emerati and Kuwaiti specialties.

Saffron drink

They brought us pre-drinks which were saffron flavored shots.  It was interesting, but a bit sweet.  We ordered hummous and mutabbel, which came with as much bread as we wanted.  The bread was delicious, freshly baked, flat bread.  We ordered a lamb dish kuwaiti style, which we were told was baked and then set on rice, instead of cooked with the rice like the Emerati style.  We also ordered a mixed grill of several types of kebab.

Dates

It was all very delicious of course, and while I would rate this Excellent in Japan, here in the Gulf it was a very high Very Good.  I was also pretty impressed with the price, costing about $80 for the 5 of us.

Hommous, muttabbel, veg and bread

Kuwaiti style lamb

Mixed grill

Arabic coffee to finish

Moses Kebab

Rating: OK
Meal: Lunch
Price: 750 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes:  Coffee, shawarma cup
English Menu: No
Smoking: Yes

I was in Tokyo this weekend doing various things and one of those involved meeting some friends near Akihabara station.  Prior to this I needed to grab lunch, so I was looking forward to eating at one of the better shawarma stands I've tried in Japan located right in the middle of the Akihabara electronics/anime/maid cafe area.  Unfortunately, it had been replaced by a less appetizing version of a shawarma stand (one lacking lamb kebab), and it was closed at the rather early hour I showed up.  So I walked back to a shawarma spot I had seen nearer the station.

Shawarma cup

It was pretty early and I wasn't ready to eat yet, so I asked if I could just order a coffee and sit down in their upstairs seating area until about 10am which was the earliest I could envision eating lunch.  They obliged, despite the fact that they didn't have coffee on the menu, and I was able to sit quietly by myself, listening to a podcast, charging my iphone, and enjoying the air conditioning.  Eventually I got hungry enough and ordered a shawarma cup, basically meat with some shredded cabbage, tomato and sauce.  It was really quite good, though the taste is still not what I crave when I think of shawarma in the middle east.  It just lacks the spices.  The tomatoes were really delicious and ripe.

Moses runs the place and he's quite fun to talk to.  I would possibly stop by here again some day if I'm looking for a low carb, pleasant spot to cool down, especially in the summer.  Prices are good too.

Al Jebal

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch for 3
Price:  $50
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  Baked lamb, Tandoori chicken combo, tabbouleh, falafel
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

We were driving along the road in Corvallis the other day when my eye spotted a "middle eastern" restaurant and market sign.  We stopped and I bought some spices from the market which is very well stocked, and vowed to return to try the food, which we did today.

Falafel

The restaurant bills itself as "middle eastern" but the food is pretty standard lebanese/arabic fare, despite the use of words like "indian tandoori".  My son ordered the chicken tandoori combo which consisted of two different types of yoghurt marinated boneless chicken pieces on a bed of rice with a small salad included.  We tacked on some extras to each dish and to his we added labneh, a thick yoghurt sauce.  I had the baked lamb, which was very tender lamb falling off of the bone.  My extra was called baba ghanouj, but we would have called it moutabel in Kuwait as it was the roasted creamy eggplant dip.  Baba ghanouj is more the fresh, vinagery eggplant dip over there.  Anyway, it was delicious.  The rice can be either kabsa (based on a Saudi Arabian rice) or yellow rice, basmati either way.  The kabsa was the  more spiced and flavorful of the two.  My wife decided to eat off of our plates and ordered some falafel and tabbouleh salad, which we all agreed was unnecessary as the portions were so enormous, but it was nice to taste those things again as well.

Tabbouleh

Overall we were super thrilled with it and if we lived here we'd be eating there every other week probably.  Corvallis is lucky to have such a great spot in town.

Baked lamb with moutabel

Chicken tandoori combo with labneh

Cafe Mediterranean

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch for 3
Price:  2017 php
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: falafel, tabouleh, moutabel, pesto feta pine nut pizza, shish tawouk, lamb tikka, syrian vegeterian kibbeh, sweet and salty laban (lassi on the menu)
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

We decided to watch a movie that was showing at the Rockwell Power Plant mall which is pretty nearby.  We scouted the place out and had lunch at Cafe Mediterranean, an arabic food restaurant with many of our favorite dishes from the Gulf area on the menu.  We weren't expecting much but we were blown away by the flavors and quality of the food.  The service was also great, with the staff looking like they really enjoyed what they were doing.

tabouleh and moutabel

We ordered an array of our favorites:  falafel, moutabel, tabouleh, shish tawouk, and lamb tikka.  In addition we tried a pesto feta pine nut pizza for my son and they had a special Syrian food recipe in remembrance of the troubles there currently that we ordered a delicious vegetarian fried kibbeh.  Everything was out of this world and whole experience was just a hair under an Excellent (but of course we've had so much Arabic food that we know it can be a bit better).  Certainly better than anything we've had in Japan and way, way cheaper.

falafel

I highly recommend trying the spot out if you're in the Makati area and looking for some good Arabic food.  Definitely the best meal we've had so far this trip.

vegetarian kibbeh

Shish tawouk

Lamb tikka

Feta, pesto and pine nut pizza

Haifa Cafeteria

Rating: Very good
Meal:  Lunch
Price:  2.700 BHD
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: 2 chicken shawarma, 2 meat shawarma, 1 falafel plate
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Haifa Cafeteria's location is known among the Americans here as "Shawarma Alley".  There are 3 or 4 different restaurants here, but the one most people start at Haifa Cafeteria.  It's got a nice inside area that is air conditioned, which probably part of it.  When I say "nice" it's fairly clean and the flies aren't too annoying.  This is not fine dining, for that you can walk five minutes and have all the fancy expensive restaurants you want as this is Adliya.

My wife really wanted good shawarma before she went home to Japan, so we decided to take a taxi over to this area for some shisha and dinner.  The weather is finally getting nicer and the humidity is spotty depending on the day.  We were lucky and it was pleasant after the sun went down.

We ordered 2 chicken and 2 meat shawarma, and she also wanted falafel so we ordered a plate.  We each ate a half of a chicken and a meat shawarma and then switched.  That plus the falafel meant we were taking the other two shawarmas home.

The best part about the sharmas is the bread, which is closer to paratha style than pita.  They really are very good, but I think I prefer the chicken as the meat is a bit chewey.  Overall, very good.

Shawarma Xpress

Rating: Not great
Meal: Lunch
Price: 2.1 BHD
Payment: Cash only (probably)
Dishes: Beef shawarma, french fries, water
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

I was warned, but I had to try.  Shawarma Xpress is not very good at all.  Very bland textureless meat, tahini that was spiked with some sort of vinegar swamping all flavors.  It flattened all taste to nothing.  The water was fine.