Tarboush: Lamb-Licking Gorgeous!

When given the choice between 2 places that serve the same type of cuisine, share the same name but are pitted against each other in terms of status-quo - pick the more affluent location. Ok, brand me a snob (see if I cry a river!) but trust you me - I've never been wrong. When it comes down to tastebud testing, I know exactly what I'm doing.

So, last weekend... while we were shamelessly galavanting around Bukit Bintang, with not much to do and hungry, we were hard-pressed to choose between "Tarboush" (the riff-raff location) or "Tarboush" (the Starhill location), I picked the latter - naturally!



For starters the Tarboush at the ground floor of the very glitzy "Starhill Gallery" is in the company of a few other very good restaurants. So, they really have to up the ante to draw the clientele in. The ambience is cozy and very traditional. If you've been to a typical Lebanese place in Dubai, you'll know what I'm talking about - the style of the furniture, the faint whiff of double apple shisha. Strangely enough, I can't seem to remember hearing Ame Dhiab or any other kind of arabic music... just the chattering away of the people next to us.



For starters (this time it's the food kind!) we ordered Hummous with meat. It was gorgeous. The meat was succulent, soft and added just the right saltiness to the hummous when scooped into the mouth with a piece of pita bread. One must be warned, though - eat this starter slowly because it can really fill you up, as we soon discovered when our mains arrived.



Lamb Maklouba: long grain rice, spiced with cinnamon and cloves with huge chunks of lamb that's literally falling off the bone. It was beautiful. The rice was, the longest grains I've ever seen. The lamb was melt-in-your-mouth gorgeous and so so juicy. The whole thing came together like a beautiful symphony. My husband ordered this and I ended up eating half of it. A little something that made it a little more wonderful was the sour cream that came with it. Get some lamb, collect some rice and scoop a little sour cream, put it in your mouth and you're in heaven!



Spicy Shish Tawook: boneless, white chicken meat grilled with spices. As you already know, I ended up sharing the Lamb Maklouba (which I think is really meant for 2 people) with my husband, so I managed to have just one piece of the shish tawook. It was good - nothing special. But, I doggy-bagged this and it was splendid wrapped in pita and mayo, the next day!

This place is a little more expensive than it's other namesake location. I guess you pay for the ambience and definately better chairs! One thing that I could have paid extra for was a smile from the waiting staff. These lot were milling around distracted and looked like they were underpaid and fed up with the world. In the other loacation (in riff-raff world) you can just see that the waiting staff are having a good time. Something to do with expectations perhaps???

Here's what we ate and drank:

Hummous with Meat
Lamb Maklouba
Spicy Shish Tawook
Fresh Watermelon Juice
Ice Mango Juice
Bottled Water

Total Bill: RM 150 (not bad considering the shish tawook ended up as a very tasty lunch the next day!)

Laterz peeps!