Restaurant review: Arabesque

Arabesque,
The Podium,
Bath

Upon arriving at Arabesque one can’t help but be reminded that you are in the food court of a shopping mall. The intimate ambience and authentic décor feels a little wasted on a diner who can’t help but notice all the neighbouring restaurants.

Luckily for Arabesque the severe lack of space is their only noticeable shortcoming. With such delicately flavoured food, every morsel leaves you more enchanted with Lebanese cuisine, and the attentive, but discreet staff more enamoured with Arabesque.

Arriving on a Saturday evening at 8 o’clock with no booking is surely folly under normal circumstances. However, my companion and I were swiftly shown to a beautiful decorative wooden table in the cosy restaurant and, despite being seated next to a gaggle of female students, we managed to achieve an admirable level of privacy for such close quarters.

After much deliberation we opted to share an ensemble of hot and cold mezza -a sort of Lebanese tapas - at £3.95 per item. A short way into dining my companion made the rather astute observation that the lynchpin holding together our entire meal was the Laban Bi-Khyar, a simple yoghurt dish with cucumber, mint and garlic. It would be easy to dismiss this as a mere accompaniment, and not worthy of the price tag. But you’d be wrong. Like every other mezza we sampled, the Leban Bi-Khyar was soft, smooth and so delicately flavoured it was positively endearing.

It was unanimously decreed that our favourite dish was the Sujiq, a small bowl with four Armenian sausages in it. Just enough to share equally you’d think, but three sausages in my companion was desperately bargaining to gain the lion’s share. These are sausages worth fighting over. Each bite breaks apart in your mouth in such a pleasant manner, leaving you to savour the taste rather than bother with all that tiresome chewing.

Each dish we chose was picked according to our individual tastes, yet they all complimented each other wonderfully. The unleavened bread we received free of charge was ideal for mopping up the irresistible medley of leftover sauces still clinging to our plates. The entire meal came to just under £25, including 2 soft drinks. We left the restaurant feeling perfectly satisfied; not bloated, just content.