Tag Archives | restaurant

The Hangout Gemmayze

By Rami on February 21, 2013 in Reviews

After blogging about their competition last week, The Hangout were kind enough to invite for a dinner two days ago.

The first thing you’ll notice when entering the place, is that unlike what its name tells, The Hangout is more of a fine dining restaurant than a place to really hangout at with your friends. It’s nicely decorated, spacious with indoor and outdoor areas unlike most of the places in the neighborhood, and the staff is quite friendly and welcoming.

We sampled the following items from their menu:

Onion soup (11,000 L.L)
Foie Gras (26,000 L.L)
Chicken rolls (13,000 L.L)
Pan fried mushroom with halloum (13,000 L.L)
Charcoal grilled sojok (14,000 L.L)
Beef Stroganoff (27,000 L.L)
The Hangout gourmet burger (24,000 L.L)
Fondant au chocolat (12,000 L.L)
Pain perdu (13,000 L.L)

Given that The Hangout is still operating in soft opening stage, I found the food to be quite good. I totally loved the Foie gras, the chicken rolls, the fried mushroom, the grilled sojok, and their gourmet burger. I also overheard at an adjacent table that the salad bar is pretty good too. The other items were good as well, but I thought they could be improved a bit.

For example, I would have preferred the onion soup to be a little thicker, and the beef stroganoff meat a bit tender. The desserts on the other hand need to be re-worked, and don’t get me wrong, they’re seriously not bad, but I personally believe a great dessert can turn an average meal into a memorable event, and that’s what one would expect from a place like The Hangout.

Anyway, the overall experience was very pleasant, and the restaurant’s atmosphere alone can set you in a good mood even if you just went there for some drinks or wine at the bar. It’s definitely worth a try.

The Hangout Gemmayze offering platters for 1 Lebanese Lira

By Rami on February 9, 2013 in Lebanon

I just stumbled upon this cool offer by The Hangout restaurant on Facebook. They’re challenging people to come on February 12th and 13th with an authentic Lebanese Lira which can buy them a platter of their choice on these two days!

I’m sure many people still have authentic liras in their drawers, and I hope there’s no trick behind The Hangout’s offer. Anyway, for more about The Hangout, you can check out their Facebook page here.

Enab restaurant employees break into IndyACT offices

By Rami on February 4, 2013 in What the fuck!

If you think restaurants that are being criticized for breaking law 174 (smoking ban) in Lebanon might be feeling a bit ashamed of what they’re doing, then you’re definitely wrong, those restaurants are actually getting ruder by the moment!

One of these restaurant is Enab in Gemmayze, who has basically never respected law 174 and always allowed its customer to smoke indoor. In response to that, IndyACT decided to use their office, which is located right next to Enab, in order to put up a huge banner calling the restaurant to abide by the law, and next thing they knew was Enab’s employees breaking into their offices to take down the banner!

Fortunately, IndyACT later got an official permit from the municipality of Beirut to put the poster up again. But I wonder what difference will it make when these restaurants already feel like they have so much power to actually break the law and get away with it while their customers are happy! It’s maybe up to the few of us to boycott them for what they’re doing.

via A Separate State of Mind

Cheyef 7alak discriminating against Lebanese for a change

By Rami on January 16, 2013 in Lebanon

Make sure to check the below video. In response to discrimination against foreign workers in Lebanon, Cheyef 7alak decided to reserve a whole restaurant for a group of foreigners and for once turn away the Lebanese who tried to enter and have a dinner there!

Hotdog & Beyond

By Rami on January 15, 2013 in Reviews

Earlier last week I was invited to the opening of Hotdog & Beyond‘s new branch in Hamra. For those of you who don’t know about it yet, Hotdog & Beyond is a new restaurant that opened back in August 2012 at Le Mall Dbayeh, obviously specialized in serving frankfurters as well as burgers. They opened second branch in Hamra just last week, and I was informed a third branch is set to open in Zalka sometime soon.

When I first heard about it, I personally thought Hotdog & Beyond’s items will be close to what we’re used to eat at places like Charlie’s or Freddy’s, but I was wrong, Hotdog & Beyond offers a totally different taste and experience.

The restaurant interior is catchy and makes you feel like you’re walking into one of New York’s small restaurants. Seats are comfy, and there’s enough space between the tables. And what grabs your attention at first is probably the complimentary bucket of peanuts offered to you before making your order.

Hotdog & Beyond’s menu has around 20 selections of frankfurters ranging between 9,750L.L and 16,000L.L, along with 10 selections of burgers starting 13,000L.L and up to 18,750L.L. The owners were generous enough and served us an item from each category including the appetizers and desserts!

The appetizers are mainly platters of fries with different topping on them. We tried the Four Cheese Fries and Con Carne Fries, I personally preferred the latter which has spicy minced meat (tastes a bit like Soujouk) with cheddar cheese on top.

For the hotdog, I decided to try their signature sandwich, the HD&B, wich is made of fried hotdog, red pepper, mushrooms, onions, 4cheese & pesto mayo sauce. To my surprise, the hotdog was cut into pieces, unlike the other varieties that had the hotdog in one piece. Anyway, the sandwich tasted really good and seriously different than any other frankfurter I had elsewhere. Every bite I had was full of taste, and the bread was just perfect, fresh and soft.

As for the burger, I tried what I usually order at other places, the Swiss Mushroom Burger, which was mouthwatering and great as well! It can easily make Hotdog & Beyond one of the restaurant you will be considering when you want to have a good burger.

Finally, and although I was full, the owners still insisted that I try 2 selections of their desserts, the strawberry cheescake, and a waffle with chocolate sauce, Nestle condensed milk, and scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Both tasted good too, but I personally would have preffered the soft waffle to be crispier on the outside.

My overall experience was great, and I’m not saying that just because I got invited, but because Hotdog & Beyond are really bringing something new to town, and therefore it is totally recommended. Moreover, if they succeed at maintaining their good taste and service, I believe they will be serious competitors to big names in the market, especially that their prices are quite affordable when compared to other diners in Beirut.

The french onion soup at Duo

By Rami on December 28, 2012 in Reviews

French onion soup is one of the upsides of winter for me. Most restaurants here serve it in regular soup bowls along with croutons, while few other serve it in bread bowl after scooping out the inside of it, and one of these restaurants is Duo (Downtown, Verdun, ABC Ashrafieh, and ABC Dbayeh).

I recently had Duo’s onion soup and found it pretty good. It was thick enough to my taste with the right amount of cheese on top of it, and the portion is relatively big and completely fulfilling. Totally recommended even though it’s a bit overpriced at 15,500L.L but worth the money.

Duo by the way is also quite famous for their rich salad bar priced at 22,000L.L.

BRGR Co. opening in London

By Rami on November 7, 2012 in Lebanon

I was quite surprised to read about BRGR Co. opening its first outlet outside Lebanon in London, since we’re basically used to burger restaurants from the US and Europe coming to our region and not the other way around.

A new burger restaurant is set to open in London’s Soho next month, with the launch of BRGR.CO as the first site for the Beirut-based company.

BRGR.CO will use 28-day-aged beef from the Duke of Buccleuch Estate in south-west Scotland. Focusing on simplicity, the restaurant will serve a menu of three classic choices of burger: the 4oz, 6oz or 8oz with optional toppings of cheese or chilli-con-carne. A selection of traditional American-inspired sides, milkshakes and desserts will complete the menu offering.

The 55-seat restaurant will feature floor-to-ceiling windows as well as dark oak tables and chairs. A selection of character cow heads will be featured throughout the restaurant, which will be regularly auctioned with proceeds going to local London charities.

Located on Wardour Street, BRGR.CO Soho will be the first UK venue for the brand that operates two sites in Beirut. Source

It would be cool by the way if they also offered the Lebanese burger (the one that has the salad and fries inside it) on their menu there in London!!

The syndicate of owners of restaurants in Lebanon are a bunch of retards

By Rami on November 5, 2012 in What the fuck!

I was surprised today to see the Syndicate of Owners of Restaurants in Lebanon is now calling for a protest on Wednesday at Sodeco to amend the anti-smoking law (law 174) and make it “more fair”. More fair as in allowing restaurants to apply for special permits to allow indoor smoking at their premises, and next thing you know everyone is getting a permit!

Check how pathetic the poster is, “Are you sick of having to smoke outside already ? Wait until winter starts…”, that’s how basically those restaurants owners are asking people to join their protest, and second-hand smoker at indoor places can of course fuck off!

What’s even more rediculous is that they’re calling the activisits who pushed for this law to be implemented as “a bunch of stupid people”. In fact, for calling to amend such law, the Syndicate of Owners of Restaurants in Lebanon and the people advising them should be aware that they’re actually a bunch of retards!

Protestors in Tripoli burned down KFC

By Rami on September 14, 2012 in What the fuck!

This is insane… as a response to the movie insulting Prophet Mohamad (PBUH), protestors in Tripoli have burned down one of the KFC restaurants in the city! What kind of logic is that…?!

Photo via Racha El Halabi

Update:

Photo via Nour

Shake Shack is coming to Lebanon!

By Rami on August 10, 2012 in Lebanon

I just learned Al-Shayaa is soon bringing Shack Shack to Lebanon! In case you’re not familiar with it, Shake Shack is a pretty famous burger joint in New York and several other cities in the states, and has expanded to the Middle East over the last couple of years with restaurants opening in Dubai and Kuwait.

From what I read online by people who have tried the burgers at Shake Shack, it seems like they taste really good! So I really can’t wait for them to open here.

Now of course the question is where will Shake Shack be located and when is the opening taking place?

photo via GadgetLam

Update:

According to Raja, Shake Shack will be opening at Beirut City Centre.

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