Arabesque Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Melbourne

Dinner @ArabesqueMelbourne which is a Jordanian restaurant so why not try their national dish, Mansaf: slow cooked lamb or chicken in jameed sauce over saaj and rice dressed with fried split almonds, parsley with sides soaked onion and jameed sauce.

An interesting looking dish is presented. A bowl of soup, a pile of rice oozing something, succulent lamb, split almonds, and red onions. The waiter explained that traditionally one empties the sauce (what I mistook for a bowl of soup!!!) over the rice, add the onions, and mix it all up. I had a taste of the sauce which is a little cheese like, it's actually from the fermented dried yoghurt which is what the lamb is cooked in and possibly the rice. The lamb is superb and just pulls apart. I love this sauce and the rice is fragrant, soft and just absorbs that delicious sauce without going soggy. First time eating Jordanian food and what a dish to eat! It is a heavy meal and true to the waiter's word, one does start to feel sleepy later on! Fortunately I had finished work! Excellent meal as well as the warm friendly service.

Another dinner visit to try the national dish of Palestine, Musakhan: slow-cooked chicken, onion, sumac on taboon with sides pickle & khiyar b’laban

This is such a unique dish, like nothing I've eaten before. Akin to a pizza, this Iraqi bread is thin, fried, slightly crunchy and yet soft, topped with caramelised onions, roasted slivered almonds, sumac, and slow cooked chicken that falls apart, and probably an array of spices. Tear a piece of the bread, ensure all ingredients are present and enjoy. Taking a bit of the yoghurt helps counteract the richness from the frying and there are also pickled green chillies for a little kick. Each bite is amazing and this is such an enjoyable meal, including excellent service, makes for an excellent experience.

Another dinner visit for mashawi: char-grilled lamb, chicken, kofta skewers with grilled onion, tomato, chilli and sides hommus, toum, salad & chips or rice.

A very generous and hearty meal, lifting the pita reveals a medally of meats and variety on the plate. I started with the lamb chop which was cooked perfectly and oozed smokiness and char flavour from the grill which is superb. Next was the chicken which also had its own unique char flavour and was tasty. A BBQ grilled onion adds sweetness and the same for the tomato intensifying the flavour. A charred chilli adds some kick. The hommus is fantastic, I couldn't get enough of it. The salad is much needed with that burst of freshness to counteract the meatiness on the plate. I enjoyed the kofta, soft, tender and less intense but allowing the flavours to shine through. The lamb was the only negative. While evoking smokiness, it was chewy and a bit of gristle. Despite that, I loved the dish and the flavours presented. Another fantastic dining experience.

#JordanianFood #dinner #Musakhan #slowcookedchicken #Iraqibread #CaramelisedOnions #almonds #mansaf #slowcookedlamb #rice #jameedsauce #almonds #redonions #skewers #BBQ #lamb #chicken #kofta #hommus #toum #foodie #foodcoma #melbournecbd...

Never ever recommended

A ridiculously disgusting place that anybody would ever imagine.

Customer service : horrible and very poor. Short staff always compromises the quality of the service which was quite evident in this restaurant.

Food quality : below average and we witnessed how it was cooked with rush and very less attention to the taste and quality of the food

Environment: very tiny and no room to move around the tables. People were bumping into each other with no whatsoever privacy in their tables and sitting areas. It looked more like a college cafeteria.

The food was not enough and the plates were dirty with water leaking a around them. They didn’t even bother to dry up the plates … really disgusting

Our experience:

My family and I booked the Iftar Buffet ( Break Fast - Dinner ) Over the phone we were told 55 per head but when we reached to the restaurant they charged us more. Further to that , for Iftar, it is really important to have the food ready to be served right on time ( approximately 6pm that day ) to be served straightaway however, the dinning area was not even ready by that time. All the guest with their little ones had to be directed to a waiting area on a first floor mezzanine with a dangerous stair case. The allocated waiting area was also freezing which the families were clearly not comfortable at all. Later on when the guests were directed to down stairs to sit on their tables, the food was not yet ready…. Staff were rushing around . Regardless the food was also significant delayed and then once the serving began the buffet area was so tiny and never enough for that number of people at all. For instance one little soup pot was allocated for that many people … you imagine …it wasted a good 15 minutes of everybody’s time for a small bowl of soup. The bowls were just washed with leaking water around them. You should have technically closed your eyes on their cleanliness otherwise you would have walked out starving …

The dessert options were very limited and there was a tasteless ice tea and a disgusting whatsoever Turkish coffee ( no where near Turkish coffee ) was served

The very first time ever I could have seen that my little ones rejected the chips ( French fries ) was in this place. When I asked my child why don’t you eat your chips … they are gross and slurpy … he replied

The resentments and unhappiness was quite visible on people’s face.

Over all it was a disgusting place and never worth it for the money we paid and the time we wasted in there. A once off experience which will never ever...

Arabesque was a restaurant in at the edge of the Melbourne CBD serving Jordanian/Middle Eastern cuisine. They also served shisha with a variety of amazing fruity/food-themed flavors. We went there for dinner and ordered a number of dishes to share; some chips, dips trio, and vegie trio to start with, kabsa, mansaf, and mashawi for the mains, and ruz ib haleeb and halawet el jibn for desserts. The chips were just like any other thick-cut chips with no middle eastern-type seasoning/sauce. The dips and vegie trios were delicious; the toum, moutabel and hummus dips were so flavorful, and so were the char-grilled zucchini, eggplant and crispy cauliflower in the vegie trio. The Kabsa, which was chicken cooked in spiced rice, had a nice sweet flavour to it thanks to the sultanas, but otherwise the dish tasted monotonously sour. The Mashawi (marked as ‘platter of two’ on the menu, was actually 2 big trays of food enough to feed 10 lol) was rather uninteresting; the two trays consisted of all kinds of grills which were not too different from your average bbq, although the fattoush salad that came with it was nice and refreshing. The Mansaf was my favourite; the slow cooked lamb was so tender and the rice it came with had a nice texture of sliced almonds. Desserts-wise the ruz ib haleeb was a simple pistachio-flavoured rice pudding which was pretty good although after having so much rice as mains the last thing we wanted was more rice. Also pistachio-flavoured was the unique Halawet el jibn, which was rolls filled with cream that somehow had a bit of savoury in it. Another thing we’d noticed was the inconsistent portions; for example, as entrees, the chips was served in small bowl but the dips and vegies were generous in portion. Similarly, the Mansaf was served with tiny bowl of tabouli, whereas the Masawi came with a generous serving of Fattoush. Non-food wise, the dim-lit restaurant gave off a cool, cosy ambiance, and the servers were very friendly although food was not served very promptly. Overall, a pretty average, non-memorable...