Knafeh Nabulseyeh — Restaurant in Melbourne

The last afternoon before my housemate starts working more than full time, we took probably our last chance for quite a while to visit Knafeh Nabulseyeh for the first time, even if it's just up the road.

We were not disappointed.

Arabic coffee, strong.

Palestinian sweets, delicious.

The people, very friendly and open to discussion.

The smaller photos on the wall, a test of general knowledge for me at least - from memory I think I recognised four people including Nasser and Castro and a boxer who was the greatest.

The enormous photo taking up much of one wall, a beautiful black and white shot of Nablus.

There's more I could say about the casual atmosphere and unpretentious but deliberate interior design, but it's good to leave some little surprises.

I only sampled four of the sweets but they were all very much worth experiencing.

(I also walked out with the name of an Egyptian musician I was advised to look up.)

I'll try more of what's on offer when I go again, unfortunately by myself, probably this weekend.

But as we were leaving a few groups and individuals came in to order and they seemed to have been there before; though only opening very recently, they already have some enthusiastic...

Knafeh is not easy to get right. It's delicate in its structure and proportionality yet explosive in its flavour, followed by a warm melting sensation. But to top it off, my experience with it is top tier, as I've been lucky enough to have visited Nablus myself and eaten knafeh from its most prominent source, having withstood the test of time and the devastating destruction of war and usurpation.

While I am very fortunate to have had knafeh in the heart of Nablus, it does set the bar rather high, making it difficult for anything to match it in the future.

However, Knafeh Nabulseyeh made such a dauntingly difficult task look easy, as the knafeh took me back to 2018, to be my 16 year old self who went from having just tasted the most bitter defeat of his life in the quarter finals of the Qatar international Arabic debating competition to suddenly being hit by a seemingly novel wave of sweetness.

My experience with Knafeh Nabulseyeh was nostalgic and spectacular, to say the least, and on top of that, meeting Nada (one of the wonderful staff there) was great too.

I'll definitely be back there (probably tomorrow lol) for...

AVOID! AVOID!! AVOID!!! I would give this place five NEGATIVE stars if I could. They simply are crooks in the guise of businesspeople. Very rude to customers, especially towards kids, refuses to give you receipt for items you have purchased, and this certainly is not a place you would want to visit to taste a different culture's food (it might put you off of that whole culture, which I trust is not as condescending as these people present them to be). I can't believe they are doing a customer facing business with the way they treat people. Just look at some of the previous reviews and how the owner/representative of the store replies to criticisms. They lie through their teeth to make the reviewer look bad!

BTW I want to pre-empt the very ill-mannered person who replies to the reviews that has any sort of criticism - "OFCOURSE I WON'T BE COMING BACK' and most people won't once they experience your fake-smile wearing arrogant staff, trust me!

EDIT to address the reply given: Finally, an original response! I am thrilled to see you are able to reply without the same 'catchphrase' you always use - i.e., "Don't come...