Lebanon & Beyond — Restaurant in Sydney

9 months later, I'm eating takeaway due to COVID-19 restrictions on restaurants.

Pro tip: If your order is for $30 or more, it's cheaper to order from their web site, not from a food delivery service. If your order is less than $20, it's almost always cheaper to order from a food delivery service that doesn't have a minimum order size even if the prices are higher.

Original review: I ate here for the first time tonight, and was dining alone. If you're vegan who likes lemon, olive oil, and vinaigrette, and don't stick exclusively to salads/raw food -- or have a vegan friend who fits the previous description, really, try this place.

I'm one of those vegans, and I was surprised at the sheer number of dishes that fit my dietary preferences. I enjoyed both the food AND the restaurant's nonchalant catering for my dietary preferences as if it was no big deal to serve vegan food (which of course it shouldn't be, but is, at many restaurants). Their menu had enough vegan options that I had trouble choosing -- what a GREAT problem to have in Sydney, where most restaurants add seemingly gratuitous egg or dairy to most dishes, including salads! When I'd finally chosen, I'd had to go past a couple dishes that sounded interesting. The server suggested the vegetarian platter ($29) to get more variety since it was my first visit. I pointed out that I had to stick with vegan, and she offered to substitute the one item that wasn't vegan (spinach pie) with a cabbage roll stuffed with rice and tomato that was. I gladly accepted that option, as I'd get to try many things that looked interesting from the menu descriptions, and I hadn't had lunch today.

The platter was generously sized and had more than a taste of MANY different things -- a tabouleh that was more green than grain, a generous serve of hummous, fried cauliflower with a tahini sauce, the aforementioned cabbage/rice roll, a spicy green bean dish with roast garlic and tomato, and a warm lemon-spiced potato salad. They also brought a falafel also topped with tahini sauce, sitting on a bed of chopped iceberg lettuce, on a separate plate -- presumably in an effort to let me taste pretty much all the vegan food they offer. The 6 pieces of Lebanese bread were useful to hold the falafel, hummous, and tabouleh. I'd order any of the dishes on the platter again. All were good, and I'd struggle to choose a favourite. None were overly spicy, but some contained a fair amount of garlic. For example, the green beans had many cloves of (soft, roasted... not crunchy and strong) garlic mixed in. So you might want to keep that in mind if you're going to work right after a meal here! I ended up with a small amount of takeaway to eat as a midnight snack during the tennis tonight. (Also crunchy blanched bean fans, be warned, these are well-roasted, not crunchy....)

The warm potato salad is like a roasted or fried version of Greek lemon-seasoned potatoes, and highly recommended if you have room for the kilojoules. :-) (Why do potatoes have to be full of carbs and kj?)

Even "small" portions here seem generous enough that, if you're willing to restrict yourself to a single dish you're particularly in the mood for, and are not a heavy eater, you could make a light meal out of it.

But let me tell you about the thing that changed my life. Cinnamon tea. Apparently, it's a thing, and despite having loved cinnamon for decades, I'd never heard about it. Apparently if you steep cinnamon long enough, what you get is a tea that tastes sweet when it's in your mouth, and then as soon as you swallow it, there is no sweet aftertaste. Now add, it even has a few health benefits, some admittedly more proven than others. Wow.

Service-wise, staff were not overbearing but came around regularly to check on how I was doing. They seemed eager to leave a good impression with a first-time diner.

I was lucky in that on a winter weeknight, I could walk in and get a table. They warned me, however, that I'd most likely require a reservation to eat in when it got closer to the weekend. Good to know, as I'll...

First visit to Lebanon & Beyond for a birthday dinner (group of around 20) a couple of weeks back.

I'm so disappointed that this place has left me wishing they open for lunch because I would definitely come for lunch!

For our large group we picked the Chef's Banquet, a four-course meal (with one vegetarian). I have to seriously report the amount of food left at the end was unseemly. So much so there were plenty of takeaway containers that left with the attendees.

The food was amazing, plus the portion size were generously huge. I especially love the cauliflower and their lady fingers. Never had anything so yummy!

Skewers were tasty (I would pick beef over chicken). Tabouleh was lovely and fresh. Baba ganouj was really good, (tasted homemade not bought). Their hommous was nice and creamy.

Probably need to give more garlic dip with the skewers, though. Never enough garlic dip!

Service was great for our group, they were happy to help our table with whatever we needed. The Lebanon & Beyond team looked after our table very well, even when they were packed that night on Friday.

100% highly recommend and would go back for...

I was thoroughly disappointed by the overall dining experience as Lebanon & Beyond looked really good from the outside.

We ordered the banquet, providing a four course meal, including the dessert.

The first course of babaghannoush, hommous and tabouli, all of which were fine, but you could easily find these elsewhere for a much cheaper price.

In the second course, we were served falafels which were dry, lady fingers that were quite oily, and cauliflower which was average.

The third course we had garlic chicken skewers which lacked tenderness and were also quite dry, and the shish kebab was very chewy. Both were overcooked and below average. The only positive of the dish were the strong spicy marinades coating the skewered meat.

Lastly for desert, we were given a bacalwa and a small assortment of gelatos in a glass. These were fine too but I wasn't the biggest fan of the bacalwa.

The atmosphere was quite noisy, the background music seemed to become progressively louder, interfering with out...