In celebration of my Bro's birthday in August, we took him out to dinner. Because it was a weekday, I didn't feel like going somewhere too fancy, so I picked Tiba's Lebanese Restaurant.
Well, it was a good thing I wasn't looking for fancy, because Tiba's certainly isn't! The atmosphere was…… what's the best word? Functional comes to mind! It was a bit like having dinner at someone's house – someone who hadn't decorated for a couple of decades. Still, we weren't there for the atmosphere or interior design – we were there for food.
After perusing the menu, we decided on the set menu and chose Tiba's House Special. I assumed that the price was per person, but it wasn't – it was per serve. After a bit of confusion where we got the feeling that we only had ordered one House Special (we had), Alastair went to the waiter to clarify and settled on two serves of the set house special. He was told that three would probably be a bit too much for the three of us and that was good advice.
I really needed to eat – a strong coffee in the late afternoon had been churning my stomach and I was still feeling a bit nauseous. I kept being teased by the sight of food being bought out only to disappear around the corner. So when food arrived (after a couple of quick nasty photos of course) I started stuffing myself.
Because I was so focussed on eating, I don't really remember exactly what we had… I know there was pita bread, and dips (hummus, tzatziki, & baba ganoush), dolmades, chickpeas, parsley salad (I'm still not sure if this was supposed to be tabouleh as there was no visible signs of burghul), garden salad, pickles, Lebanese pizza and falafel. While I was eating stuff individually, Alastair had the brilliant idea of sticking stuff in pita bread and wrapping it up. Just like a bought one!
Then the meat came out – lamb, chicken, beef, sausage, some random meat on a stick, sitting on a bed of rice.
And that rice - OH MY GOD. All the juice from the meat had soaked into the rice and it was so tasty. It was oily and meaty and delicious - I could've eaten a bucket of it. My only wish is that the rice had been a bit warmer. There is nothing like steaming hot rice straight from the pot or rice cooker. Mhmmmm.
It didn't feel like I had eaten that much, but by the end of the meal we were all completely stuffed. Not that my full stomach stopped me from taking a small pack of pastries home to savour on the couch...!
Tiba's Lebanese Restaurant.
504 Sydney Rd Brunswick 3056.
Phone: (03) 9380 8425
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