Baydar is a Lebanese restaurant in Al Barsha Mall that serves homemade fare inspired by time-honoured recipes. It shares its dining area with Sandella’s Flatbread Café, an outlet that serves pizzas, wraps and quesadillas on their trademark flatbreads. Read my review on Sandella’s Flatbread Café here.
The indoor dining area is pretty with huge floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Al Barsha Pond Park and one can even see the Burj Al Arab in the distance. How’s that for a view?? 😊
We went for dinner to this restaurant on a Thursday evening. It wasn’t crowded and it wasn’t empty either. One thing that I noticed was that they had many take-aways and home deliveries. We were greeted and seated promptly. We also served Arabic bread, with Labneh, Olives and Lebanese Pickles. The bread was soft and piping hot and went well with the labneh.
For appetizers, we ordered Moutabel, Hummus with Meat, Chicken Shawarma Samosa and Chicken Liver with Molasses. Except for the moutabel, all the others tasted great. The hummus with meat and pine nuts was a great combination. The filling of the samosa was good, but the samosa pastry was dull and soggy. I don’t eat liver, but we ordered this because my hubby is too fond of it. According to him, the liver with the sweet molasses and the accompanying pungent garlic paste was a great combo. The moutabel was bitter and a complete turn-off.
For drinks, we had Avocado and Carrot Juice. Carrot juice, well you know how it tastes, nothing much to write about. The Avocado juice surprisingly came topped with, not ice-cream, but a scoop of labneh and the sweetness of the juice gave it a nice taste.
For the mains, we had Mix Grill served on a bed of Iranian Rice. The mix grill included a slice of arayes, a skewer each of chicken kebab, mutton kebab and kafta. The Arayes was perfect, cooked to perfection and flavourful but the rest was a let-down. Being a Lebanese restaurant, this should be one of their highlights. It wasn’t tender and had a ‘gamey’ taste. Also feel that the quantity of this platter is too small for the price of AED 66!!! The Iranian rice is not included in this price, it’s a separate dish and nothing much to rave about that too.
I was almost stuffed trying everything, but I couldn’t leave without having dessert. So I tried Umm Ali, one of their bestsellers. It was served warm and was not overly sweet but nice. It would have been better if it was served without the chopped almonds weren’t as it was bitter and had a burnt taste.
Location: Baydar, Food Court, First Floor, Al Barsha Mall
Lizbethology 