El Sheikh Restaurant – Delicious Lebanese food I want to eat again!

It was a little ironic El Sheikh was given a lower rating compared to rival cafe according to a review website. But I really enjoyed my dinner at El Sheikh and I had really good food there.

The place

El Sheikh is situated in the beautiful and historical area of Kampung Glam. Before reaching El Sheikh, Nicole, Mintea and I had a blast of a time exploring the Malay Heritage Center, playing with the props there before reaching the place. Just as we reached there, we met up with DK who just arrived at the same time as we did.

The cafe already looks charming from the outside with the rustic two story shophouse where it was housed. Inside, it looked very cosy and rather condusive with its homely arabic styled decor all around.

The service

There were only the four of us there when we entered. We were greeted by the staff and were lead to our seats where we were given our menus. As it was my first time in having Lebanese food and I was not sure what to eat. We asked for recommendations from the staff.

Finally we made up out minds and ordered the Sheikh Mezze as an appetizer and Shawarma Plate, Mixed Kebab Grill, Riyash Ganam Lamb Chops and El Sheikh Beef.

Suddenly, a huge lively crowd of about 15 people suddenly came in. Things got a little helter skelter with the confusion of where to place them and ordering of food. When the food came, it got mixed up with the other group and they got served first. The staff looked frazzled when they realised their mistake but they remained as composed as they could.

The food

First, we had the appetizer – the Sheikh Mezze which consisted of a generous portion of a mix of most of the cold appetizers. Everything was so rich and flavourful that till now, at this point of writing, I’m still craving for it.

This is hummus, a famous dish made of blended chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice and sesame paste. I like the texture of the hummus and its rustic taste.

This is Motabbel and is an instant favorite for me. Its like the Hummus but it uses baked eggplants instead of Chickpeas giving you a unique taste of sweet, rich and smooth paste. It’s really delicious!

We also had Tabouli which I thought was pretty good. It had a good mix of ingredients with no one ingredient overpowering the other. Although I think it would be better if the parsley were chopped more finely.

This is the Mosaka’ah. It was mainly minced meat in tomato sauce but I liked it a lot.

We were also given a plate of Cheese Rolls which looked very much like curry puffs but had a cheese filling as well as Falafel which is smashed chickpeas shaped into a small cake.

We ate them all together with pita bread. And all in all, it was quite filling. We were actually rather full at the end of ourappetizers.

But we still had our main course to go!

This is Mintea’s Mixed Kebab Grill. It had a portion of each grilled meat so that want to have a taste of each. Nice!

This is Nicole’s Shawarma Plate which is marinated chicken which is shredded into small pieces, eaten with rice. Nicole seemed to enjoy it very much.

This is DK’s Shish Kebab which is marinated beef, cooked over charcoal. It was a strong taste without being overpowering. I saw DK really enjoying his meal.

And this is my lamb chops. I don’t usually eat lamb but this was good. It was probably marinated overnight as it did not have the overly lamby taste and it was tender.

And it was all washed down with :

Mango Ayran – a type of yogurt

Mint tea served in a beautiful pot.

And as I was curiou, I tried their Bavarian Beer. It was a non alcoholic type. But it was quite underwhelming as my beer tasted more like zapple.

Regardless, all in all, I enjoyed myself heaps there! And I really cannot wait to eat there again! Want to go to El Sheikh with me?

18 Pahang Street,
Singapore

You may also be interested in :

• Eating Tulang
• Taj Samudra – Indian Buffet
• Egyptian Cooking Workshop
• Siam Kitchen
• Korean BBQ Chicken