Emilia reviews Lebanese which was unlike anything she’s had before!

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This is a Sly recommendation from a while back, he told me a story of an unassuming, authentic Lebanese restaurant located in Forest Hill Chase. I trusted him, don’t get me wrong but I was pleasantly surprised by just how good it was. With a 4.8 Google rating, this must be one of the highest rated restaurants in Melbourne. Despite its unpresuming location as soon as you find it, you well and truly know you’ve arrived. Light, bright Moroccan-looking (but I’m sure I’m wrong and it’s Lebanese) tiles cover the walls, the smell of shisha in the air, Arabic style backlit window arches take you to the middle-east. It helps that the chairs completely engulf you too. 

We were immediately the outliers as huge tables of families, friends and parties in beautiful head scarves filled the restaurant. There was a gorgeous table of Lebanese grandmothers or sitti’s behind us that were leaning in to hear each other but gathering around skewers of wood fired meat and fresh bags of pita at the head of each table. We started with the dip platter, where the labneh stole the show – creamed yoghurt with EVOO over the top. The beetroot dip topped with orange sections, I loved how they cut through the earthiness with a light citrus – I’ll be stealing that one for my next dinner party. 

We had to try the sambousek cheese – a deep fried hand sculpted pasty with cheese and parsley. As the cheese oozed out when I bit into it, I thought about how I could get used to meals like this at my family celebrations. After this the food came thick and fast. Fried chicken wings (who knew), halloumi with olive oregano salsa and pomegranate molasses, Shawarma marinated meat strips, Mazaj signature mix grill. We made our way around the table pita in hand accompanied by creamy hummus, biwaz and tahini sauce, beetroot dip, parsley, onion – I was swapping sauces, dips, halloumi, meat; kafta, shish tawook, lahm meshwe.

Finally, after eyeing off the other side of the menu since we first walked in it was time to try some traditional Lebanese desserts. Baklava ice cream – terrine of vanilla bean ice cream, baklava and candied fig which seemed to be topped by Ghazel El Banet which is Arabic fairy floss. We also tried the osmalieh – which is ashta which is kind of like ricotta, with crunchy vermicelli and pistachio crumb. I really enjoyed this, it wasn’t like anything I’d had before and I really loved the lightness of the vermicelli crunch with the milky centre.

I can’t say I’ve eaten a lot of Lebanese in the past but Mazaj might have converted me. I’ll be trying to sidle into any Lebanese family functions soon if this is what’s being offered. Price wise I would say the share sizes can be a little small for the price but it all evened out, we didn’t hold back on the ordering and it ended up costing about $50 a head. They don’t have alcohol on the menu (naturally) but if you fancy something a bit extra there’s shisha out the back.

I didn’t book thinking we’d be fine and they just squeezed us in on a Thursday night. Despite your presumptions about shopping centre food, this pumps – those who know how good Mazaj is are not sleeping on it, neither should you.