Birthday Celebration with Al-Amar’s Festival Menu

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After attending the Gala night of MIGF 2010, I was really curious to try out some of the Festival menus (as they term it) that are only available in the month of October. One that caught my attention was Al-Amar restaurant, simply being the only Lebanese restaurant in MIGF and in fact, the only Lebanese restaurant that I know of. The other thing that attracted my attention was the price tag! While most restaurants offer Festival menus at more than RM100, Al-Amar’s menu is really affordable. This was the MIGF menu, elegant in silver.

MIGF menu

Al Amar MIGF menu

Al Amar offers a 5-course menu, with the option of wine pairing or not. I would recommend you to go for wine pairing, since it’s only RM30 cheaper but you get 2 glasses of wine of your choice! Great deal? I had the famous rose wine, which was a little dry and had an aged aroma.

Château Musar Jeune Rose 2007, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

To be honest, what I was looking forward to the most, was the pita bread! Seriously, the warm, soft and fluffy bread is the BEST in town! I had it during my first visit there and it’s the most memorable thing to me ever since. Best of all? It’s FREE! Must make sure you have plenty of these bread because they’re heavenly!

Warm and fluffy pita bread

The first dish of the MIGF menu was the Cold Mezze Palette a platter with 4 dishes. They were Pink Hommos (Mashed Chick Peas, Sesame Seed Paste with A Touch of Our Special Spices, Lemon Juice and Olive Oil), Moutabbal with Avocado (Mashed Grilled Eggplant with Sesame Seed Paste, Lemon Juice Combined with Fresh Avocado and A Touch of Garlic Drizzled with Olive Oil) and Rocket Beetroot Salad.

Cold Mezze Palette

Among these few, I loved the Pink Hommos the most! No, it’s not because of the colour pink, even though it MIGHT contribute a little bit, but it’s because of the chick peas! It went very well with the fluffy bread and I ended up eating 2 pieces of bread with pink hommos alone!

Glorious Pink Hommos

After something cold, we had something warm! The Hot Mezze Duo came in two dishes – the Soujouk and Shrimp Falafel. The Soujouk was a clever play of Lebanese Spicy Sausages Poised On A Quail Egg and Served with A Pomegranate Sauce. With portion so small, it’s meant to be eaten in one bite, while letting the flavours mix together. The lamb sausage provided sufficient savoury taste while the cherry tomatoes a tinge of sour, and the quail egg was a nice touch!

Soujouk

As for the Shrimp Falafel, it had chick peas and split pea fritters stuffed with a whole king prawn accompanied with a pistachio tarator sauce. This dish was served piping hot, just off the fryer, so you might want to be careful eating it. I bit in while it’s still burning hot and noticed that the shrimp was not fully cooked yet. I guess you’re supposed to wait for a while (until it’s not burning) to fully appreciate this dish. It seems that the falafel captured the heat and cooked the shrimp from the inside, making it a unique delicacy. The prawn size was reasonably huge and the chick peas gave it a pleasant flavour.

Shrimp Falafel

The mains came in two choices – either Grilled Kafta or Steamed Roll of Stuffed Chicken Breast. If you don’t know what to choose, go for the Grilled Kafta! It’s minced lamb kafta resting on a bed of Rösti served with apricot paste. Did you notice the apricot paste on the left side of the plate? It was actually shaped to represent the country of Lebanon! Well, you can always google to find out how Lebanon looks like on a map and compare.

Grilled Kafta

As for the Steamed chicken, most of us found it to be a tad dry. But I guess that’s to be expected from chicken breast. The combination of rosemary and apricot paste did help a little bit in alleviating the dryness.

Steamed Roll of Chicken Breast

For this dish, it was paired with white wine, which I loved!

Château Musar Cuvée Rouge 2004, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

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