Almazett (Nth Caulfield) 03/2017

Not only have the wait staff changed, and the price of course, but the room seems to be lighter and more attractive. 

Decor is simple with little decoration. 

White clothed tables  promise a better class of restaurant.
 
As well as an a la carte menu they offer a $44 banquet and, for an extra six dollars, the addition of crustaceans. Corkage is $5/ bottle and, not unreasonably, with screw top bottles, we opened them ourselves. 
A plate of pickled turnip, diacon I guess, and carrot was served while we considered the menu. 

The menu is pretty much the same as years ago. Of course we went for the big banquet.
Before long dishes began to arrive in rapid succession. We had to ask them to slow down as we could not eat that fast and the table was becoming over full.
Mezze, a series of small dishes, came first. 
Taboule, a Lebanese classic lemon flavoured salad of parsley, burghul, tomato and other ingredients such as spring onions and mint with olive oil. 

This came with bowls of Hummus,

and Tahinna

Pita bread  

These were quickly followed by felafel with a tasty yogurt salad dressing

and meat rolls.

Until the meat rolls everything was very good and plentiful but the luke warm rolls, with a soft pastry missed the mark.
Lemon flavoured barbecued chicken wings was another winner


Lebanese meat balls, rissoles you might say, are usually seasoned with a variety of Middle Eastern spices and often have pine nuts included. 

Unfortunately these were over baked and dry with very little flavour except for lemon, yet again. A bowl of roast potato again with lemon and parsley, 

was also served before the crustaceans. 
The BBQ'd prawns were a little over cooked but quite tasty and the scallops were excellent.

This was followed by a whole fish, between four of us, 

which was seriously overcooked, as was the next course of chicken and lamb shashlik coverd by slices of thin luke warm pizza.

This was accompanied by bowls of rice

and beans

Dessert.
Mahalabia is a classic Lebanese dessert made by boiling down milk and then adding sugar, rose water, cream and cardamon. 

This one was not sweet enough, lacked taste and was too firm.

Finally we were served Baklava and Turkish delight with Arabic style coffee, with a touch of cardamon, in a Finjan
It was not haute cuisine but Almazett gave us a taste of Lebanese cooking and hospitality - there was a very large amount of food which we could not finish. On the down side the fish, the rissoles and the chicken and lamb shashliks were very overcooked and the seasoning was monotonous, almost every dish dominated, to a greater or lesser degree, by lemon.
Comparisons, they say are, are odious. Looking back at Abla's, which we went to almost 10 years ago, I would say that Abla had a little more variety but suffered from the same problems as Almazett. Perhaps, being so disappointed, we were overly harsh in our judgement of Abla which, (http://1001dinners.blogspot.com.au/2008/10/ablas-restaurant-carlton.html ), as far as quality of the cooking, was much the same as Almazett.
Comments Score:12.75 /20

Davids (Prahran) 01/2012

*Click on any photograph to enlarge it.
David's has long been an AGF one hat restaurant, featuring an emphasis on the curative properties of their various teas. It's Chinese New Year. The year of the Dragon is upon us so we're going to have a seven course banquet ($65 pp only $6 more than their usual major banquet. The place is packed and noisy. Since we were last here they have added more tables to the front of the place and removed the stands of teas. They've also added some new decoration along the wall.
Service is a little slow with the large crowd but after a one hour lag from when we arrived until the second course dishes appeared at a reasonable rate.
Shredded duck meat soup infused with mushroom and bamboo shoots perfectly described this dark and satisfying soup. Shanghai garlic pork ribs which were actually dried pork chops coated in bread crumbs and garlic, there were however no bones, seemed a very un Chinese dish. It was quite pleasant and could have been served in a Mediterranean restaurant anywhere. Peking duck, supposedly thinly sliced roast duck meat in a home made pancake with cucumber, spring onion and special plum sauce was a poor effort. The duck was a thick slice of breast and the pancake quite thick. It was presented wrapped and ready to eat. My duck had a little plum sauce, far to little, at the bottom of the pancake and the cucumber and spring onion were lost with the thick piece of duck breast. Lobster with XO chili sauce was overcooked and the lobster meat was quite tough. I'm unimpressed with strong sauces and delicate sea food but on this occasion it hardly mattered as the over cooked lobster had lost any delicacy.
Sauteed rockling with Chinese rice wine and woodear fungus served with steamed rice was a complete contrast to the lobster. A beautiful dish worthy of David's reputation. Mandarin steak, diced eye fillet with Mandarin sauce and seasonal Chinese vegetables came with David's fried rice. A good dish but the presentation with large Bok Choy on the plate adjacent to the small diced beef jarred aesthetically with me. Fried rice was excellent, which it almost always is at any Chinese restaurant. Red bean pancake with ice cream was a pleasant end to a very patchy meal.One hat restaurants don't always live up to their reputation.
Score 13.75/20