Nuba Lebanese Restaurant

I discovered Nuba about a year ago and was blown away with their fresh interesting food.  This Thursday Nancy and I were going to the theatre (Death of a salesman) playing downtown Vancouver and due to no better suggestions we decided to go to Nuba for dinner again.

We did not have a reservation which 6:00 on a Thursday night was a bit of a problem, but as we promised to be finished by 7:30 they gave us a table.  It was a hectic week at work for both of us so a large glass of red wine was in order.  We decided to order 4 appetizers and share so that we could try more things.

The first thing to arrive was the Mjadra this was green lentils served with a generous helping of caramelised onions on top and avocado on the side.

As with almost every dish at Nuba it also came with a mildly pickled red cabbage.  We ate this with some wholewheat pita bread.  The lentils were delicious very flavourful and almost meaty, I could have made a meal of just this dish, but of course we did not.

The next to arrive was the famous najib's special which is deep fried cauliflower.

This is tossed with sea salt and lemon, that is what the menu says, but it tastes like it might have zatar on it.  Any way this picture does not do it justice, it is like the chicken wings at Pnom Phen if you go here you have to have the cauliflower.  I have tried to recreate this at home by shallow frying or roasting but at the end of the day I think I have to break down and buy that deep fat fryer.

Out least favourite dish was next Chicken Shish Tawook.

Chicken Shish Tawook

This was two skewers of chicken marinated and grilled served with hummus avocado and the ubiquitous red cabbage. This is a good dish the only problem both Nancy and I had with it was that there was an overwhelming taste of thyme which had a rather musty flavour.  I have had this happen at home sometimes when using dried thyme and I now use fresh or nothing.  Despite this we managed to finish the dish.

I was feeling like lamb so we ordered lamb kibbeh.

Lamb kibbeh

These lamb patties as they called them were tasty and came with tahini sauce and the green dipping sauce that along with the cabbage came with everything we ordered.  These were good if not spectacular and filled the lamb craving.

These 4 dishes were just about the right amount of food for the 2 of us the price for each dish varied from $6.00 to $9.00 a dish so it was a reasonable price for a mid week dinner.  We had a half litre of a very nice Malbec.  Nancy had a particularly stressful week so uncharacteristically she wanted to order dessert.

After perusing the dessert menu for a while she chose frozen yogurt with fig and apricot compote.

Frozen yogurt with fig and apricot compote

The frozen yogurt had a drizzle of pomegranate reduction drizzled over it.  Being the good friend that I am I helped her eat it. This was also very good, the yogurt had an interesting texture and the cold creaminess went well with the sweet/tart compote and drizzle.

All the food is advertised as organic and local if possible and the meats hormone free (which can't be said for Nancy and I)

An interesting side note to this was on the train Portland (where I am writing this) we met a very nice young man who is and artist living on Galliano Island who knows the owners of Nuba and designed the menu.  What a small fascinating world we live in.