Lebanese London

For the boys birthday this year (which was on Thursday) I planned a magical mystery tour down to London town.  We went and checked out the Lucien Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which was superbly wonderful and moving.  We ate ice cream and drank beer in the sun and mooched around in arty book shops.  All very lovely but we certainly worked up an appetite.  I had been planning the trip for ages and had come up with all sorts of options for eating out.  I'd even booked a table at St John Hotel because it was so close to the gallery, but the pre-theatre menu looked uninspiring on the day, and that's all I could afford!  http://www.stjohnhotellondon.com/

My London brother very kindly posted me his Tastecard and having gravitated towards Soho, we found ourselves on Greek Street (where I saw Mark-Francis from Made in Chelsea!) and in a tiny, bustling, Lebanese restaurant called Kaslick.  

 http://www.kasliksoho.com/Kaslik/Kaslik.html

We were brought delicious olives to nibble on, and I ordered a glass of Coteaux du Liban Syrah whilst the boy went for the Lebanese beer.  We started with a few Mezze; melting, tender aubergine slices with yoghurt and pomegranate, grilled halloumi cheese and cucumber and a lip smackingly sour Fattoush salad (with sumac and toasted pitta bread chips).

Mains were from the charcoal grill, I chose a chicken shawarma and the boy went for lamb.   Both were served with salad and a deliciously moreish garlic sauce, both were basically a kebab but a very, very good one.

The Lebanese wine was also very moreish and we stumbled out into Greek Street feeling very jovial.  Some Tripadvisor reviews I checked out briefly moaned about surly staff.  We noticed that some of the customers were very rude to the staff, we were polite and they couldn't have been nicer back, so I do believe you get the response you deserve.

Fifty percent off all food with the Tastecard (except Fri and Saturday evenings) made it very good value indeed.