Soul Food

For those of you who have not visited the Belajio resort located in the Jeddah cornice, I have only one advice. Please GO. This is the kind of impact this place had on us. I mean really, it was one hell of a fantastic evening.

Wife and I accompanied by our partners in crime Mr. & Mrs. H decided to start the beginning of the week by having dinner at Belajio. None of us had been to this place before although we pass by this place almost on all our weekend visits to the cornice. Calls were made and a table booked. We were informed that they had four restaurants within the complex. 1.) Crystal: Fusion cuisine 2.) Dar Al Qamar: An open air restaurant serving Arabic/ Indian cuisine 3.) Layalina: Lebanese cuisine 4.) Tea garden: An enclosed restaurant facing the red sea offering a mix of cuisines, a la carte. All four places serve the essential shishaJ

We decided on Tea Garden owing to the temperature in Jeddah right now and thought the air conditioned comforts would be better than sitting in the open. When we reached the place, the first thing that stuck us was the size of the place. After parking, you have to cross over a small bridge over a small water body which surrounds the whole complex. We then had to walk through a beautifully landscaped pathway to reach Tea Garden. Once inside, the interiors had us smiling. It was huge and looked very comfortable. Once seated we realized we had erred. The restaurant was freezing. We could not handle the cold and decided to venture out to one of the other places within the complex. We checked out Dar Al Qamar, which looked very inviting with comfortable seating and the view directly overlooking the red sea. There were smiling staff all around and within minutes of being there we were made to feel at home.

We wanted to have the shisha first. There were the regular stuff but there were 2 interesting additions. One was the cheesecake flavor and the other was the strawberry with cream flavor. I am a sucker for strawberry so ordered the strawberry with cream flavor and my friend decided to have the mango flavor. We decided to order the food in one go instead of ordering appetizers and mains separately. The menu was predominantly Lebanese with a couple of Indian dishes like chicken tikka, seafood tikka and chicken biryani. There were some pizzas on the menu including the vegetarian pizza.

The Well presented Saudi champagne.

The rest of the stuff was all Lebanese with the usual hummus and mutabbal and the like. I and wife being vegetarians ordered the Baba ganouj which for the uninitiated is the chargrilled aubergine with diced tomatoes and onion and is in a paste form. We also ordered a portion of the Mahmara which was a paste made out of walnuts, bell pepper and tomatoes. The last thing we ordered was the diced potato dish (I can’t remember the name now) which was diced fried potatoes dressed in dill leaves and fried garlic. Mr.  & Mrs. H ordered a portion of the seafood tikka, a chicken biryani and a kibbeh dish that was kibbeh balls dipped in yoghurt based dressing. One thing worth mentioning is that the waiters here are very knowledgeable of their menu and really help you decide on the food. That in my book means that the place really cares for its customers. Mr. H wanted to order a fish dish and the waiter convinced him to taste the seafood tikka and assured him that they would really like it.

The shisha arrived first. To be very honest I have had better, but it was the warmth of the guy who served us the shisha that forced us to like it. Food arrived in quick succession. Without getting into the details, I would tell you each dish was excellent and the portions were huge. The Mahmara was one of the best I have tasted and we liked the diced potato so much that we ended up ordering one more. Mr.  & Mrs. H cooed in unison on how soft, fresh and tasty their seafood tikkas were. The prawns were fresh and had a cream like texture. The kibbeh was served with fragrant white rice and they like the yoghurt dip more than the kibbeh itself. But for them the highlight of the meal was the chicken biryani. H explained that it was the best that he had in Jeddah till now (second only to the one his wife makes at homeJ) and that speaks volumes. The portions were so huge that they had to pack most of the stuff for us.

My fav for the evening, Mahmara

Baba Ghanouj

The diced potatoes



Kibbeh in youghurt

Star of the evening: The Chicken Biryani.

For deserts the ladies shared a double chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and yours truly settled for an expresso. The chocolate brownie was huge, so much so that a part of it was wasted but it was perfect. Gooey with chocolate cream with bits of walnuts in between. A perfect end to a perfect meal.

:-)

Of course, all things good don’t come cheap. This place is heavier on the pricing side and the above meal for the four of us including 2 shisha’s cost us SAR 489/ USD 132 including taxes. But we fell in love with the place. So much so that all four of us decided to go there again in the coming week.