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Saturday, July 24, 2010

Byblos Cafe- Restaurant Review

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A few weeks ago I went to a cafe called Byblos in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood with a friend.

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Byblos is a very cute Persian cafe with a really cozy atmosphere. The menu isn’t large but it’s divided into main courses, a brunch section and a section with yogurt and legume based dips.

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To start off, I ordered a rosewater sherbet. The syrup was at the bottom and you had stir it to mix everything up before drinking it.

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The little black bits are chia seeds. I really enjoyed this as I like rosewater but the flavour can sometimes be so overpowering that it feels like you are drinking perfume. This was perfect, not too strong and not too weak.

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My friend Alex had a mint tea which came with lumps of sugar. I wanted to try this but the day we went it was 35 degrees outside and there was no air conditioning in the restaurant.

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We ended up ordering a few items to share. This was a trio of dips: hummus, a lentil and eggplant dip and another lentil dip. The first two were good but the last one was really bland. Neither of us liked it.

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This was a trio of yogurt dips: a beet one, a spinach one and another one which I can’t remember. We liked all of these; very refreshing in the hot weather.

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There was also a generous amount of pita bread.

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We also ordered these chicken and mushroom pastries. These were a tad overdone and the filling was very dry. In general a lot of restaurants tend overcook chicken, unfortunately.

I would go back again. I liked the atmosphere and some of the menu items were rather unique. I liked the commensality of sharing dishes as it’s a fun way of trying new things. The service was a little slow and I had to flag down waitresses more than once to make sure we were able to order or get more water. The prices were fair and it’s a nice place to go catch up with a friend.

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