Last Friday, I had the opportunity to eat at a Mediterranean restaurant called Byblos that just opened up in the Palladium Mall. From briefly chit-chatting with the owner at the end of our meal, we found out that it was the first day that the restaurant opened, and the cooks are basically the owner and her two daughters. Byblos is not situated inside the main part of the mall; rather, it is right opposite Costa Coffee behind the mall. I had gone with a group of six, and even then the amount we ordered was very ambitious. I had entered the restaurant tipsy from several drinks I had at an alumni mixer; halfway through the meal I had completely sobered up from all the food I consumed. The food came out in the following order:
Bread
I can’t remember if the bread was complimentary, but it went well with the cheese course that came soon after. I like bread with more texture (nuts, grains, etc.), and there was a good variety of textured bread here.
The cheese course (almond and parsley labneh truffles, savory scallion and mozzarella cake, fromage frais, brie, chili jam)
Not all the cheeses are featured in the picture above because I finished some of them before remembering to take a photo. Google tells me that labneh is a soft cheese made from yogurt, commonly served in the Middle East, while fromage frais is a creamy soft fresh cheese from France. The cheese tasted good, although even divided among six people it was a lot of cheese for me (I’m slightly lactose intolerant).
Mezze platter (onion pate, Byblos hummus, baba ganoush, toum)
I liked the onion pate best out of the four items on this platter. It had a nice slightly sweet onion flavor. The other three items were good too but a bit much after a while because they all had similar textures. I have never heard of toum before; it is described online as a traditional Lebanese garlic dipping sauce.
Byblos hummus with crispy chickpeas and chicken
This dish is basically tandoori chicken pieces on top of hummus. At this point I was tired of eating hummus, so I just ate the tandoori chicken (which tasted nice and spicy).
Rock corn with BBQ glaze and bacon dust
This dish is basically fried breaded corn with spicy BBQ glaze. I couldn’t really make out the flavor of the bacon dust, but overall it’s still a decent dish.
Chicken with fancy onion flower
I cannot recall the exact name of this dish as I didn’t order it, but whatever was stuffed into the chicken pieces was good. I would say that it tasted more Indian than Lebanese though, mostly likely catering to the Indian palate.
Lamb on a bed of couscous
This dish was also very good, although at this point I was pretty full so I didn’t eat that much of it.
I don’t know who ordered the desserts, but we had quite a few. On top of that, the owner gave us complimentary lemon curd on spoon-shaped shortbread:
These tasted okay at room temperature, great for breakfast the next day after taking them out of the fridge (the shortbread tasted better cold).
My favorite dessert was the cheesecake:
This cheesecake tasted like the real deal; I really do not like the eggless variety in many Mumbai bakeries because the texture and flavor is really off (some Indians don’t eat eggs for religious reasons). This cheesecake was the closest in Mumbai that I can find to good cheesecake in America. The crust is very tasty as well. When the owner came by to check up on us, she informed us that the cheesecake was low in fat because she used low-fat yogurt (instead of cream cheese? I wasn’t clear on that).
Unfortunately at this point I really couldn’t eat another bite, so I can only show pictures of the other two desserts that I didn’t touch:
The owner had informed us that everything is made in-house; she obviously took pride in her food. Overall I liked the main course non-veg items better than the veg appetizers; since the appetizer portions are very generous and I usually eat out by myself or with Priam only, I’d probably skip the appetizers and go straight to the main course and dessert next time.
American Foodie in Mumbai 