Grand Opening of a Restaurant: Byblos

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.

Byblos Kitchen + Bar

Lower Parel ›

High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel, Mumbai

+91 7710908224

Sangeet and Wedding Festivities

It was my first time attending a sangeet, which basically is a celebration that occurs a few days before the wedding ceremony. Sangeet literally means “music” in Sanskrit, and there was plenty of it at my friend’s sangeet. First a live band and singers played and sang Gujarati music while guests trickled in, then the bride, groom, relatives and close friends performed many choreographed dances to popular Bollywood songs, and finally the dance floor opened up for everyone to dance to whatever the live band and singers performed. The Gujarati music at the sangeet consisted of slower beats (slower than typical Bollywood music), where guests danced in circles.

The sangeet took place in a banquet hall in an otherwise empty mall:

The buffet was available all night in the back of the room so that guests could serve themselves whenever they wanted. The pure veg Jain food was really delicious, so I ate a few plates worth of food. A friend told me that their secret to making food tasty is to add a lot of ghee (Indian clarified butter) to everything. One of the items called panki was cooked between banana leaves:

According to the Internet, panki is usually made with rice flour batter. It was tart and very aromatic (pictured on the left below):

From the top left counterclockwise: blueberry delight, panki, paneer bhurjee (stir-fried mashed Indian cheese with spices), zucchini tornado, focaccia sandwich, and roomali roti (literally means “handkerchief bread” because it is folded like a handkerchief). The blueberry delight tasted like a good pie without a crust, and it had other ingredients in it so that the flavor of blueberry was not prominent. The paneer bhurjee was spicy and yummy, different from the usual egg bhurjee I get in school. I scooped up the paneer bhurjee with the roomali roti.  I liked the fried zucchini enough to get seconds, and the focaccia sandwich had a good texture (no idea what was in it).

Below was my second plate:

From the left counterclockwise: kobi bhaji (Maharashtrian style cabbage stir fry with spices), dal makhani (whole black lentils and red kidney beans with butter), zucchini tornado, foot-long sandwich (obviously not a foot long here), panini grill, and misal (literally means “mixture”, a very popular roadside snack). The dal makhani was very creamy and smooth, the sandwich and panini were good although I don’t know what were in them, and the misal was ear-burning spicy. Later I had several rounds of pani puri (click here for my description of pani puri), which were very cold and refreshing.

After the dance performances, I helped myself to the dessert station:

From the top clockwise: cantaloupe sorbet in a slice of cantaloupe, lime sorbet in a hollowed-out lime, and guava sorbet in guava with chili powder sprinkled on top. I liked them all, so I also got a watermelon sorbet in a slice of watermelon (not pictured).

The food was excellent and the dancing was tons of fun; overall I had a great evening.

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I was able to witness my first Jain ceremony, and it was very interesting. The ceremony took place on a Friday morning and afternoon. I was informed that a matchmaker determines which date (and even time) is auspicious for a couple to get married, which is why it is possible to have a ceremony conducted at 2 in the morning on a weekday. I was also informed that Jains do not eat after sunset; I don’t know if this applies only to big events or on an everyday basis.

The bride and groom sat on the stage in ornate chairs, while a guru chanted in Hindi and dripped ghee onto a fire. Relatives of the bride sat on cushions on one side of the stage, while relatives of the groom sat on cushions on the other side. Later, the bride and groom walked around the fire while relatives and friends threw rose petals on them, and people yelled at each other in Hindi. This process was repeated several times. When I asked another guest for a translation, she informed me that the tradition is for the sisters of the bride to insist that the marriage is not complete unless the groom gives them money, because they are giving their sister (the bride) away. The guests would then barter with the groom on how much money should be given for the bride. Priam said that traditionally the groom’s shoes are stolen and not returned until money is given, although I did not see this happen.

The buffet during the wedding ceremony had different options from the buffet at the sangeet. It consisted of a Mexican counter, an Italian counter, a namkeen (savory snacks) counter, a South Indian counter, and an Indian counter. Since the number of guests crowding the counters looked overwhelming, one of my friends suggested splitting up; she’ll get the Indian food, I’ll get the Italian food, and another friend will get the Mexican food.

My plate looked like this:

One of my friends gave me pureed mango halfway through my meal (not pictured here), and it was very tasty and refreshing. All the fried food on the left is from the namkeen counter. They were salty and doughy. At the top left is a quesadilla look-alike item from the Mexican counter, although it tasted Indian due to the spices. The nacho chips were thick in texture and the cheese very mildly flavored. The pizza slices were good and Indianized (Indian spices on a thin crust); I shared some with my friends.

On a different note, a week ago when ordering pizza, a friend asked me what topping I wanted (I said pepperoni). Pepperoni was not available, and this friend concluded that pepperonis on pizzas must be an American thing.

The dress code for this wedding is Indian formal, so I had a teacher help drape me in a sari. When I was tying my petticoat, she told me to tie it as tightly as I can or else the sari would not stay in place. I think I may have tied it too tightly because after eating from the plate pictured above, I had no appetite to eat seconds. As a result I did not try the Indian food, which my friend said was very good. I didn’t want to take any chances loosening my petticoat, so I just concluded my meal with two ice cream scoops:

I actually didn’t want the chocolate, but my English was lost in translation and the server gave it to me anyway. It tasted decent with the jam and crushed nuts sprinkled on top. I really liked the white scoop, which tasted similar to kesar pista (saffron pistachio).

Afterwards we took a bunch of pictures with the bride and groom. It was a fun afternoon, and after everything was done, the bride told me, “We are now one” (no one else in our group is married yet).

Note: If any of my knowledge about Indian culture are incorrect, please let me know. It is possible for me to misunderstand what people say.