Byblos

I had a brunch date with a friend I hadn't seen in years (she lived in Colombia) and her man and as soon as I mentioned Byblos, one of the few Persian restaurants in town, they were in. I was way in too: I had been there maybe 5 or 6 years ago and had loved it. Just the neighbourhood, so nice and vibrant, is totally inviting! I love it!

Books!

Anyhoot, so we met at the restaurant at around 11:30--a very busy brunch hour in the Plateau. And it was...very...VERY busy. It is a nice resto, around 70 to 80 seats ish, with big windows. Lots of light coming in (lovin it!). Oh but it could have used a bit more A/C (with that damn heat!!!). What's cute though is that there's a little kids' corner with toys and there are books you can read during your meal :)

Menu

 We sat down and got our menus.  25 (yes, 25) minutes later, the waitress, who seemed to be the [impolite] owner, came by, finally, to take our order. Seriously, you own a restaurant, you obviously want people to come back, no? Well then, don't be rude! It also took about 20 minutes after we ordered to get food. Actually, I got MY food but my fellow eaters had to wait an extra 10 minutes for their plates. When I asked the waitress, she said that this happened because both dishes were coming from different areas of the kitchen. I get it, just hold off on serving my food until theirs is ready, no? YES!

Feta, nuts, mix of herbs (dill, coriander, parsley, mint, etc)

 Anyhoot, I had the feta, halva, pain sucré, olives, herbs and nuts plate. It was really delicious. Nothing bad to say about this at all. The feta was fresh and the herbs as well. The halva added a nice little sweet note to it all (halva: the primary ingredients are butter and sugar and it also has pistachios in there).  I made myself a nice little sandwich with the pita bread and all the ingredients on my plate including the halva and it was a little sweet thing made out of heaven. Heaven I tell you! And heaven for cheap---it cost me 12,50$ with taxes and tip!

Perfect sandwich: pita, basil, walnut, halva and feta

Oh and you had a choice of tea, coffee or hot chocolate, which was nice... you never have the hot choco in there! Much appreciated by someone like me who hates coffee :) Oh and it had cardamome in it which is always nice and tasty!

Cardamome infused hot chocolate

They brought us a basket with three kinds of bread: pita, poppyseed (still nice and warm!)and another one with sesame seeds. It kind of sucked that the waitress didn't seem to want to explain to us what these unknown breads were (and asking was just impossible: she was there aaaaaaand oops, she was already gone).

bread!

And now, the service. The service was really not up to par. I was seriously disapointed. I KNOW this place gets busy but hey, hire more people. That's it that's all!!! The wait before giving our orders and before getting our plates was way too long, the waitress did not seem very enthused to be there and was quite rude, the owner didn't seem to really care that we were there, and the water did not run freely as it should. I should ALWAYS have at least half a glass of water! Especially in this heat. The waitress was nice though when we asked (again) for our beverages: she got them to our table right away. To top it off, we wait and wait for the bill and then we ask someone who tells us we have to pay at the counter. Maybe she could have told us before? We can't guess it and it's not the norm so please tell us so we don't lose our time waiting around. Needless to say I did not leave 15% tip. I was quite angry at some point. I'm a very nice person... but when I get in these situations, my face gets a bit red and I start swearing... :p

Cute little view from our table

 And now, the scores!

Food: Really good! I give it an 8

Service: Meh. I give it a 5. And that's generous...

All in all, it IS a good place to try. Service needs to get better though. Food is really good so I would hate not to go back only because the service sucked!