My Arabic food journey - Yalla Yalla!

Having grown up in the Middle East, I have a fondness for Arabic food.  I've been really pleased with the growth in popularity of Lebanese food recently.  Luckily for me my vegetarian boyfriend also loves it - mainly due to the pickles and chilli sauce!

By far the most authentic tasting food has to be Beirut Express, where my two favorites, chicken shwarma and kofta, are exactly how I remember them from my childhood.  The actual restaurant though leaves a bit to be desired.  If you go at any key eating time, you will almost always have to wait in the cramped and busy restaurant and possibly share a table.  The service is my personal grudge - if you are unfortunate enough to get one of the male waiters, getting their attention can be almost impossible without standing up and shouting.  When you do finally get served, there are no smiles and food is basically tossed in your direction.  Take away is definitely the way forward.

So I have made it a bit of a mission to try as many of these Lebanese places in London in hope of finding somewhere where the food is as good and the service is pleasant.  Yalla Yalla, which means hurry up in Arabic, definitely delivers on service.  We arrived at the small Soho location around 7pm on a Thursday.  Unsurprisingly we had to wait for a table, but we were able to give our name and number to a very helpful member of staff and head elsewhere for a drink while we waited.  We returned 40 mins later, as instructed, and were given a table almost immediately.

The menu consists of a large range of your typical mezze plus main courses which came with rice and salad.  There are also a range of wraps (which are pre-made), bakery goods and desserts available to eat in or take away.  We opted for a selection of mezze - the usual hummus, tabbouleh and falafel - as well as a wrap - one chicken shwarma and one halloumi cheese.  There is also a selection of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks.

The food was good, but not amazing.  The hummus was smooth and silky but possibly a bit salty.  The tabbouleh was on the dry side.  The falafel was by far the best bit - soft fluffy balls full of flavour. What let them down the most was the wraps.  Because they are pre-made, the bread used to wrap the ingredients is much bigger than usual, making them quite stodgey and very filling.  And unfortunately the unhelpful chili sauce was too mild to add extra umph to the wrap.

So on this occasion I did not find the gem  I was searching for, but enjoyed my evening none the less.  Let the journey continue!