The longest “Lahme Chich Shish Kebab” and Longest Dabke line records were both set in Dhour Choueir in Mount Lebanon yesterday.

The “Lahme Chich Shish Kebab” was over 100 meters and was supervised by Chef Antoine el Hajj. [Link]

Here are few thoughts for new world records to beat:

- Biggest Falafel in the world.
- Longest “Fwerigh” in the world.
- Tallest Shawarma Stand in the world.
- Longest Labneh wou Zeitoun sandwich in the world.

We had Chmameet bil Laban ( شماميط باللبن) yesterday for lunch and I had almost forgotten how good this Lebanese dish is. It is not a very popular dish and I’ve never heard of a restaurant that serves it, but it’s a must-try for all Lebanese-food lovers.

I luckily found the recipe online. You can check it [Here].

The weather is so damn hot these days that I am trying to avoid the city and am going uphill towards Ajaltoun and Faraya.

Last day, we were in Klayaat and I thought I try Adib’s Shawarma, which is supposed to be really good. The place offers two sizes, the regular one and the Malik-el-Taouk-like one which is huge. (See below picture)

I honestly didn’t like both meat and chicken Shawarmas at all and the place looked really dirty. On top of that, it’s very expensive as each regular Shawarma costs 6000 LL.

We really need some decent Shawarma places in Lebanon because the only one with a good Shawarma that I know of is Boubouffe.

I used to like el Karkour in Jounieh but it closed few years back.

Turns out the new branch for Le Maillon is an arguile place, located next to Republic and Square cafe in Amaret Chalhoub.

Not that I mind having hookah lounges and cafes, but when you are as fancy as Le Maillon is in Beirut, the least you can do is preserve the name and open it under a different one.

Join Tawlet to celebrate the beauty of Lebanese cuisine through an illustrated poster exhibition by Maya Zankoul around the theme, at one of the most authentic Lebanese restaurants: Tawlet Souk el Tayeb. [Link]

The exhibition will be held at Tawlet Souk el Tayeb in Corniche El Nahr, Mar Mikhael – Beirut. For further information, you can call +9611448129.

Good luck to our talented friend Maya and I will be doing my best to attend the exhibition.

For those of you who haven’t seen Maya’s work yet, you can check out her blog [Here] and the Zankoulizer [Here]

That’s the second find in two weeks that brings me some 10 years back. I don’t recall the last time I had a penguin but I remember they were great.

I’m coming down to Lebanon for like 10 days in August and want to try a bunch of burgers so I could review for the blog. Could you guys tell me what the most popular places are or the burgers I need to try?

Note: I shot the burger above at Cocoa Room in Kuwait

I was sent an email today listing more than twenty restaurants to avoid in Lebanon. The email said the list was from Marcel Ghanem’s blog. However I searched and could not find any blog for Marcel, just a website, a facebook page, and a twitter and YouTube account.

So if anyone has any reliable link to such a list, please share it with us so we post the list, cause otherwise we would be damaging some restaurants’ pages unjustly.

PS: LBCI news send a text message last night and denied such list. Good thing I did not post it.

Anyone remember this?

I was back from an outing yesterday when I joined my dad in watching Marcel Ghanem’s Kalam el Nass which happened to be on food regulation in Lebanon and health concerns after the poisoning that killed 1 young man and harmed 6 others at a restaurant in Jieh called Utopia. I myself was food poisoned a few times in the past few years with the last time being a week ago. There’s nothing you can do honestly except not going to that place you’ve been to.

The reports shown by LBCI were horrific and pretty much showed us that we should not be eating anywhere outside our homes. How people operate at the slaughter house is just disturbing and tests from few samples taken from supermarkets and shops showed high levels of poisonous substances at the AUB lab.

As far as the Jieh restaurant is concerned, the doctor who treated the young man who died made an interesting phone intervention on how the boy was only admitted 48 hours by his family and did not show signs of food poisoning. I am guessing he was hinting at drug abuse but I am not sure.

All in all, there’s no doubt that we don’t have efficient food regulation policies in Lebanon and from the political bickering that occured between the ministers of health and tourism and some other MP, it doesn’t look like things are getting any better. Nevertheless, I urge LBCI to point out risky restaurants and tell us which ones are the good ones for a change. I don’t understand how they expect people to avoid bad food if they are not shown where’s the good food?

I think the best way to handle food issues in Lebanon is for LBCI and other media channels to have a safe list of restaurants for all to go to and blacklist some others, thereby helping people avoid getting food poisoned. Teaching people how to check for fake or bad products bought at supermarkets could also be helpful.

Last but not least, we need some decent statistics on that matter because according to the ministry of tourism and health, only 96 cases of food poisoning were reported in all of 2010 while the local health expert Marcel had on the show claimed to have over 100 cases per day as per the hospitals’ reports.

I was craving a burger all week and decided to forget my diet on Saturday and have a burger at Classic Burger Joint in Jal el Dib.

This post is not a review of the place but a funny incident that we had and that would only happen in Lebanon.

We came in and sat down and ordered our burgers. Some 20 minutes later, while we were eating, electricity went off and UPSes start beeping. The place was closed, AC and ventilation were off, and the grill was still on.

CBJ’s staff were expecting the famous “moteur” to get the electricity back on but it did not happen and we had to wait some 20 minutes until it came back. Meanwhile, the place was filled with smoke from the grill and even though there were nice smells, we were almost suffocating.

After opening few windows and making some calls, electricity went finally back on but the good thing is that the management did not charge anyone for their meals because of that incident.

Considering how bad the customer service is generally in Lebanon, CBJ management’s gesture was excellent noting that I insisted that this is Lebanon and such things happen but they wouldn’t let me pay.

PS: If you notice in the picture above, they gave me the archaic Mirinda bottle when I asked for one while they had cans for the seven up. I didn’t even know those Mirinda bottles still existed.

I’m a big fan of zaatar w zeit but I absolutely dislike their new identity as well as the new look and feel of their branches. With their new identity I feel like they’re leaving the Lebanese culture behind and heading towards a generic fast food chain look. Why drop the beautiful Arabic typography? Why go from warm, cozy and homy to cold and clinical?

For the past 10 years, the first saturday of July has been celebrated as the National Tabbouleh day, yet I had no clue about it.

I was buying some bread from Paul when I saw a flyer inviting all Lebanese to participate in the National Tabbouleh Day being held at Souk el Tayeb in Beirut Souks on Saturday July 2 from 9:00 am till 2:00 pm.

A competition will be held to determine who makes the best tabbouleh in 3 different categories:
1- Traditional Tabbouleh
2- Winter Tabbouleh
3- Creation

To read more about past event, check out National Tabbouleh’s website. [Link]

PS: Whomever is in charge of this website needs to update it to include this year’s event.

What happened to all the push up ice cream? When I was a kid I used to get one that came in a semi transparent tube and came in 3 flavors, either chocolate, strawberry or vanilla. Now I can’t seem to find any kind of push up ice cream.