A friend of mine who had recently arrived from France asked me to take him out to lunch somewhere that had a sea view. Considering it was around 6pm (rush hour), we decided to stay in Beirut in order to avoid traffic and so headed towards Raouche to try out Petit Cafe.
The place looked really nice from the inside but also had an outdoors area that was right on the sea with a breath-taking view. Other than an unblocked view of the Mediterranean Sea you also had an amazing view of the Raouche rock since it was right under you.
However, sitting outside was also a bit scary. Petit Cafe is located right at the edge of the clif with the outside seating area hanging over the cliff with just some rusted metal bars for support. It could be very safe for all I know since I am not an engineer but seeing those rusted metal bars and the fact that we were hanging off a cliff wasn’t very comforting. There is a pink building in the picture above which is right next to Petit Cafe and that building looks like it could crumble any second even.
As far as the food is concerned, I ordered the basics like tabboule, hommos, shanklish, cheese Rolls, kafta & wings. They came in respectable portions and tasted fine. Nothing warranted any discussion.
can i point out that the valet parking guys at Petite Cafe are a bunch of jerks? they park all the cars in the middle of the street (perpendicular to the side walk) closing a whole lane which causes one hell of a traffic and the police guy standing few meters away does not even seem to care !!
Joe,
All Valet Parking guys are a bunch of jerks and I avoid giving it to the valet as much as possible. Unfortunatelly I didn’t have a choice this time and you are right he parked the car in the middle of the street as well when I was leaving. No clue why.
There is a parking right across from the cafe for only 2500 or 3000. Najib when I saw the title to your post, I expected a super negative review of this place. I was there on Monday and I usually don’t complain or even notice f*** ups when I’m out to eat. I’m not picky at all. BUT this place is a total mess, noticed the tables outside? Dirty with dust all over ? The shitty service, the bad customer service, their food is below average also, to top it all up, our bill came up double and when we asked the server to fix it, he asked us to go to the cashier. We had our cameras with us, with large zooms and camera bags, they probably thought we are tourists and that we wouldn’t look at our bill and fall for it, after like 15 minutes of waiting, they fixed it but the way they handled it was so unprofessional. wow I can write so much about how bad this place was!
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=15HYSntPMolJns8hoIp4mXmM108nf1
Samer,
As you probably noticed, we didn’t order much food, very basic mezza and two hot dishes and there was little they could do to make it taste bad. I didnt stay long as well and was too busy enjoying the scenery that I didnt pay much attention. I actually wasnt expecting much at that place to begin wtih.
However, Tables were not that dirty, service was not that bad as well (Maybe cause I was there early and place was almost empty) and the bill came pretty quick.
The waiters were a bit vulgar (jerdiyye); that I noticed but I didn’t expect less specially in such restaurants.
I remembered one thing now that you’ve mentioned the bill, if that I requested a copy of it and when the waiter came back, he told me the system took it and he couldn’t get me a copy. This made no sense whatsover and he ended up bringing it back from “Accounting”, but that was about it.
Maybe I was too much taken by the view that I forgot checking out other things.
I have heard about that double billing thingie before… maybe it was in Petit Cafe maybe in some other place, but that is something happening in Lebanon.
They have the worst food ever.