Thanks for Andrew M for inducting me into his alphabet dining club. We reached the letter 'I' this week and Andrew's friend Sharon sorted dinner out at Le Chef Masgouf, announcing it as Iranian food. However, on arrival, we discovered that it was in fact an Iraqi restaurant, which fortunately still met the brief of starting with the letter I!
I think the watchword of the restaurant is generosity of spirit as we were plied initially with 3 free big plates of vegetables and pickles and again with free baklava at the end of our meal
We had a selection of cold and warm meze to kick off the meal. I get a little confused when dining at restaurants from countries in the eastern Mediterranean as they all seem to serve the same meze and I'm not sure which country would lay claim to the usual taboulleh, humus and tzatziki style dishes. The star of the starters though was the warm bread which had been freshly griddled and was perfect to sweep up those dips
We had 3 main courses, the best of which was an Iraqi classic Kouzi - slow cooked lamb shank served with rice cooked with saffron, raisins and pine nuts. Barbecued seabass was also good but the special of the day chicken briayani was a bit dry
Typical inoffensive Middle Eastern fare.
Roll on, J dining! read more