because I can't cook

Rumi in Brunswick.
Address	116 Lygon Street, Brunswick East
Opening Times	Tues - Sat   6pm - 10pm
Cuisine	Lebanese
Visited	2 July 2010
Rating

After weeks of delaying my visit to Rumi as it was not walking distance from the CBD, I finally did, and was very happy about it! I am not entirely sure whether reservation is essential or not as Rumi was not too crowded when I visited it (and it was on a Friday night) and that I could see some empty tables while having dinner, but, as I have only visited it once, it could have been a lucky night for me to dine in there.

The staff at Rumi were very knowledgable, chatty, and friendly; they greeted us and they patiently gave us options of great food combination and portion (as Rumi had a really unconventional menu system where there was only a single list of food which were not divided into sections of appetizer/main/sides so you would not know how big the portion of each meal was). The staff really helped an indecisive me to decide what to order that night, and here is what I ordered:

Spiced Lamb Shoulder, which was slow roasted with Sirkanjabin, and my friend ordered what is known as the famous Quail 'Joojeh' Kebab, with a side of Cos and Herb Salad to 'neutralise' the taste of the lamb. But as it turned out, they brought out one dish at a time so it seemed that their meals were made to share anyway. As expected, the meals (even the sauces they used on the meals!) were fantastic! The lamb was claimed to have been cooked for 5 hours (all the meals were delivered to our table quickly so it was safe to assume that the lamb was already pre-cooked before we got there), and even though it had really strong smell (of lamb that is - not quite sure how to describe lamb meat's smell), it was really tender that it was very easy to be cut into pieces. The sauce that came with the lamb was also different; we were told that it consisted of sugar and mint among other things, so it was sweet yet refreshing.

For dessert, we had Turkish Delight and Pistachio Halva, both of which were very sweet and surprisingly tiny in portion. The Turkish Delight, which came as three small cubes, had a strong flavour of rose, which was kind of strange for me but the Pistachio Halva was nice; it tasted somehow like peanut butter (and I love peanut butter!) only softer in taste and not as sweet as the Turkish Delight.

Rumi had really casual, easy-going image about it as they had (school-like) wooden chairs and had no mat to cover their wooden tables (so watch out for sauce on the table that could be easily wiped off by your shirt the same way it was done by my shirt!), but everything seemed to go with the overall 'theme' of the restaurant so overall, I was really satisfied and would surely visit Rumi again especially for the Quail!

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