Yalla Yalla Lebanese restaurant, Soho, London

The other day, me and my work mate Lianne found ourselves looking for dinner around the Oxford St/ Regent Street area. In my head, all the main restaurants on these roads seem to be of the usual chains – pizza hut, Angus steak house, Garfunkel’s etc. Now don’t get me wrong, these are all fine but personally I like to try to eat out in local, independent or smaller restaurants. We had no idea where to eat but we came out trumps in the end.

After Lianne declared “I could really eat something like a Lebanese”, we took straight to google (what on earth did we do before google, seriously!) and found a place called “Yalla Yalla”, advertising itself as ‘Beirut Street Food’in Soho, just off Brewer Street.

tucking into our feast

every mouthful is delicious! 

Perfect, just a short walk and we were there.  Although, you will need to keep your eyes peeled as we nearly missed it – the shop front is tiny. Actually the whole place is tiny. But my god does it do good food!

Seeing as Lianne is a veggie and I am not a massive fan of most meats, Lebanese suits us well, as many of the dishes are veggie friendly.

Like tapas, Lebanese is great for sharing, which means sampling as much as possible that is on offer! We opted for the:

• Baba ghannouj (an aubergine dip)
• Tabboule
• Falafel
• Grilled halloumi
• Samboussek Jibne (little pastry delights)
• Pitta bread
• Makale samak (deep fried prawns, calamari and white bait)
• Washed down with fresh mint tea

Tabboule

Baba ghannouj -
one of my all time favourites)

Doesn’t sound that much for two, but the dishes are so filling, we really didn’t need this much. If I went again, I would go for 4 dishes between two plus some pitta bread on the side. Having said that, if I was going with a bloke then perhaps order more! These dishes are moreish. I couldn't stop eating!!! 

our feast for two

Time Out voted the "sawda djej" (the chicken livers) as one of the top 100 dishes in London, although we didn't give this a try.

Prices are reasonable too, with each dish costing between £3.75 for the tabboule, to £5.50 for the sea food dish, which was huge! 

I loved the style of the place too. Restaurant come café it has a really relaxed, chilled vibe, everyone bunched up together for a real social atmosphere, the chitter chatter creating the musical backdrop.

Samboussek Jibne

Makale samak

When we arrived it was empty apart from another couple dining in the corner, but we did arrive at about 6.15pm so before the rush. In the time that it took for me to look down and drool at the menu, and look back up again, the place was packed! Admittedly there is only enough space to seat about 20 people but I looked outside and there was a queue of about 10 people waiting to get it! And it was freezing!

If you go, get there early, otherwise be prepared to wait, even midweek. They do offer food to go, in the form of tasty looking wraps and pastries etc, if you can’t be bothered to wait.

Anyone else been there? Let me know! 

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