Colorful Arabian Breeze
Arabian Breeze has now closed
Arabian Breeze: the name certainly conjures up romantic images, and for those not familiar with lots of different Lebanese foods, going through the menu at Arabian Breeze is an adventure. The restaurant is on Broadway and NE 32nd, just down from Sweet Basil. Think converted basement gone Syrian – low ceilings, lots of bright colors, Middle Eastern art. The center pillars have been put to good use by sandwiching a long community table between them. Smoke from hookahs occasionally lends a sweet smell from the large area upstairs. The menu is multiple pages with enticing descriptions and pictures. They specialize in dishes that are a bit different from the normal Lebanese fare around town. The first few times, we ordered whatever came to mind, trying things we hadn’t seen before. It is nice to have a few dishes that are less common.
Service is very friendly. Most of the servers actually seem like they enjoy being there, however, that doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing. At times they can be truly clueless. For example, on our first visit: Water glasses sat empty for most of the meal, empty salad plates were never removed and we never did get an offer of dessert, just the bill. (Strangely enough, after two weekend misses, when we came back on Monday of this week, a different server was much better.) However, every time we visited, appetizers were delivered at the same time as the entrees. By the time we got out from under the deluge, some items were cold. Silverware is the really cheap stuff used in cafeterias – just awful. No alcohol yet; if the food had a bit more spice, this would be a major sin. I’m told the license is pending. Credit cards? Sorry, cash or check please. There is an ATM which will charge you a transaction fee plus whatever your bank adds on. Give me a break. Raise your prices 2% and get a machine… heck, raise them 3% and get some decent cutlery. These are the reasons Arabian Breeze will not be on my regular list of places to visit.
There are times in life that if the food is good enough, even with the worst service you’ll still come back. Remember the Soup Nazi? Notwithstanding that I’ve totally slammed them, I do have good things to say.
The menu itself is excellent. Written for the Lebanese neophyte, it guides you through with great descriptions and pictures. Portions are very large; plan on taking some home for lunch the next day. You get a lot for your money – most entrees run around $8.00-$9.00 including a dinner salad. Unfortunately the salad is not the best, but hey, it’s greens. It would be nice if they had some sort of sampler platter, but they don’t so you have to jump right in.
Shortly after sitting down you will be served Sajh. A paper thin unleavened bread, made fresh and hot off the griddle, it is draped over a holder on your table and is just terrific. Go ahead and wolf it down, they’ll quickly bring more.
The salad that accompanies each order was pretty pathetic; drowned in a garlicky dressing, it was slightly better on subsequent meals. Here is a roundup of the dishes we tried:
If you’ve ever been to Lebanon, you’ve had lagbna. It is a staple served as an accompaniment with most meals. Thick, fresh yogurt cheese with mint, thyme, and olive oil, surrounded by cucumber and tomato slices. ($5.25) Here they do a nice job with it, sending out a huge plate, though that is not always necessary, as it is served on the side of many dishes.
Under starters they have several types of sambousik. These are a close relative of the Turkish boerek, three traditional turnovers, stuffed and deep fried. Popular fixtures at Middle Eastern cocktail parties, they should be passed round within minutes after being taken from the hot fat in which they are fried. When done correctly the dough is nice and light. One meal we tried Spinach Sambousik ($5.50), a little turnover of pine nuts, onions, almonds, and spices. Unfortunately, it came heavy and fulsome, dripping with oil and quickly turning soggy. Another night I ordered the ground lamb sambousik with onions, pine nuts, almonds, and spices. This time it was much better. Frankly, though, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Traditionally they at least have pepper and allspice or cumin, but these versions do not have a lot of spices, and just seem boring to me. Maybe I need to try them after several cocktails for the right effect. Their falafel ($5.75) is another example of an average excuse for what can be an excellent dish. Don’t order it here; go to Karam and get a version you’ll remember.
Kafta ($8.25) is a large platter with lamb that has been ground and seasoned, then mixed with onions and parsley, made into kababs, grilled, and served with sumac spiced onions. This is a very mild dish; the meat is nice and juicy though not particularly lamb flavored; the liberal amount of rice pairs well with the kababs. Unfortunately, they don’t taste nearly as interesting as the menu description, but still, it was a decent dish. The chicken kabab on the other hand was irresistible. Two large skewers of moist, tender chicken, sandwiched with peppers and onions over a mound of rice and a side of toom (a traditional yoghurt cheese in a garlic puree), it is the best entree I had in any of the visits and I would consider going back just to have it again ($8.25).
Freekah is special smoked, cracked green wheat that is imported from Damascus. It is an ancient way of enjoying some of the wheat crop before it was completely ripe and ready for harvest. The smoky flavor makes a wonderful platform for savory dishes. Here it is cooked with chicken, pine nuts, herbs, and spices ($8.75). Like other entrees, this is another large dish; I think a bit too mild in flavor, but unique and satisfying.
Desserts are a bit of a disappointment. The Baklava ($5.25) was only average. Perhaps a better honey would help. The “Family Recipe Layered Custard” was a huge concoction made of layers of chocolate and vanilla, separated by philo, topped with whipped cream and pistachios. It came out of the chiller too warm and was runny – I wondered if I would regret eating this later if you know what I mean. Namoura (also known as hareesa) a house-made cake of farina and coconut that’s drizzled with orange blossom syrup should be warm and soaked through. Here it is room temperature, had little syrup, and had not been covered properly so was dry ($2.75).
I’d heard a lot of mixed reviews about Arabian Breeze so decided to check it out for myself. Even though there are good items on the menu and the prices are very reasonable, I don’t think I’ll be back soon. Instead, I’ll wait to see if they can iron out the wrinkles. They need to deal with the service, come into the modern age and take debit cards, and finally tweak the recipes to add a bit more flavor so that the dishes live up to their promise.
- Phone: 503-445-4700
- Address: 3233 NE Broadway, Portland, OR. 97232 Google Map
- Hours: Mon-Thurs11am-9pm, Fri-Sat 11am-11pm, Sun 12pm-9pm. No credit/debit cards.
- Website: ArabianBreezePortland.com
Hey….. I’ve been to the International Soup Kitchen and it IS the best soup I’ve ever had. MMMMM crab bisque. I can’t even say the service was bad because I got my stuff promptly WITH fruit, chocolate, and bread (at no extra charge). There are reasons for the rules he places.
Arabian Breeze may be good, but it is nothing compared to BASHAS MEDITERRANEAN CUISINE. The food is absolutly breath-taking, Ive have been a customers of theirs for the past 3 years, I have tried everybody in town but nothing compares or comes even close, they are located in the south park blocks in the PSU campus, their falafel is absolutely the best in town.
This place is owned by the same people who own Nicholas’ Restaurant on SE Grand – my favorite middle eastern food joint in town. Unfortunately they don’t take credit or atm there either, and they don’t even have a machine on site. The nearest bank is 6 blocks away! But it hasn’t seemed to hurt their business at all – it’s constantly packed with people at lunch.
Hey you should give this place another look. Sure maybe the forks are not fancy but the food is good and they DO have beer and wine and a bar now. The belly dancing on Saturday nite is fun and we always have a good time.
The hot bread is always coming to help scoop up whatever goodies you order: baba ganoosh, rice, kababs. WE always get toom – which is VEGAN btw, no yogurt at all – just garlic and olive oil. We like that there are a lot of veggie/vegan things to pick from.
There are more desserts now too. Though we are not fond of the rose water ones we like the fresh nuts and honey that are in a lot of them.
Also – $plastic$ is cool now. So for those of you who don’t carry cash – you can now eat without whining. Meet up Saturday afternoons for backgammon. I’ll play you for a beer!
They have a Web site now: http://www.arabianbreezeportland.com/
The food is great. My one gripe is that the only wine they have is middle eastern and it’s awful. I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to wine, but I’ve had their red twice and will not be dumb enough to order it a third time. Yech!
But yes, the food is great. The sajh is my favorite!
I went here when it first opened and had a very bad experience. Among other problems, there was way too much raw garlic in almost every dish I ordered (and I like garlic). A few friends finally convinced me to give Arabian Breeze another try recently, and I was pleasantly surprised. The food was much better than on my first visit. The service is still a bit iffy, the front door seems to be always slamming shut with a gust of wind blowing in, and I still feel like I’m in a basement, but the food was pretty good. The wine they offer is horrible, but they have a few decent imported beers.
I really like the flat bread they serve. It comes with zahtar, which is basically thyme and sumac in olive oil. I like to order toum to go with it, which is a very rich whipped garlic paste. The chicken kababs are a bit richer than the ones at Nicholas. I like a couple of the rice dishes: sabanag and lubya are good. They’ve recently increased their pizza choices, and they’re good. The service is a bit spotty, and they are definitely more expensive than Nicholas. If I could get the toum from here to go with the spinach pies at Nicholas I would be a happy woman. And they take credit cards now.
Just visited Arabian Breeze for dinner. The food was outstanding! Four of us sampled a variety of dishes, a good range from a kabab sandwich to the amazing okra and top sirloin stew, and we were not disappointed. The portions were so large (and we’re not very) that we had dinner and four lunches just from the leftovers. The service was outstanding as well.
The food has been previously praised. I wanted to mention the Lebanese wine. An earlier post had disparagingly dismissed it. Yet I found the red very tasty. Subtle, mellow even, obviously old vines, with a faint but pungent aftertaste not unlike some of the Greek reds that are now available in Portland. I suspect if you ask the wait staff to open a fresh bottle, you will ensure that you are getting the wine as it is intended to be enjoyed.
This place would be good if they didn’t use scary meat. I choose not to eat chicken raised anywhere but locally, had no reason to believe it wasn’t southern hormone laden stuff, and the lamb was very dry on two occasions. The Hummous was very good and the flatbread is the best. Overall quite average.
Lizzy, you should be careful not to blame a place for food poisoning unless you truly know you got it there.
1) It’s very difficult to identify the source of such things because of the large range of bugs that can affect you and the wide range of how long it takes for them to affect you. Some things can take less than 24 hours, while others can take weeks. (As a world traveller who’s suffered some serious tummy troubles, I’ve spent literally days reading up on this.)
2) Many people confuse food poisoning with GI issues that can be caused by something as simple as fibrous, rich or spicy foods that you’re not used to.
3) It’s a serious accusation.
Amen to that!
In fact, most independant studies regarding food poisoning show that people who think they got food poisoning from a restaurant meal were more likely to have contracted it from food from their own home, a flu virus or other questionable person hygiene issues.
oops.. here’s some sample links to follow my claim.. there’s tons of studies but don’t have m’books here. Every refrigeration unit in a restaurant MUST have a thermometer. How many peple’s homes do? Every restaurant MUST have Quat sanitizer.. how many homes?
This is not to say people don’t get food poisoning but lets look at human nature and say “how often do people look to find fault in others before themselves?”. Not only that but since food poisoning symptoms are so like flu symptoms even if the source of your illness was from a restaurant it could very well be a waiter, busboy, dishwasher, dining companion, table next to you, not a place’s food handling.
What we’re talking here is even though internet speech isn’t regulated very well now is that unless you went to a doctor who confirmed food poisoning in you and then a health inspector determined that there was a contamination issue at the place you accuse it is LIBEL.
Come on folks, lets be responsible even if we HATE a place.
http://www.healthmad.com/Conditions-and-Diseases/Stomach-Flu-VsFood-Poisoning.568289
http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/0-9/4health/food/fma_foodpoisoning.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/27/heston-blumenthal-fat-duck
http://www.healthscout.com/ency/68/676/main.html#CausesandRiskFactorsofFoodPoisoning
http://www.canfightbac.org/cpcfse/en/news/releases/news.aspx?n_id=12
Agreed. Chowhound deletes all such posts for those reasons. While I generally detest their heavy-handed moderation approach, this is one area where they do it right. But they are way off-base when they zap a quote and link to a board of health report on a resto.
Hmm… I generally don’t consider something food poisoning unless everyone at my table comes down with it. You make a good point. Once the site is working better, maybe I should run a poll.
Oh goodness – we did all get sick, but, you’re right. There’s no way to know for sure that it was food poisoning.
And, I will say that I know plenty of people who have eaten there and loved it, so I have always thought that my experience was a one-time thing.
Obviously, this is an old review, but someone pointed it out to me, and I had to comment. I’ve eaten at Arabian Breeze many, many times. The service has always been exceptional, and so has the food. I never found it to be in the least “bland.” I find myself craving the caramelized onions on the Vegan Mezza platter sometimes, which I haven’t figured out how to duplicate at home. (I’m sure it’s simple, but I can’t seem to get the same results.) Plus, they take credit cards, or at least, they still did last time I was there. Frankly, I would understand any small business refusing to take credit cards, since the fees keep increasing.