Helen H.
Yelp
We had been to a Greek restaurant the night before we came to Layla and we thought the Greek place was ok but every time I have Lebanese food it just reminds me that it's just VASTLY superior to any other "middle eastern" food out there and this place REALLY hammered that home. We walked in, it was later in the evening, but still pretty full. It seemed like all of the tables were just having a great time and from the smell of good things I knew we would too!
We started our evening with Raki which is a Lebanese aperitif flavored with fennel, I believe. It's very licoricey if that makes sense? It's a spirit that is clear and colorless in the bottle but turns milky white when added to ice. It is perfection to have with meze, which are all the yummy things usually served at the beginning of a meal, for us meze was our meal.
The tabouli was hand chopped parsley with a generous amount of tomatoes, olive oil and lemon. Some places make tabouli with a lot of bulgar wheat, which is fine, but it is a parsley salad, not a wheat salad. You always know that the kitchen is a bit lazy if you go into a Lebanese restaurant and there is way more bulgar in the tabouli than parsley. This one was absolutely excellent and very fresh. I love that they serve romaine leaves on the side so that you can roll it up in them.
Baba ganoush is a roasted eggplant dish that is magnificent when made right, smoky and delicate from the roasted eggplant or really boring and bland if the eggplants haven't been cooked properly. This baba was AMAZING and really made all the more interesting with the pomegranate jewels that garnished it. We absolutely loved it!
Hummus here was also so delicious and homemade (as it should be everywhere!), garnished with whole chickpeas. Perfect amounts of lemon, garlic and tahini and light as air. We made short work of it!
Falafel is something that I will always get at a Lebanese restaurant because I just don't fry food at home. I make a good baked one but it's just not the same. These were delicious, crispy on the outside, perfectly seasoned and drizzled with tahini sauce and served over fresh veggies. Simply delightful.
Our last dish was fried kibbeh. Kibbeh is ground meat (usually beef) massaged with spices, herbs and cracked wheat. It can be served raw or fried and this was the fried version. We were told that they can do special orders of the kibbeh niyah (raw kibbeh) if you give them 2 days notice and we will definitely do that the next time even though these were just mouthwatering. The kibbeh were formed individually into this cool traditional shape and fried and were just amazing, especially with that sauce (yogurt and tahini w other yummy stuff, I think). Most folks I know who do them at home don't fry it anymore because no one fries in the house and they usually make them in a pan because it's easier than forming them individually like you see here.
When we go back to Charleston we will ABSOLUTELY go back to Layla! I forgot to mention how sweet the people are! We sat at the bar and we're just treated so very well. We loved every minute of our experience here and will be back!
