Braving the snowy and chilly conditions I headed out to Brent tonight to meet Rehana for a meal. I figured since she always comes in to central the least I could was head out her way now. To be honest, however, I could have picked a nicer day to attempt my travel! Severe delays on practically every transport route but hey – I’m nothing if persistent.

Mesopotamia serves traditional Arabic cuisine in a very attractive setting. According to their website the restaurant is based on Babylon from the carved lions, to the blue wall at the end of the restaurant representing the Gate to Babylon, and to the tented look to match the ceiling to the rest of the restaurant them. The atmosphere could have only been improved with more customers and a belly dancer wiggling around.

Sadly for the owner, upon arrival at the restaurant, it was clear that we were the only patrons to have braved the weather conditions tonight and probably the only ones likely to visit at all tonight! I do wonder if Rehana hadn’t booked whether they would have actually remained closed. Still, the lack of any customers did not stop the owners/managers from giving us some very friendly customer service.

There must have been something in the cold air as Rehana and I were both feeling peckish tonight. Okay I’ll admit – I’m peckish pretty much all the time. Heh heh. At any rate we ended up ordering quite a bit of food but, as usual, still managed to fit in three courses.

We had a selection of three starters to begin: babah ghanouge, which went very well with the warmed pitta bread, bourak bul jeban, basically spring rolls filled with cheese and shredded mint (in combination this is always going to be a hit with me!) and potata chap which is a mashed potato outer layer stuffed with minced lamb and then the whole thing is deep fried. I’m sure the taste of this was quite nice for a lamb lover.

Mains at Mesopotamia were more for single person consumption rather than for sharing. I went for what is apparently the most popular dish, the tapsey samak (fish steak) which was a very generous meat dish cooked in various seasonings and spices. It was very tasty and felt very cleansing. Rehana continued on with a lamb theme with the hamidh hulu – a shamk of lamb cooked in dried apricot, prunes and spices. A dish I would have liked if the meat was anything but lamb!

Backlawa followed for dessert for Rehana and I had a very unusual Lemon Brulee. The top half was a gorgeous custard but then at the bottom was a lemon sorbet! I hadn’t read the description of the dessert properly and was very confused when I got the taste and texture of the lemon sorbet on my tongue as I thought it meant the brulee was still frozen at the bottom. Rehana encouraged me to a ask the staff about it and I felt bad when they came back out to explain what the frozen bit was! Quite a nice and unusual dish.

We had a lovely time at Mesopotamia. Friendly service, delicious food and a lovely atmosphere. Shame the restaurant isn’t located more central!