July 2004 saw Brisbane welcome the latest sister restaurant (named the same) of the apparently very popular Mecca Bah, first opened in Melbourne. Its Middle Eastern theme heavily influences all aspects of its new home situated at The Emporium in Fortitude Valley, from its oddly shaped yet vastly fashionable indoor and outdoor eating areas, the intricately decorated plates, bowls and dishes and finally its food and cocktail menu.

Although open for some time (or maybe because of it), this restaurant, that does not take bookings, is still hugely popular, with a living testament being a decent sized queue waiting to be seated through our entire evening there on Saturday night. The menu offers enough variety not to overwhelm, with decently priced main meals ranging from several types of tangines (casserole-like dishes), various middle eastern grill and (stick-style) kebabs both served with couscous as well as a good variety of turkish pizzas. They do offer starters (which we did indulge in) but we skipped their dessert offerings.

Dishes from all sections of the main menu were ordered by all. The Moroccan spice calamari with Turkish bean salad was extremely tender and my swordfish kebab packed full of flavour from its Middle Eastern spices went down a treat with its couscous salad (though not at all very spicy as described on the menu). The tangines were apparently okay, but the most striking dishes of the night had to be the uniquely shaped and great value for money Turkish Pizzas, enjoyed by all those that ordered them but could not be finished by them.

Service was pretty good especially considering the restaurant reached full capacity early on. Our waitress was extremely polite and responded extremely well to a number of our questions.

The Kua Rating: 9 out of 10 stars