Arabella's Charcoal and Middle Eastern Cuisine

Yass of Redefining the Narrative was briefly back in town and she stopped by to take me out to dinner for my birthday! After I did some serious hinting the day after my birthday, that maybe she had forgotten something. Once again, we fought over where to go and after our first choice of the Persian Restaurant in Cooparoo was closed since it was a Monday, here we are at Arabella's Charcoal and Middle Eastern Cuisine!

They didn't really have a sign

Its located in The Village, a shopping centre surrounded by a lot of food shops in Upper Mount Gravatt just opposite to the Westfield Garden City Centre. I've been past this group of shops a lot but never felt enticed inside when Westfield is just across the road, you know? I think I should now that I know Arabellas is there!

When we roared up there in Yass' mum's very cool flame red convertible, I was a little anxious as we couldn't immediately see if the restaurant was open, we were rapidly running out of options and getting hungry too. Thankfully, it was.

My next biggest fret was if they were halal or not. I couldn't see that Arabic bubble of text that means halal. Yass reassured me that she knew it was halal as soon as we walked beside it because of how "ethnic" the store looked with its shisha in the window, I didn't spot anything else that would be a dead giveaway? She asked and was warmly greeted in Arabic, her and the two guys working there continued to chatter away while I scoured the menus.

This one

These are the menus by the way, not that you can really see them.

They were very laminated

Also teas.

Yass did the ordering and got it wrong, which turned out to be fine as we had attempted to order too much once again. I chose to sit outside in the light beside the entrance after we left, she laughed at me cause I chose it for the best lighting.

I was intrigued by this drink. Yass saw me staring at it and said, "its an ethnic drink." She told me she's had the purple one of these, whatever that flavour may be. This one is a mango Rani Float, I wasn't sure what to expect, maybe a lightly carbonated drink with chunks of mango? When I cracked open that can I got a moderately thick mango nectar with chunks of mango. A pleasant surprise to be honest.

Actually really delicious

Yass got this gasp, is that a Muslim girl drinking alcohol- oh wait! Its a non alcoholic malt beverage that is flavoured with raspberries. I find it strange when things like this look so close to alcoholic drinks, there was also a can of something in the drinks cabinet that looked a lot like a Heineken. I dunno its like fake vegetarian meat, whats the point you know? Weird. It wasn't particularly tasty drink, distinctly malty and slightly fruity.

Its a pretty label anyway.

Raspberry!

Lamb shawerma  was our starter! Strips of lamb, sumac, onions, tomatos and very brightly coloured pickles. The lamb was well flavoured if a bit dry. Tahini and toum that we received in a little dish along with massive plate of flat breads were wrapped up with these bits of lamb and quickly eaten. The tahini was smooth and creamy while the toum gave me a dose of garlic breath that would've knocked out any vampire haha. Yass ate the pickles while my Boyfriend and I ignored them, they are very salty which we both didn't like. There wasn't any sourness or sweetness to them at all and they had an odd wet snap to them, like old cucumbers.

So much lamb

Flatbread looks like paper

We ran out of that sauce pretty fast

We got a side of kibbeh as well, these are deep fried bulghur pockets of lamb mince, onion and pine nuts. I've never had these before and I found them to be interesting. A very thick crunch followed by super temperature hot bits of mince, I think the mince:bulghur ratio could've been a bit higher to be honest. See how there were four of these? I snagged two. They were great piping hot, but since we were polite people, the last one was ice cold when I decided to end its misery.

Lovely football shapped kibbeh!

Insides!

Falafel! Six of them so a bit of a better split between the three of us. Crunchy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside. It was fragrant and thankfully not overwhelmingly flavoured with coriander. Yass told me that she doesn't normally like falafel but these were very good. I had to agree with her and my Boyfriend was busy eating them which indicates good things. He did mention that he liked their shape and how well shaped they were, solid but not dense.

We then got this combination meat platter which consisted of more lamb, a kofta, a shish kebab and chicken tawouk with a side of rice, hummus and pickles. All of this was delicious, with the most delicious being that buried kofta, it was the very last thing left on the plate and we were almost done eating cause we were so stuffed from everything else. My Boyfriend grabbed a third, Yassmin grabbed a larger third and I got the last little bit. It was a deliciously tender, slightly spicy, slighly charred and I feel myself getting misty eyed just thinking about it again. The chicken was also gone really quickly, being juicy and tender as well. The kebab wasn't anything to look twice at.

 Also, the day after we went here, I took my dog for a walk. Siri has never noticed this statue beside my suburb sign ever before. We walk past it every day for the last two years roughly.

Its got creepy eyes

She thought it was real. She kept growling, barking and rushing it to try and make it run away. When I tried to walk past it, she put her body in front of mine and pushed me away to protect me haha.

Silly Siri

Arabella's Charcoal and Middle Eastern Cuisine
Atmosphere: 6, it was a plain store counter with a space for sitting down to eat. Nothing else particularly fancy.
Service: Wary 7, they were very cheerful and friendly, they saw that we were running out of bread and toum so they asked us if we needed a refill and ran off to get it. Yass had a really good chat with them but they did get forget our haloumi wrap until the very end and we had to remind them about it. They were very apologetic but since there was nothing else going on that night, I'm warily giving them a 7, otherwise it would be a 8-9.
Food: 8, I would definitely go here again, delicious food, brought out to you fast.