A Birthday Date at Shomal

Sorry for posting late and for being so inconsistent of a FTF and FF player :(

This is a super delayed post.

I mentioned a few entries back that I had several celebrations for my 18th birthday *grins*, I posted the one with my boys last week, this time around, it's my birthday date with my best-est friend. We had our date at Trinoma, we watched Derek's movie with Anne and Kristine - No Other Woman - while enjoying some goodies from Taters, had our late lunch at Shomal Kebabs and Curries by Hossein, binged on some ice cream at Gelatissimo, bought a pair of sexy wedges (brown for her, black for me) at Landmark and headbands at EGG; and we had a lot of chika in between and while doing those, hehe.

Shomal is located at the 4th floor, in the roof garden area of Trinoma, it is a very suitable place to celebrate events, to have business meetings, to hang-out and chat, to spend dates, or to just plain dine in and eat good food. The place is so pretty, right from the front door to their comfort room, and it is in purple, have I mentioned that we love purple! The staff are super courteous and efficient, as in two thumbs up, even our caprices were obliged *grins*, going back is a must!

Note: This page might take forever to load as it has lots and lots of pics :D

Shomal by Hossein offers a gamut of dishes - they have Eastern Mediterranean, Caspian, North African and South Asian cuisine on their menu, and they serve Halal meat.

We had their Appetizer Combo, an appetizer platter of Homos, Motabal, Misa Kasemi and Halim Badamjan with two pieces of Nan.

It was my first time eating nan with homos, et.al, and it was such a treat, I found another goody to jot down on my list. My bestfriend and a once co-author of A Taste of Both Worlds is an old-timer and I love her more for persuading me to try it and she paid for everything, who wouldn't adore her, right?

FYI, Nan (Naan, Na'an) is a leavened, oven-baked flatbread that originates from Persia, and is typical of South and Central Asian food. I think it is more popularly known as Pita bread :D

We had their Lamb Shish Kebab with Saffron Rice as our main dish, it comes with two kinds of sauces - garlic and spicy. A must try, I tell you, I always thought that lamb meat are gummy and tangy but this dish proved me wrong. The orange sauce is fiery hot, it burns!

Pardon the photo, I cropped and enlarged it making it as it is, it looks like I stretched it out of proportion, hahaha.

We tried their Chicken Yakni Soup, it is a traditional Arabic soup of chicken, herbs and spices, delicately cooked in slow fire. My bff wanted to sample one in each of their menu categories and we settled for the chicken yakni as we ordered lamb as our main dish. It was good but you won't hear me raving about it.

Photo below served as my birthday cake *grins*, Baclava is a traditional Middle Eastern dessert made with pistachios, layered with Filo pastry and served with rose syrup. It was my wish to have a taste of baclava ever since D blogged about it two years ago but now that I had my fill, I don't think I am a fan *tongue out*.

I ordered their Persian Iced Tea, one of their house-blend beverages, it's nothing spectacular, it was even too sweet for my taste so I had to pour a little more water to even it out.

We were tempted to try their shisha, as it comes in all-fruit flavors, but as it was just the two of us, we were hesitant in shedding 350 pesos for something that we may not fully enjoy.

Look at how pretty Shomal is, the ambiance is so serene and laid back.

D forced me to take a pic of her dipping a small piece of nan (pita) bread on the homos, according to her, that is the proper and correct way of eating it. Believe it or not! Hahaha, I suggest you do, she lived almost half of her life in Israel *smiles*.

Frankly, the establishment is a little costly, it would be hard dining in a place where you have to let go of an entire paycheck but if you have the money, I say you try it, it's definitely worth it.

Acknowledgement (lol):

Thank you, thank you very much Dalisay Letaban! Aylabsyu!