| rev:text
| - Hands down, this is one of the best restaurants I tried in Toronto. I never really tried eastern Mediterranean food aside from Greek food but I never tried food from Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, etc so this was really my first time trying this. Byblos primarily focuses on eastern Mediterranean cuisine but they add a Canadian/North American twist to it, which I find pretty cool.
Finding this restaurant was definitely interesting. The entrance to the restaurant was an shelter with a small door made out of nylon, canvas, etc. It looked it I was about to enter a club. The restaurant is definitely beautiful. It is clear that they carefully planned out the design and decor of the restaurant. We went on a Monday night and the restaurant is jam packed. I didn't think a restaurant could possibly be full on a Monday night. This is a good sign. Though there were no available tables for our party of three, the hostess told us to just sit at the bar and the bar does serve whatever they have on the full menu. Since we really wanted to try this restaurant, we were down to sit at the bar. The bar is on the second floor (the restaurant has second floors). The bartender/waiter at the bar was really nice and provided great service (5/5 for service).
Their menu is also really interesting. There's small dishes, large dishes, rice, sides, and salads. Apparently, in this type of cuisine, it's common to share dishes (similar to the cuisines in Asia). So we ordered:
SMALL PLATES:
Salmon Kibbeh Nayeh ($18) - Raw salmon, really good. The bread and the salmon paste just complements each other.
Duck Kibbeh ($14) - This dish was okay, we barely tasted the duck and tasted mostly the molasses. Don't really recommend this one.
Lamb Ribs ($14) - SO GOOD. Highly recommend this one. I have no words to describe this dish either. You'll just die of happiness.
LARGE PLATES:
Crispy Squid ($13) - This dish is so good, I cannot even have words to describe it. Really recommend this one. Hands down, the best crispy squid you would've eaten.
Turkish Manti Dumplings ($14) - The yogurt sauce completes this dish. Really creamy and well made. I enjoyed this dish a lot.
The dishes are really small, so do expect to spend a lot if you really want to get full. Next time, I would order some rice to get full.
We skipped on dessert because we didn't feel like spending any more money but I would definitely try the desserts next time. The desserts are really unique and they definitely have the primary staple dessert: baklava.
Our experience here was fantastic and the next time I will come here, I will remember to make a reservation!!
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)