Looking out for some Arabian/Lebanese cuisines? Your much awaited spot is opening up shortly. Until then read our review and hold onto your tongues.
Ithaka is purely a Veg Arabian/Lebanese restaurant based over at Lower Parel, which is going to bring in cuisines from all over the mountains of Lebanon to serve our fellow foodies in Mumbai (Especially the vegetarians).
Ithaka is right opposite to High Street Phoenix and above Riso. As soon as you enter the restaurant calmness and serenity strikes (If that’s what you would prefer). Plus, the decor had many elements of wood and brown shades that mimicked Lebanon features. Also, one of the roof had wooden crates on it (Check out the photo).
Moving ahead to the most interesting part, i.e. the Food, Drinks and Desserts.
Mocktails
Under this we started off with Coco Hamm which pretty much tasted like bounty chocolate and another drink that we had was our all time favorite Mojito (Even though a Mocktail doesn’t do justice to Mojito but still it was refreshing enough and quite minty).
Soup
We were offered two soups among which one was Mushroom Cappuccino Soup which left us amazed with its foam and cream served in cappuccino style. This soup was quite unique and was no where close to the regular mushroom soup.
Another one was the Lemon Grass Soup which turned out to be nothing but just a clear Chinese soup.
Salad
As a part of appetizers we had Water Chestnut & Raw Mango Salad which was nostalgic and took us back to our school times when as a kid we used to have Emli & Raw mango (Haath gaadi stories).
Cold Mezzo
Hummus, which is a favorite across the middle east also turned out to be our favorite. Under cold mezzo, we were served with 3 different variations of Hummus namely Hummus (Regular), Hummus Turki (Topped with spicy olive) and Hummus Harra (Topped with pesto and garlic) with pita bread. We have had hummus at Falafel’s as well as from Chikita Cafe but in our opinion, these variations of hummus were much better than what we had tried before.
Hot Mezzo
Here we experienced an example of antithesis wherein we thought Devilled Corn in Toast Cups would turn out to be scamped but it was too cute by the looks and was even flavorsome.
Batata Harra is a crunchy dish which had grilled baby potato and was flavored with garlic and coriander. Trust us when we say this, but within a minute the whole dish was Zap! Finished.
Turkish Kabab with Green Mustard Sauce was a mere disappointment to us as it was too salty and almost tasted like a northen indian styled tikki.
Let us say this out loud, but Sesame Zucchini was perfect from P to the T. It was quite crunchy and made us drooling all over the plate.
Mediterranean Mains
Under this we tried Falafal with Twist. So the twist was, it tasted more like veg Manchurian, also it is too oriental to be in the Mediterranean Mains.
Another dish on the table was Turkish Baked Potato which was very blank and had too much of cheese in it. We really don’t mind too much cheese, but it was all cheese and nothing else.
Rice
Starting off with Morocco Rice which was topped with chickpeas and blank olives had a pretty good blend of tomatoes and pepper. We especially loved the spicy flavor in it. It was treat to our palate and this tops on our recommendation list.
However, Broccoli and Creamy Rice seemed more like a curd rice as it was too blank, but the crispy baby pita bread was able to add a little taste to it.
Pita Pizza
Coming up with the most awaited and the favorite of us all i.e. the pizzas. We were served the Zattar Pizza which turned out to be our favorite amongst others. It was a pizza with thin crust and topped with garlic and oregano.You will enjoy it only if you love having garlic in your food. Clearly we loved it and also we were well prepared to have more of it.
Dessert
This is the part of the course that every foodie waits for, seeing the waiter get our dessert we start thinking about what will it look like, how will it taste and the thoughts go on. As much we were happy to see our dessert coming and thinking about the taste the result turned out to be somewhat opposite.
This was the 1st time that we were disappointed with a dessert. It was too sweet and was filled with cardamom. It was a no go for us.
Overview
All the dishes were good to the eyes, but some of them didn’t turn out to be that good to the tongue.
Even though a couple of dishes were disappointing it was indeed a great eating experience. We would surely recommend it and may visit back for the Mushroom Cappuccino Soup, Mojito, Morocco Rice and the pizzas.
This amazing Lebanese Kitchen opens to all from 17th Feb 2015 and Ithaka should be indeed on the ‘want to try’ list. It is affordable as it costs almost around 1000-1500 for two and is open from 11 AM to 11 PM.
So mark your calendars and start counting the days. Until then #StayHungry #ClickTuckers
*This Experience was part of a FBAI.
Tuckers 
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