al aseel

al aseel lebanese restaurant is consistently mentioned in any “top 10 middle eastern restaurants in sydney” lists… and we are going to put it to the test!. we tried kibbe naye (raw lamb!), vine leaves, lamb shank and mixed skewers on that day.

baba ghanoush. mix platter was a good way to try each meat with baba ghanoush and hummus sauce. we also ordered deep fried falafel, spicy minced meat and chicken breast lemon garlic (house specialty). baba ghanoush was our favourite sauce since this sauce ran out really quickly. the falafels and the spicy minced meat were ok, the chicken breast was good but i could not eat too much. the mix platter was simply our favourite dish.

their lunch and dinner is to die for especially the mansaf( rice with lamb) can't go wrong with anything you choose at al aseel.

sooooo good!. this restaurant has the right combination of fantastic fresh food, great waitstaff, and an upbeat environment. i love that you see every kind of person in this place, it is a place to see the truly beautiful multicultural face of australia. we are so lucky to have places for food like this in sydney!


-----07 mar, 2010-----

great food! friend took me there last year & i loved it, go back regularly. it's noisy so don't go to talk, go to eat.

best middle eastern food experience in the whole of sydney. the service could be done better, but the food is absolutely delicious. would definitely come back to this place 😊

i have been coming here for years and it is still the best lebanese food in sydney. however, i have to say that the quality of the food has dropped a little lately with the meat skewers sometimes coming out tough and chewy. the biggest difference i have noticed though is the service - disappointingly this has dropped significantly with little attention to diners- who often have to wait for a while for a server to come around- once seated. this seems to be a big issue on very busy saturday nights and could easily be improved with a few more servers. otherwise a great and affordable meal.

fabulous!. i don't know what everyone is complaining about. the food is incredible and the service is great. this is one of the best places i have ever dined and i will return many times.

without doubt one of the best middle eastern restaurants in sydney. i have been coming here for 10 years and always get frustrated when i try neighbouring restaurants and they are disgusting. you are good. you are the best!!!

my go to place if i'm craving middle eastern food!
quiet pricey but the food taste amazing! the mix plate was delicious + ordered 2x extra chicken skewers, which was enough for 3 people!
i love the mint and lime drink! super refreshing.

scene: saturday night 6pm, first week of september
group size: 8 adults + 1 child (3yo)
orders: 5x mixed plate, 1x sausages, 1x chicken skewers, 1x mixed skewers, 2x chips, 5 drinks

time from order to time chips reaching the table: 15 minutes
time from order to time food reaching the table: 65 minutes

as far as reviews go, we had come here for dinner to catch up with friends. the reviews of this place generally have been strong, and even zomato ratings say 4.3, so reasonably high for the number of reviews (220 at the time of writing this), so expectation was quite high.

besides the fact that service was quite slow for the actual food, the other reasons why my score was quite middle of the road 3, was:

- skewers were cooked inconsistently; my lamb was overdone significantly hard, my chicken and kafta was great. all of my wife's skewers were great. one of the others had chicken which was overdone.
- the garlic dip was extremely sour to me, so it was a bit of a turn off, while the hommus was apparently extremely bland for my wife, however, the babaganoush was very nice indeed.
- a table that was seated after us by about 20 minutes were served their orders significantly faster than us.
- due to them wanting to bring out our food at the same time, it was all cold.

on the positive
- the falafal was excellent, crispy outside, moist inside. 
- the drinks they made were also really great too.
- the wait staff were very good in explaining what was in each dish and options we had.
- easy to flag down to get additional drink ordered and bread for the table.

in wrapping up, price wise for all of our orders came to $42/pp (adults only counted), which, i personally felt was a bit on the high side for the volume of what you get ($31/mixed plate pictured).
if they were able to get their service speed faster (it was busy, but you have to expect it for the size of the venue and their reputation), then perhaps it would have been a better experience.

would i go again? maybe to hang with friends, but probably not likely for eating there with family alone. 

would i order delivery (which apparently is now an option), maybe if delivery was included (like over a certain order value).

the staff were very not very attentive. it took us a while to claim our table despite booking. upon sitting down, it was hard to get a waiter’s attention even though there was a handful of staff. when the waiter took our order - he was completely ignorant and rude. we wanted to order extra food and it also took a while to ask for a menu & to gain their attention. 30 mins later the food arrived. the chicken and kafta were key call outs as they were super nice and tender. the foutoush was also good! overall the food was good but service is just as important & i can safely say - tonight’s service has turned me away from returning to the somewhat quality food.

wanting to experience more middle eastern cuisine, my boyfriend and i thought that al aseel would be a good place to start. to our pleasant surprise, we found the restaurant to have a modern and vibrant interior.

between the two of us, we ordered the mixed plate, fattoush salad and a bowl of hot chips, totalling $55. whilst the staff responded to our requests efficiently we felt that they weren’t the friendliest and we found it rather inconvenient when our sides arrived much earlier than our main.

our favourite was the salad as it was well-combined and enhanced by the texture of the fried pita and acidity of the pomegranate molasses. the complimentary bread had a great smoky flavour and was used to mop up the hummus, baba ganoush and garlic sauce. whilst we found the first two to have distinct flavours, the latter was sour in comparison to its famous counterpart offered at ej. the olives and pickles were also complimentary but we found them to be bitter and unpalatable.

the skewers itself were underwhelming. the lamb and chicken skewers were on the dry side and although the kofta was juicy, the seasoning was rather salty. the hot chips were crunchy as they should be, but at $9 a bowl it was expensive. overall, we enjoyed the experience and would return to try other items such as the chicken lemon garlic which was recommended by a neighbouring diner.

good is delicious here! good quality and very tasty! i would recommend this place to anyone for good arabic food. the potion sizes were large and plenty to share!

i travel with work a lot and eat at a lot of restaurants. tonight i tried al asèel. i have now been sitting here for over 15 minutes since handed a menu. the menu has been closed and next to me for the past 10 minutes. it would appear they are not interested in serving me and there a plenty of staff on duty and not a lot of customers. too busy being busy to care i guess. if i do not get approached in 5 minutes i'm walking. just! after 20 plus minutes and this is having watched people who arrived after me be attended to first. let's see what the food is like? i have now waited a further 20 plus minutes and still nothing. 30 minutes and it arrived. now for the taste test. lamb was very dry and no real flavour to the rice. poor poor poor. ah well tomorrow is a new day and a new restaurant.

definitely one of the best lebanese restaurants in sydney. especially the grilled chicken (not lemon one) and the desserts were all really good. all the usual things were also really good like the dips, fatoush and other grilled meats etc