Late Night: Maroush (V)

4 Vere Street
W1G 0DH
Tel: 020 7493 3030

Date of Last Visit: Thursday, August 11 2005

The Victims: Rutton, Sherry, Roman, Michael

We were over at the employee bar at Diageo. Good values, enjoyed by all, starting at 7 pm. By 9:30ish, we were a bit hungry, so we walked around the corner to Maroush.

Everyone was talking about how hungry they were, so we ordered all these olives and bread–lots of big round bread–and all of this really yummy Lebanese cheese that I had never heard of before. But call me a convert. I don’t think I can live without it anymore. OK, and it wasn’t even cheese. It’s called Labneh, and it’s strained yoghurt served with olive oil and dried thyme. Who would have thunk it? Always order the Labneh.

Well, I thought we were ordering entrees so I went for the lamb simmered in a yogurt-y sauce. However, because of the large quantities of bread our table consumed, everyone else went with schwarmas. So I was left there, feeling like a glutton, with my huge entree. However, my huge entree did happen to be super-delicious, and well, huge, so it was good for sharing. And there was still bread left, so everyone was eating their schwarmas with one hand and dipping into my yogurt sauce with the other hand.

All of a sudden it was 11 pm and we all needed to get to work the next day. Except for Sherry and Roman, who just needed to drive to Poland on Friday. (!) So no desserts for us. But we were pleasantly surprised by the reasonableness of the check, so I suppose that’s dessert enough for us.

The Verdict: Go if you’re shopping on Oxford Street and want something cheap and delicious, but a step-up from a take-away. Actually, I shouldn’t say cheap because there are expensive things on the menu. But the menu is huge, which makes it easy to hunt for good values.